Collective bargaining and the law in Kenya: A study in the Political Economy of the Bargaining Process and its Effects on Wage-Labour

Abstract

This is a study in aspects of the social role of the law. It focuses on collective bargaining, and investigates its legal organization in Kenya, and the effect of the operation of the institution on the material condition of the working class. Adopting an analytical framework which derives its theory from Marxism, it is argued that collective bargaining is an integral part of the mechanism of capitalism. The benefits which accrue from the institution to workers are therefore restricted, and accrue only to the extent that their realisation does not conflict with the economic and ideological ends of capitalism as a social system, Chapter one deals with the ideological origins of collective bargaining, and the development and current content of its legal organization in Kenya since 1943. From a specific theoretical perspective, Chapter two analyses the legal structure of collective bargaining with special emphasis on the institutional role of the state in the process of collective bargaining. Chapter three deals with the effects of collective bargaining on wage-labour. This is both a recapitulation of the ideological limitations of collective bargaining as a system of coexistence in industry, and a guantificationof its material influence on workers. In Chapter four is given assessments and conclusions - which are presented as an attempt to chart a legal theory of collective bargaining.