Collective bargaining
Collective bargaining is the process of negotiation between employers and workers represented collectively to determine employment terms, working conditions, and labor relations. Applying Collective bargaining requires a stated affected people, rights, value-chain tier, geography, remedy, and distribution of benefits or harms.
In simple terms
In practical use, Collective bargaining is the process of negotiation between employers and workers represented collectively to determine employment terms, working conditions, and labor relations. For Collective bargaining, the label organizes a condition or relationship but does not by itself demonstrate performance or compliance within a declared affected people, rights, value-chain tier, geography, remedy, and distribution of benefits or harms. Collective bargaining connects with Living wage and Social dialogue; each can affect its application without sharing its definition. The candidate link between Collective bargaining and Supplier diversity remains a separate expansion question supported here by International Labour Organization.
Why it matters
Collective bargaining matters because decisions about it determine which workers or communities are visible, what rights or harms are assessed, and where prevention or remedy is assigned. A defensible use of Collective bargaining therefore exposes its boundary, method, evidence, responsible actor, and uncertainty before a conclusion is accepted. That discipline keeps Living wage and Social dialogue from being treated as proof of Collective bargaining when their criteria, scope, or results differ.
Example
A procurement and human-rights team evaluates Collective bargaining for a defined decision and records the relevant affected people, rights, value-chain tier, geography, remedy, and distribution of benefits or harms. For Collective bargaining, the team uses cited material from International Labour Organization to frame the decision and distinguish the idea from adjacent concepts, documenting the period, data, assumptions, and comparison with Living wage. It treats Social dialogue and Supplier diversity as separate questions rather than proxies for Collective bargaining.
How it differs
Living wage
Collective bargaining is a representative negotiation process, whereas Living wage describes an income outcome intended to support a decent standard of living. Bargaining may address wages, but its existence alone does not establish that workers receive a living wage.