The roles of HR and unions are quite different and can be contradicting for one another.

HR serves to make policies to attain higher productivity at low cost; on the other hand
unions safeguard the interests of the workers. Therefore, unionizing at workplace brings
challenges for the company and HR should deal with these challenges in a balanced way
and get results that are acceptable for both sides.

Concerns of Management:
1. Identifying the needs and demands of unions.
2. Analysis of possible impacts of campaign organized by union at another plant.
3. Cutting out the higher costs in health and care and come up with an innovative
strategy to increase health, care and safety of employee at plant. It can be done
by installing more safety equipment, warning and caution signs, preventive
measure to avoid accidents and what to do in case of accident boards at sites.
4. Compensating the productivity losses in case of strike.
5. Accounting of union dues and their management.
6. Negotiating the demand of higher wages in new contract which can be
compensated by the cut costs in health and care.
7. Educating and training the management to make them aware about the illegal
and legal actions and thus preventing unions from filing lawsuits against the
company.

Concerns of Unions:
1. Understanding and safeguarding the individual’s interests and differences.
2. Building up a common purpose of the unions without harming physically,
emotionally and socially any of its individual.
3. Assuring the members about their job security and the possible impacts of firing
them on the company.
4. Constructing a big network by connecting more employees with the union.
5. Increasing the participation of members in union campaigns.
6. Handling of internal disputes and any anti-element.
7. Electing of union representative capable enough to hold the union from parting
in every situation.

Bargaining approach:
The process of collective bargaining begins with voting of employees to unionize.
Collective bargaining is the process of negotiations between the company and
representatives of the union. The goal is for management and the union is to reach a
contract agreement, which is put into place for a specified period of time. Once this time
is up, a new contract is negotiated.
The company should follow the following bargaining approach to negotiate contract with
unions:
1) Constructing a strong negotiating team- Negotiating team should have the
individuals with knowledge of the company and effective negotiator.
2) Preparing objectives of negotiation and anticipation of unions- It requires the
analysis of the previous contract. The team should know the working conditions,
reasons behind the dissatisfaction of the employees and anticipations of unions in
order to prepare objectives and better compromising strategies.
The objectives of the negotiation are:
 Increase in productivity with low cost investment.
 Satisfying union’s demands simultaneously balancing the company’s
profits.
 Cutting out investment in health and cost by installing facilities decrease
the probability of accidents, providing medical insurances and other
incentives.
 Increase in wages by using the cut out investment in health and care.
 By making satisfactory policies for employees to prevent them from
unionizing in future.
3) Timelines of negotiation and ground rules- It involves the timelines of
negotiation and setting ground rules for the negotiation that how it will occur.
4) Presenting of proposal by each party- The meeting should have an attitude of
‘let’s make this work.’
5) Writing of a new contract- With the settlement of the issues of unions and
employees new contract is written.