Word: union
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...White House hints that it may be preparing to drop the guide out of the guidelines. In the course of courting labor's support in the 1980 election, the Administration has drifted toward accepting the union position that the pay ceilings need more "flexibility." Says Labor Secretary Ray Marshall: "With inflation barreling along at its current rate, the old guidelines are clearly untenable." A top Administration aide confided last week: "It would be unreal to expect labor to accept continuation of a program that was successful in holding down wages but a disaster in holding down prices...
Although such powerful unions as the Teamsters and the United Automobile Workers have mangled the 7% pay guideline in the contracts they have won this year, the standard has nonetheless helped moderate many salary agreements. In the past year most workers, especially nonunion ones, have settled for pay hikes close to the 7% standard. Wage increases in major union contracts actually declined overall from last year's 8.2%, to 7.5% from January through June. Carter's chief economic adviser, Charles Schultze, hails this as "one of the truly unreported stories of the year...
...been far from uniform, and some yawning disparities have appeared. Sibson & Co., a New Jersey management consultant firm, calculates that the compensation of top business executives has increased by 14.8% this year with the help of salary bonuses often reaching 20%. Among wage earners, the hourly pay of union employees grew by only 8.3%, while that of nonunion workers edged upward just 7.2%. In other categories, the Labor Department reports that the earnings of an attorney rose by 8.9% on average; that was less than his stenographer's 12% increase but well above his file clerk...
...decline. Like Oliver Twist, American workers are expected to begin asking, "Please, sir. I want some more." The minimum wage is already due to rise next Jan. 1 from $2.90 an hour to $3.10. Nonunion workers are likely to start demanding greater pay hikes to catch up with both union salaries and inflation...
Brookings Institution Economist Arthur Okun has a "nightmare vision" of a major employer without company-wide unions such as IBM or Du Pont announcing some day that it was starting cost-of-living allowances in order to "keep the union organizers off their front lawns." Okun warns that if such automatic inflation pay increases spread into nonunion firms, "you can mark that on your calendar as a black day for fighting inflation...