Introduction Recent economic recession has led to an increased number of strikes. This evidently raises the importance of “good industrial relations”, especially during slump (Samuel 41). In negotiating situations, the interests of the employer and employees are at stake and not necessarily, both will overlap. A degree of disagreement and discontent are expected out of a negotiation outcome. None of the parties wants a deadlock in bargaining process; therefore, the best option is to review the options and issues, which are common to both the parties. For this, it is important to have knowledge of the resources available for distribution and the best possible way it can be distributed in. However, the nature of the value maximization would depend on the type of negotiation strategy adopted. Negotiation, which has obtained primal importance in order garner competitive strategy for an organization, it is important to understand what, is understood by the term. Negotiation may be defined as the “means by which people deal with their differences.” (Harvard Business School Press xi) In businesses, negotiation is a “formal affair” in which two parties talk over prices, performance, or partnership terms and contracts (Harvard Business School Press xi). One of the primary issues that have been negotiated with the unions is compensation or wages. Thus, the negotiator has a fixed pie available for distribution and his aim may be to optimize one side’s share or optimize mutual benefit. A discussion on different types of strategies for negotiation must be discussed in order to understand the way it takes place. Negotiation strategies are said to be of two primary types of negotiation – distributive and integrative (Harvard Business School Press 2). This distributive theory, which is discussed in the paper, was based on the first aim of the negotiator i.e. to maximize one side’s profit. Distributive negotiation practice was traditionally used as a strategy for negation and the underlying assumption of the strategy was that only one party could get the maximum benefit out of the process. In this paper, the advantages and disadvantages of the strategy are discussed. The paper also discusses the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the strategy in various business situations. Distributive Negotiation Distributive negotiation or bargaining is defined as a “zero-sum approach to collective bargaining, in which gains for one side are made at the expense of the other” (Dictionary of Human Resource Management 88). In other words, distributive negotiation takes place between two parties who are at competition to gain control over a fixed amount of value (Harvard Business School Press 2). In this case, one side gains from the negotiating process at the cost of the other side. Therefore, the key question that arises from the distributive negotiation process is that who will get the largest share of the pie? Therefore there are few characteristics of the distributive negotiation strategy is derived from the definition:  1. The negotiation is usually bilateral in nature i.e. between two parties.  2. It is a process of zero-sum or constant-sum game, wherein only one party can