TUCP Trains New Breed of Young Collective Bargaining Agreement Negotiators

With scores of anti-union actions happening all over the world, particularly assaults on security of tenure and collective bargaining, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) and Workers Development Foundation Inc, (WDFI), with assistance from the international labour movement, the International Trade Union Confederation-Asia Pacific (ITUC-AP), takes on the challenge of preparing young trade union leaders for their important roles in the labour movement.

“It’s very reassuring to see many young trade leaders get excited and ready over learning new things, building their negotiation and bargaining skills, taking on higher roles in their unions and the labour movement in general”, noted Bro. Ernesto Herrera, TUCP General Secretary.

TUCP and its affiliates get a boost of youthful energy as 25 promising young trade union leaders, industrial relations officers and collective bargaining negotiators from the academe, electronics, agriculture, services, public sector, transportation, and partner local media in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, get updated on collective bargaining developments, and trained on strategies and techniques in collective bargaining and negotiation.

“With many developments in industrial relations, challenges on union organizing and collective bargaining/negotiation, this training could not have come at a more perfect time!, said Bro. Herrera.

The program, developed in partnership with the ITUC-AP, introduced the participants to the collective bargaining process, preparing for negotiations, collective bargaining methods and approaches, and understanding strategies, tactics and counter demands.

“This training taught us many things from the basics of industrial relations, bargaining realities, use and analyses of statistics and many more,” said Ferdinand Sornes, union vice president of an electronics company in Region IV. “This will surely help my union improve, enrich and strengthen our bargaining position in years to come,” Sornes added.

Various hands-on exercises provided the participants with an opportunity to get familiar with and further build their working knowledge and skills in analysing company’s financial information; computing for wage increases and shares in gains in productivity; developing, costing and presenting bargaining proposals.

“Just as the actual negotiation is important, the focus on total preparation for negotiating has never been more important”, said Nicandro Borja, ALU-TUCP regional vice president, reminding the participants that the bargaining process, its outcomes and successes would primarily depend on how well the union prepared.

“It is important that unions know where to get financial documents and analyse them properly.” We were able to include in our CBA a provision regarding union’s right/access to information (such as financial statements), shared Vanessa Acenas, a local union auditor of a water district company in Mindanao.

In the mock negotiation, the participants practiced newly-acquired negotiation styles and techniques, effective communication skills and proper use of data and information in justifying their CBA proposals, under the guidance of veteran trade union leaders and negotiators.

Experts and resource persons from the Department of Labour and Employment (DOLE) and Bureau of Labour and Employment Statistics (BLES) provided information on trends and developments in collective bargaining negotiation and up-to-date analyses of (2009) negotiated CBAs.