Abstract
Trade unions are organisations of employees who join to attain common objectives in key areas relating to decent wages, conducive working conditions and enhanced health and safety in the workplace. Moreover, trade unions are an important available mechanism for employees to combat the inherent inequalities that exist within the employment relationship. Within employment relations, the most used approach to combating inequalities in the employment relationship is through collective bargaining. Collective bargaining refers to engagement techniques through which employment parties amicably resolve disputes around terms and conditions of employment. However, due to the majoritarian principle, only majority trade unions currently enjoy collective bargaining privileges within the employment relations environment. The current paper's objective was to explore potential contributions that minority unions could add towards the process of collective bargaining. To achieve this objective involved the utilisation of a qualitative phenomenological research design, where semi-structured interviews were adopted for data collection purposes. In total, twelve participants contributed to the study. The current study's findings showed that inviting minority trade unions to collective bargaining processes could lead to enriched decision-making and creativity, due to the higher intellectual capacity within minority unions, which can lead Issue 1/2025 251 to enhanced problem-solving and productivity within workplaces. Conversely, few participants indicated that no constructive input would be added by minority unions to collective bargaining processes. It is recommended that employment parties have mutual respect for trade union functions and the employer's prerogative, allowing for enhanced employee participation in decision-making processes and of course, the enrichment and innovation of employment relations consultative mechanisms.