Situation Favours the Brave!!!

Non-Negotiable going by its definition means difficult or impossible to settle by arbitration, mediation, or mutual concession. Generally it is considered that the power to bargain generally rests with the employer and the employee has no option but to concede to the wishes of the employer. This was quite explicit in the story “Job Letters turn into pink slips”. However in this case as we see, the bargaining power has shifted in the favour of the employee. This if we examine closely is purely circumstantial. If we refer to the history of what caused this shift, we will realise it was the situation that forced ICC to be at the receiving end of this bargain. In the year 2006 Hair accused the Pakistani team of tampering the ball and declared England the winner by forfeiture when the Pakistani team decided to protest. This caused much heated debate across the world where much respected cricketers asked him to be sacked. However going by the contract terms ICC was not in the position to do so.

In this case as we can see the circumstances favoured the employee. There can be many more such cases as well. If the employee is a star performer or an asset in the organisation he can take advantage of his position to make the employer accept his terms and conditions. So we can safely conclude that whether the power to exercise the bargaining power can purely be dependent on the situation or circumstance. Like in this case the contract did not mention anything about the conditions under which it can be revoked, Darell Hair tried to use it to his advantage. In this case a more structured and detailed employment contract would have saved the day for ICC.

If I at some point of time feel that my skill set is what the organisation values me for and that there is no substitution available for my skills, I may be able to make a similar non-negotiable contract to my employer

On receiving such an offer in the future I will first get legal consultation on the consequences if the contract is revoked. If the circumstances don’t support my case, I would weigh the loss on losing the employee against the pros of him leaving. The last thing that I would consider is whether the particular skill set can be substituted.