Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In - Essay Example

  In any organization, the workers need to be basically sound and industrious; also basic conditions need to be created for the workers to become basically sound and industrious. We are a banking organization and owing to recession and slackness in the area of deposit mobilization as well as lending, the management introduced various measures to the economy to cut down the expenditure. We are an institution with total staff strength of about two thousand employees and officers. Our institution maintains five-holiday homes, and the employees are allowed 15 days stay in a year, with free boarding and lodging for a family not exceeding 4 members. As a measure of the economy, the Management decided to do away with this facility.

     The Employees’ Union resisted the move. The officers were also unhappy, though they were not part of the union. The officers in our institution had no trade union rights; nevertheless, they expressed unhappiness over the decision of the top management by sending a signed memorandum. The issue with the management was also real; due to tight money conditions, economic measures were enforced.  At the request of the union leaders, a meeting was fixed to sort out the issue.

     After all, they were our own employees and have been serving the institution loyally and the facility that the management contemplated withdrawing was an important one, as it involved rest and recreation, once in a year, for their family members as well. William L. Ury et al. in “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In” writes, “People find themselves in a dilemma. They see two ways to negotiate: soft or hard. The soft negotiator wants to avoid personal conflict and so makes concessions readily in order to reach an agreement. He wants an amicable solution.”(Introduction, xviii)

     The negotiating team from the side of the management took a tough stance that the management cannot afford to extend this facility anymore. The union leaders were also not willing to forfeit this facility. If a mutually acceptable solution was not found, the union leaders warned about the possibility of direct action, non-co-operation, work-to-rule, sit-in strikes, going on mass casual leave, and finally an indefinite strike. This situation was comparable to the one envisaged by William L. Ury in his book “Getting Past No” and he writes, “Your goal may be to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement, but you may find the other side, not at all interested.” (9)

     All reasoning failed, all efforts for dispute resolutions came to naught, and the management team used all the techniques related to the fundamentals of negotiations.  Even after three hours of marathon discussions, nothing tangible was achieved by both sides. The management team appealed for the reasoned cooperation by the employees, as no institution can run with losses on an ongoing basis. Who will suffer if the organization declares a lockout? The chances of getting alternative employment are dim in the foreseeable future. At this juncture, the meeting was adjourned for the day as both sides wished to consult their respective teams. The union leaders made one point clear. Under no circumstances they will agree for abolishing the existing facility totally.  

     Both sides must have pondered over the issues seriously. In all sincerity, let me admit that our union leadership has been invariably co-operative and it doesn’t believe in the hard core trade unionism that the management is the sworn enemy and the workers should be in permanent war with it. Such a cooperative posture was evident in their body language when negotiations commenced on the second day.