This bargaining strength helped force the cost-cutting on to the providers.

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But smart negotiators know when their bargaining strength is strongest.

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"They appear to have asserted themselves in a strategy that will give them a greater bargaining strength in their home state where power has centered around specific castes, " said columnist Jaspal Singh Sidhu.

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Last-hired, first-fired agreements are not debt, but they are contracts which cannot be cleared and depending on the strength of the collective bargaining agent, have a high cost of breach.

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