multi-employer agreement

(in INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS) an agreement between a group of employers and TRADE UNIONS governing rates of pay and conditions of employment in all of these companies. In multi-employer COLLECTIVE BARGAINING in the UK the employers' interests are usually represented by an EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATION, which aspires to represent all employers in that particular industry Such agreements are thus often also called ‘industry-wide agreements’. On the union side, the negotiations are usually conducted by paid regional or national officials rather than lay SHOP STEWARDS. The forum in which the agreement is made is known in some industries as a joint industrial council.

Multi-employer collective bargaining agreements developed in the UK from the 1920s onwards, but since the 1960s these agreements have declined in significance. Some firms have moved to company or plant-level bargaining whilst others do not subscribe to collective agreements with unions. However, multi-employer agreements are very important in some other European countries, such as Germany.

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WITH THE NZNO/district health board (DHB) multi-employer agreement (MECA) now expired and DHBs operating under tight financial reins, members will either have to re-evaluate their expectations, or campaign rigorously to secure a satisfactory settlement.

'Re-evaluate or campaign hard'--that's the MECA message

In particular, parties who wish to negotiate and enter into multi-employer agreements no longer need to convince the federal regulatory agency that a multi-employer agreement is in the public interest in order to negotiate (the situation after the Work Choices amendments) or register (the situation before the Work Choices amendments) a multi-employer agreement.

Protected industrial action and voluntary collective bargaining under the Fair Work Act 2009

The new work laws have allowed the NSWNA to negotiate a multi-employer agreement with 47 aged care providers, covering nurses at 220 facilities.

57 new agreements: protection at 220 workplaces in aged care

Most commonly, employers can claim (with varying degrees of plausibility) that they are in competition with other employers and that the negotiation of a multi-employer agreement undermines their market competitiveness.

Good faith and the Fair Work Act: its potential, in light of the New Zealand experience

The 1981 National Maritime Union (NMU) standard multi-employer agreement for the unlicensed seafarers it represents called for 13 days of vacation accrual for every 30 days worked by the third year of the agreement.

Concession bargaining in the ocean-going maritime industry

Under the Employment Relations Act, the responsibility now rests with the individual GP employer parties to find an orderly way to bargain with NZNO in the multi-employer agreement.

Practice nurse negotiations to begin

NURSES, MIDWIVES and health assistants covered by the Lower North Island Multi-Employer Agreement have voted to accept a revised employer offer.

MECA settled

The number of multi-employer agreements had been declining since the 1950s, but the decline accelerated in the 1980s as multi-employer agreements were replaced by either single-employer or, in some cases, plant-level contracts (Brown and Walsh 1991).

The decentralization of collective bargaining: a literature review and comparative analysis

Accordingly, Sisson attributes the relatively dramatic decline of multi-employer bargaining in Britain, especially in the engineering industry, to its failure in "neutralizing the workplace," largely because of the country's peculiar "common law" bargaining traditions where multi-employer agreements are insufficiently detailed in substance for workplace bargaining to be merely supplementary or administrative.

The Management of Collective Bargaining: An International Comparison

NZNO members could not threaten to take strike action for national or other multi-employer agreements.

National's seven deadly promises: nurses and other health workers face a stark choice this election--a coalition government with an industrial agenda generally supportive of workers, or a coalition government which will strip away all protections for workers, leaving the vulnerable most at risk