Negotiated Wage Increases, 1951-1967
T HIS paper analyzes negotiated settlements over a 17-year period. The analysis uses annual data for manufacturing as a whole, for individual manufacturing industries, and for building construction as a special case. Various comparisons are made. The wagesettlement series for manufacturing is compared with increases in straight-time average earnings in manufacturing and the unemployment rate in manufacturing; settlements are also compared with earnings increases for individual manufacturing industries, suggesting some conclusions with respect to wage drift and the wage-price guidelines of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Likewise, settlements are compared for eleven manufacturing industries and construction, indicating the contrasts among them and the effects of changes in industry differentials upon the structure. Such comparison raises questions concerning the influences of the wage-price guidelines on negotiated increases in various types of industry beginning in 1962. Finally, negotiated increases in building construction are compared with such increases for manufacturing as a whole and with the relative unemployment rate for construction workers, indicating disparate developments and the consequent pressures on negotiations in manufacturing, especially the mass production industries.
- DOI
- 10.2307/1926193
- Volume
- 50 (2)
- Pages
- 173
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- BibTeX
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