Collective bargaining

Collective bargaining is the negotiation process between an employer and a union representing employees — producing a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that governs wages, hours, working conditions, benefits, grievance procedures, and other employment terms for the covered workforce. In practice, the most consequential aspect of collective bargaining for HR is not the agreement text but the ongoing relationship between management and union representatives: organizations with adversarial labor relations consistently face higher grievance rates, slower dispute resolution, and greater operational disruption than those that invest in maintaining a genuine working relationship with union leadership between formal negotiations. The agreement is the outcome; the relationship determines whether the agreement functions as designed in day-to-day operations.