Complaints Collaboration: “Negotiations”
Complaints in a board sense
means when one party dis-satisfy the second party or third parties service or
offer, and voice out direct or indirect for a much fair treatment or reclaim.
They usually are set up in different dyads such as, Organization and Customer,
Organization and Employees, Husband and Wife, Parents and teachers…etc. the
dyad varies in different situations and usually there are platforms for the
complaint parties to unleash their dis-satisfactions.
There are different ways for complaints parties to voice out
for a better treat or reclaim but the process for reaching a satisfactory
outcome is called “Negotiation”. Negotiation in a simple form is to get the
relevant parties sit down together to form an outcome; usually parties could
possibly involve in negotiation included businesses to business, employers,
employees, customers…etc. Negotiation is a process for two or more relevant
parties (stakeholders) to have a common dialogue that intended to reach an
understanding and agreement for a satisfactory outcome for individual or
collectives [1]. In many negotiation cases, the party who get more advantages
from negotiation does not purely depend on their bargaining power; it does
depend on the negotiation strategies they applied.
There are thousands of negotiations happen every day between
business, employers, employees and customers, but one of the most recent and
well-known one in addressing complaints that involved negotiation is The “ Hong
Kong Dock Strike”[2] that happened in 2013. Along this paper, this Labor unrest
case will be analyzed showing how negotiation strategy or sub-strategy creates
values which may leads to a different outcome. It will be also shown the how
taking the wrong move will cost one party lose the advantage and ends with not
an ideal outcome. Also to illustrate how external influences could also affect
the outcome.
Complaints & Labor Strikes
Complaints Cause
The complaint was happened
in March 2013 and it was triggered from employees to employer. The relationship
is that the port operator Hong Kong International Terminals Limited (HIT),
subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. hired sub-contracting companies for managing
the operation of Crane, stevedores and docking service in Kwai Tsing Container
Terminal [3].
There were over 300 Dockers,
Crane operators and Stevedores demands to have pay raise for 20% up since there
were not any pay raised since 1997 and the per hour wage is actually lower
today when compare to what the Dockers had in 1997[4]. The second complaints
were about the poor Booth/Cabin working conditions for Crane operator and
demanding for a desperate improvement from the port operator. The third complaint
was to also to complain for non-human long consecutive hours of work from 24
hours up to 72 hours which the pay was not reflected on.
Labour Strikes
The strikes started with
around 100 Dock workers on 28th march wanting to have 20% wage
increment from the employers (direct employed sub-contracting companies) [1].
And very soon after, there were 200 Dock worker were joined the Labor strikes
protest outside the Kwan Tsing port terminal overnight. On the next day, the
general secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade union joined the
workers for salary increase. An important point to note which will be important
for use to analyze the negotiations case is that the General Secretary of Hong
Kong Confederation of Trade Union, Lee Cheuk-Yan is also a chairman of “Labour
Party” [6] and an incumbent member from Legislative Council. As soon as Lee
Cheuk-Yan has come with their protest slogans and banners, went complaining
outside the sub-contractors’ office( Office set up inside the port terminal)
requesting for a Negotiation which resulting for a 40 days long labour strike.
