Negotiated change : collective bargaining, liberalization and restructuring in India / created by C. S. Venkata Ratnam

Includes bibliographical references and index

Chapter 1 Introduction, 2 - The legal framework of collective bargaining, 3 - Negotiated flexibility, 4 - Productivity bargaining, 5 -Improved workplace relations, 6 - Public sector bargaining, 7 - Welfare to moneyfare, 8 - The way forward.

The book Negotiated Change by C.S. Venkata Ratnam represents the first major research on CB in the post-liberalization era that covers a large cross-section of public and private sector organizations in Indian context. It has been conducted by one of the most reputed scholars of IR in India. His contribution to IR stands out for its distinctive and authoritative treatment of the newer issues in IR in the midst of the increasing HRM (or HRD as it is called in Indian context) literature in India. Venkat Ratnam's earlier book (Labour-Management Relations in the Era of Globalization, Response, New Delhi, 2001) was perhaps the first comprehensive attempt to synthesize the developments in IR in general and India in particular in the post-liberalization era. That book explains the "why" of contemporary IR practices, and is perhaps the finest book on the changed themes in IR in general and India in particular, which dealt with the transformation that the discipline has undergone in the era of liberalization. The book under review very ably supplements the earlier one. It focuses more specifically on the nature of change that has taken place in the specific area of CB and flexibility management. This highly revealing book is a pioneering work on the changing scenario of CB in post-liberalization public and private sector in India. It also makes viable suggestions to the three social partners to adapt themselves to the new realities so as to be in consonance with the changing global scenario in the world of work, constitutional proclamations, and accepted international labour standards.

Divided into eight imaginatively designed chapters and ten annexures, the book reviews how the institution of CB has responded to the exigencies of globalization so as to facilitate restructuring of enterprises. It unravels the dynamics of the processes through which the adversarial bargaining of the welfare state era is giving way to cooperative bargaining. The author has built his formulations on the messages reflected from analyses of 234 collective bargaining agreements in public and private sectors signed in 10 years that followed the economic liberalization in 1991. It nutshell, he has analyzed the impact of negotiated changes on restructuring, modernization, flexibility and productivity. The sample of companies covered accounts for nearly a quarter of the organized industrial workforce in the country. The main focus of various chapters in the book has been on four areas: the legal framework of collective bargaining in India; different types of cooperative agreements; labour-management cooperation in restructuring and the trade off between jobs and the turnaround needs of sick units; and the trend that have emerged in negotiated flexibility at the enterprise level. Some major focus areas of the author are public-sector bargaining, and the role of CB in provision of social security and labour welfare. Among others, the book notes shifts from centralized to decentralized bargaining, collective to individual contracts, conjunctive bargaining to emphasis on productivity bargaining, employee-focused agreements to consumer and community-oriented agreements, and 3 to 5 years agreements to 4 to 5 year agreements.

. Some of the key features of the book can be note as follows. Firstly, book contains a highly insightful analysis of the trends in negotiated flexibility and productivity in India through the CB process. Secondly, the analysis of the distinctive features of CB in the public sector and its role in social security shows that this sector can survive in conjunction with the private sector and still has the potential of projecting itself as epitome of industrial justice and workplace dignity. Thirdly, based on the analyses of the collective agreements, the books highlights implications for employers/management, workers and trade unions, and for the state. In this regard, the author has argued that in order to retain bargaining power, unions have no choice but to "put consumers' interests first, company's interest second and their members' interest third" (p. 246). Fourthly, apart from the analysis carried out to point out "what is" being happening in the game of CB, Venkata Ratnam, on the basis of his vast experience of working with unions, employers and government bodies, suggests a 10-point agenda for reform which is oriented to sustainable development of pluralism in industrial relations in the new economy. Here, the suggestions made are based on the changed realities that are affecting all the social partners. Fifthly, the book is highly readable and meets the needs of the academics as well as the practitioner, yet it is theoretically stimulating in terms of the formulations made.

The classical IR theory envisages the possibility of cooperative bargaining only in the phase of recession. The post-globalization phase of IR can be viewed as analogous to that due to the covert withdrawal by the state of its support to working class rights of the type witnessed in the welfare state era due the needs of its own (state) legitimacy in view of the new realities. In this context, the book shows that cooperative bargaining has come to stay, and that we are going to witness an era of the demise of the adversarialism associated with the traditional CB of yester years. The analyses of trends in CB show that cooperation has become as much the need of the employees as it is of the employers. The contents of the collective agreements covered reveal several changing realities which could not be thought of to be happening in the pre-globalization IR.

There is no doubt that this type of study on CB in the new scenario was long awaited. It contains important lessons in organizational turnaround, change management, new industrial relations, and human resource management. This pioneering effort in new IR is going to be quoted by HRM scholars for a long time for its implication for managers, employers, union leaders, and the state agencies. The 10-point agenda suggested by Venkata Ratnam emanates on the basis of his rich analysis of issues in the CB agreements covered. These normative formulations are quite plausible in view of the changing needs of industry, changes in the global business environment, need to salvage unionism as a countervailing force to work in the direction of promoting fairness in labour relations, and above all working towards building an enlightened society.