Using negotiations to produce the best results
I am pleased to note the VC's statement (ANU Reporter, May 20) that "negotiations with the unions having coverage on the campus will remain the principal bargaining forum". My experience of campus negotiations commenced in 1992 during the negotiations leading to the ratification of the Structural Efficiency Principle Agreement in March 1993. The Commonwealth Legislation up until the current Workplace Relations Act (1996) required parties to have a log of claims. This log of claims formed the basis of an industrial dispute and had built into it an initial offer and a bottom line with the latter only known to the party making the claim. This negotiation process can be described as a competitive negotiation process. As we commence discussions leading to a new enterprise agreement for staff, I have doubts that the competitive negotiating process, pre­ dominantly used in the past, will deliver the staff and the university the best possible agreement. Given a different negotiating approach, I believe we could achieve a better and possibly more innovative agreement that could better address the VC's vision "of the University as a growing entity". It's not new. Mary Parker Follett, the originator of "management is the art of getting things done through other people" raised the issue in the 1940s. It has been written about widely. Indeed a recent edition of Human Resource Planning records an excellent case study of problem solving between union and management at Alberta Power Limited. ANU management and the campus unions used it successfully during the Structural Efficiency Principle negotiation work- shops in 1993. It is an approach that appeared during the last Enterprise Bargain. It is an approach I have used regularly and found to be very successful at the ANU. The Workplace Relations Act (1996) allows it. It is called integrative bargaining. The problem-solving approach makes it possible for both unions and management to achieve their objectives. It also overcomes the outdated male-dominated view of negotiation where negotiations are competitive and more concerned about the differences between the parties, rather than seeking areas of commonality. Professor Amanda Sinclair in her book Doing Leadership Differently (Melbourne University Press, 1998) observes that research broadly finds there is a tendency for women to adapt to a more collaborative and less competitive strategy when influencing others. Given this view it seems to me that, in the light of management's and the unions' policies on EEO and Equity, that this mode of bargaining should be examined for its applicability to the ANU. At least one union is considering this approach for the forthcoming negotiations. My hope is that University management's "menu of change" is not really a log of claims dressed up to look like something else. If it is, it will push the parties back into competitive negotiating rather than into a problem- solving approach. Similarly, I would hope that the unions would approach these negotiations with a list of concerns that need to be resolved. While it is debatable that salaries can be negotiated in the problem -solving context, I don't see why this should preclude at least an attempt at a problem-solving approach to matters, including salaries. Finally some may suggest that what I am proposing is wishful thinking. It may be. I have yet to be convinced that a problem-solving approach won't give a better outcome. I believe that we work at the best university in Australia, with the best general and academic staff undertaking the best teaching and research. Why can't management and unions try to use negotiating processes that will produce the best enterprise bargain for the ANU? Kevin Lonsdale Atomic and Molecular Physics Laboratories, ANU