Labour Strikes Negotiations
Labour Strike Negotiation – “First Touch”
On the second day of labour
strikes, it was already two hundred workers strike, and stayed overnight and Hong
Kong Labour Department came and tried to mediate the difference between the
workers and the contractors. However, due to the Labour party [6] was joining
for the negotiation held by HK Labour Department, four out of five contractors
had fled from the negotiation. The reason was very obvious; it is because the contractor
(Employer) knows Labour Party is a political party and they are very extreme on
hard on people and then matters especially issues that can enlarge their votes
for staying in legislative council. During the period between first scheduled
negotiation and the second negotiation, within 3 days Labour Party Lee
Cheuk-Yan brought a few hundred volunteered students and workers with offensive
banners and slogans to contractors’ offices and also protested to Cheung Kong
Building where it is the head quarter for Richest Man in Hong Kong, the owner
of Hutchison Whampoa Company; on top of that, Labour Party and the workers also
went to interfere Mr. Lee Ka Shing life by protest to his house and asked for
reply when the responsibility wasn’t really from him and just because he owned
more shares for the port terminal. Lee Cheuk-Yan also represented the workers
and announced through media that no Negotiation will be done unless 2 request
is fulfilled “all contractors are attending and negotiate with workers
including the Terminal owner, and Labour Party must be attending to the
negotiation and as a negotiation consultant team ” [7][8]
A few more days later, due
to continuous occupied the port terminal and Labour Party kept persuades other
workers to join their Labour strike. Also Labour Party issue money as an
emergency Alms for workers. Since there was no collaboration from the labour reprehensive,
the Hong Kong Port Terminal was paralyzed and the importing and exporting
business of Hong Kong was under crisis, (Appendix, Picture 1).
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| Picture 1: Source from:http://cdn.thehousenews.net/media/photos/cache/IMG_6097_z6mVi_600x0.jpg |
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Picture 2. Source from:http://sarg-merit-fault.blogspot.hk/2013/06/2013_25.html
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Labour Strike Negotiation – “Final Deal”
There were actually quite a
few negotiations between employers and workers, of course, contractors, Labour
Party and HK government, Labour Department.
Labour Party demand contractors to negotiate issue by issue basis and to
fulfill their needs. The workers claimed the work environment were severed and
inhuman, also asking for 23% of salary increment [8]. In the second
negotiation, Employers (Contractors) suggested a “Package Deal” of 5 + 2
proposal where having 5% of immediate salary increment plus 2% of welfare [9].
Contractors also agreed to upgrade work cabin facility, e.g. adding extra
toilets, increase number of breaks in a day and elongating the lunch hours.
Contractor offered the salary increment by explaining on the global economic
issues, and the 5% salary increase plus 2% welfare are already exceed average
rate within the whole industry and over the company’s financial burden. The
second negotiation offer was also rejected from the labour since the offer was
not met the demand from their proposed 23%[10].
The action token from
Labour side was after the first and second deal, they intruded into Cheung Kong
Building, Lee Ka Shing’s Head quarter, protested to Cheung Kong Building and
Hutchison Building, Protest to Mr. Lee Ka Shing’s house, Paralyzing the whole
Hong Kong import and export business. On the other hand, the action token from
the employers side were to offer one off compensation for returning to work and
get the terminal running at a minimum rate and promised not to investigate
about the strike workers.
The third negotiation, day
36 was also rose to the media headline due to one of the five contractor was
declared bankruptcy due to vacant works done and money lost over a month labour
strikes. The remaining employers (Contractors) offered 5+2+5 proposal. That is
to say 5% immediate salary increment and 2 % welfare and 5% more for next year’s
increment. This was proposal was also rejected [10] because the Labour Party
thought the proposal with 5% increment was unacceptable.
Just before the last negotiation,
Lee Cheuk-Yan put an offensive banner (Appendix Picture 2) targeted to Lee Ka
Shing and targeted to interfered Hutchison Whampoa’s retail business by
destroying and disrupting in his front line retail business. Lee Cheuk-Yan had
engaged a word war over media through anti-government newspaper Apple Daily
[11]. The word war was triggered between Lee Cheuk-Yan, Canning Fok (Managing
Director of the Hutchison Whampoa and Hutchison Port Holding Group Managing
Director John Meredith [12]. From the Hutchison Whampoa Canning Fok claimed
that the profit from the terminal was only less than 1% from the main group,
also the workers are sub-contractors’ employee; Hutchison should not take the
blame because they were not Hutchison’s employee; furthermore it is also
impossible to force workers to work 24 – 72 hours straight and unrest,
therefore the accuse from Labour Party and Labour representative was not true.
On top of that, Canning Fok also questioned about Lee Cheuk-Yan was not genuinely
interested in helping the worker but to enhance his only bargaining chips from
a political point of views and [13]. John Meredith also pressed on the
newspaper accuse about Lee Cheuk-Yan for putting “Cultural Revolution Style”
banners to Lee Ka Shing. Lee Cheuk-Yan had fought back by saying the Hutchison
company was playing delay tactics for delaying the negotiation [13].
The Final Negotiation, Day
40. The remaining four contractors had offered 9.8% salary increment for all
workers and the promised facilities improvement and at last the labour side had
agreed and claimed a “WIN” [14].
Negotiation Strategy & Frame Works, Pros
and Cons.
Employees (Workers’ side)
The collaboration in
negotiation is mutually to reach a win-win situation as stated from Leigh L. Thompson (2009) [15] win-win
was not a fair division of resources (p.74-75). Therefore the negotiation
between employer and employees should not include deals like if company earns
more, employees should benefit equally. However, if we analyze how Worker’s and
Labour Party tackle the negotiation, what would they do?
The workers started off by
letting Labour Party, a political party as a representative or speaker to voice
out their need. The approaches the workers had taken has actually affect the
negotiation outcome as the mediation was involved with an unwanted party from
employer’s perspective, this has also mentioned in Danny Ertel (1999) [16], where the workers have taken the wrong
notation on the Relationship cycle (p.64). The worker did not use better
approaches to improve more understanding with the employers and gain trust,
yet, instead they invited an unwanted politically extreme party to join
accusing their employer and also tried to raise their bargaining position by exaggerating
the work conditions and set a sky high salary increment right at the beginning
with the media and the press. Furthermore, the relationship was racked by
starting labour strikes before any moderate negotiations. The starting
framework was already questionable.
The starting strategy from
worker’s side was not targeted for a win-win negotiation; they requested to get
all five different companies to attend at the same time as a collective or no
negotiation will be done while each company’s employment package could be
different. The transparency negotiation of this act could cause adverse effect
as lower offer package workers from company A could found out company B is
actually better and move across to company B. As such, the good way is common
issues can be discussed in one lump sum and creates more transparency and
gaining collaboration between parties; on the other hand, transparency from
different organizations could be dangerous for exposing their offers and reduce
the worker’s competitiveness when all wages are aligned between five companies.
The workers work the negotiation in a High concern for goal and low concerns
for relationship, that is to say they were using distributive bargaining style
as Kandarp Mehta (2012. Issue15) has
point out, the workers want to get bigger slice of the pie than their employer
and treat the negotiation as a fixed-pie (p.52) [17]; hence it will become a
win-lose situation because the negotiation has not been carried out creatively
by the negotiator, therefore as mentioned in Leigh L. Thompson (2009) integrative agreement would not be
achievable and less collaboration to the final outcome since the worker’s side
did not understand the different preference between parties within the negotiation
(p.76-77)[18].
The distributive approach from
workers can be illustrated via the rejection from worker on employer’s proposal
and insisted on their original 23% proposal. Furthermore, as shown in Appendix,
Picture 3. The protest has brought in political issues had ruin the negotiation
by giving extra un-necessary slander or embarrassment to employer and dragging other
parties in the labour strike would complicate the negotiation case. In Appendix
picture 3 shown some students and political parties even raised British-Hong
Kong flag to support the strike and by paralyzing the whole Hong Kong’s import
& export business to force employers to “Compromise”. This act will give
employers extra burdens in decision making and complicating the whole negotiation
process as mention previously. This is also one of the reasons why it causing one
of the contractors had to claim bankruptcy during the strike.
Employers (Contractors’ side)
The employers had approach the
negotiation differently; they tried to reach a win-win outcome as it has more
direct profit & loss consideration in offering new salary proposal to
workers and shortening the negotiation period.
Employer had used what Kandarp Mehta (2012. Issue15) has point
out, an integrative approach to collaborate with workers during negotiation
(p52) [17]. This is to say they tried to enlarge the pie by thinking creatively
and understanding employee’s needs instead of dividing the fix pie, such as
providing a package deal as Leigh L. Thompson
(2009) had stated about making a package deal instead of single issue
offer. This would allow negotiator to trade off some other issues to reach an outcome
reaching collective advantage; the package deal is to make multiple offers that
are value equivalent to ideal proposal [19]. In context of the labour strike,
as mentioned previously, Employers had offered package deal of 5 +2 proposal
where salary increment, facilities enhancement and furthermore an extra welfare
benefit had also kicked-in to seek for a side deal to complement for not
reaching 23% of salary increase. Other approaches employer’s negotiator had used
are BATNA [20]. Employers had set their BATNA and consider their employee’s
BATNA through negotiation. In the Labour Strike context, at the beginning Employer’s
BATNA is weaker because there isn’t any choice for employer but to come up with
a proposal to settle the strike, and the media press, political; issues had
also made their BATNA weaker. However, since employers understand employee’s
BATNA, knowing if workers returning to work in a longer period of time, they
would have financial burdens. This is why there were side deals and off-line persuasion
with workers that has been made, asking workers to return work will then
receive HKD 5000 for those who returned and HKD 2000 if continuous to work for
1 month after return [21]. By knowing the negotiation advantage position, employers
had improved their BATNA through longer negotiation time and turn worker’s “FIXED”
desire (low BATNA) became less bargaining chips and at the end had to
compromise and accept 9.8% salary increase[22]. The disadvantage of making the negotiation
period too long will be growing fatigue to both negotiators and will introducing
more issues that are not raised originally on the table; and even not reaching
any outcomes.
Conclusion
Nowadays in labour negotiation
especially in Hong Kong, the negotiation will be involved political parties. This
trend is rising because there were lots of political views discrepancies in
Hong Kong and there are very fierce opposition for Anti-China and Government
parties to the Pro-Government parties and Hong Kong Government. Therefore the
Anti-Government parties are finding holes and gaps where related and to get involve
and then to oppose the government. These parties were kept trying to get more
political bargaining chips for gaining supports, votes and agreement from the
public. This is why the sub-trends and even the sub-strategy within labour negotiation
are always political and what ever happened, the attention will be interfered
by Anti-Government parties and transfer to government’s incompetence. As such,
the Docker’s labour strike 2013’s attention were transferred to “Hatred of rich”, “Government incompetence”, “Raised of British Flag”..etc.
Reference
[4] Wang, Jasmine (19 April 2013). "Li Ka-Shing’s Striking Port
Workers Lose Jobs as Protest Widens". Bloomberg BusinessWeek
[7] http://thehousenews.com/society/工會代表見勞工處 堅持工會身份談判
[9] Ming Pao Newspaper http://specials.mingpao.com/cfm/News.cfm?SpecialsID=273&Page=1&News=8eea00ed15534065cebc22e736194103bfbe00473c90410ba3ee0ac8
[12] Ming
Pao Newspaper 2013-05-01 http://archive.today/20130630173527/hk.news.yahoo.com/馬德富-葵青港的烽煙-212243430.html
[15] Leigh L. Thompson: The Mind and Heart of the negotiator (2009) page
74-75
[16] Danny Ertel: Turning Negotiation into a corporate capability(1999),
page 64
[17] Kandarp Mehta: The power of creative comebacks; Five Essential
Strategies for Creative Negotiations (2012, issue 15), page 52
[18] Leigh L. Thompson: The Mind and Heart of the negotiator (2009) page
76-77
[19] Leigh L. Thompson: The Mind and Heart of the negotiator (2009) page
85-87
[20] Dr. David Venter: Negotiation BANTA, http://www.negotiationtraining.com.au/articles/next-best-option/
