Current statistics of labor interest in selected periods 1—Continued 1 Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics unless otherwise indicated. Abbreviations used: BC (Bureau of the Census); ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission); BAE (Bureau of Agricultural Economics); BFDC (Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce); FR (Federal Reserve); BM (Bureau of Mines); FPC (Federal Power Commission). Most of the current figures are preliminary. 10-month average-March to December 1940-Not comparable with later figures. Revisions are in process. Excludes employees on public emergency work, these being included in unemployed civilian labor force. Civilian employment in nonagricultural establishments differs from nonagricultural employment in civilian labor force mainly because of the inclusion in the latter of such groups as self-employed and domestic and casual workers. Revisions of the construction series include the transfer of Federal force-account employment to the Government series. Certain additional revisions have been made in this and some of the other series. (See p. 921 of May 1947 issue.) ' April. • March. 7 All cities not surveyed: Rent index of February based on 6 cities. * Includes current motor vehicle prices. See note on p. 1105 of this issue. • First quarter. 10 Not available. 11 These figures are not adjusted to allow for lapse in building permits and the lag between issuance of building permits and the start of construction. For information on number of dwelling units actually started for which these adjustments have been made, see the section on Construction, pp. 1108-1116. MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW JUNE 1947 The Wage Rationalization Program in By ROBERT TILOVE, Executive Secretary, Steel Commission 1 ON JANUARY 13, 1947, after almost 2 years of constant negotiation, the steel-producing subsidiaries of the United States Steel Corp. and the United Steelworkers of America (CIO) concluded an agreement on the classification of jobs for the purpose of eliminating intraplant wagerate inequities. This agreement entailed a wage increase of approximately 15 million dollars annually and 32 million dollars retroactively. The results of the program were written into the 2-year labor contract which the company and the union signed on April 22, 1947. These agreements were the culminating points in a program of wage rationalization which represents an application of industrial engineering and collective bargaining without parallel in American industry. For the first time, a set of standard hourly wage scales was established for the principal steel-making subsidiaries of U. S. Steel. These wage scales, except for a southern differential, were made uniform for more than 40 plants from coast to coast. These agreements dealt with occupational wage inequities both within and among the plants. That same system of job description and classification is now being applied, jointly by labor and management, to all but a few of the Nation's basic steel plants. It is clear that this will go a long way toward equalization of wage scales throughout the industry. Furthermore, this pressure to equalize occupational rates will probably spread to metalworking plants that bargain in the shadow of basic steel. Significant in itself as a major development in steel's industrial relations, this "inequity program" attracts a universal interest as a milestone in the application of industrial engineering techniques through collective bargaining. It was not a theory which inspired this program. Internal wagerate inequities had been a continuing problem in the steel industry. 1 The Steel Commission, a part of the U. S. Department of Labor, was originally set up by the National War Labor Board in order to carry out its directive order for the elimination of intraplant wage-rate inequities in the steel industry. The views expressed are entirely the author's. Wage inequities are apt to be a lively question in any large plant in which rates "just grew" in the absence of a planned program for orderly wage administration. There were, however, conditions in steel which had combined to aggravate the problem: (1) Steel jobs do not easily fall into neatly repeated patterns of identical occupations; they therefore elude control except by means of a planned system. (2) Constant technological change, whether of equipment, materials, processes, products, or work assignments, have tended to accumulate wage-rate dislocations. (3) The coexistence of time payments and incentive systems in practically endless variety has engendered a host of problems, not the least of which was the comparatively better lot of incentive workers under conditions of wartime production. (4) The past practice of sometimes accommodating wage rates to the price or profitability of the particular product had put different rewards on identical job content. (5) The past practice of "subcontracting" to certain crew bosses the hiring and payment of their men had left a residue in the form of some unusual rate differentials. (6) There were marked inequalities in bargaining power among employees, taken as groups or as individuals, based in part on differences in the controllability and bottle-neck character of various operations. (7) The introduction of a uniform workweek had made more objectionable comparatively low hourly rates that previously could be built into larger earnings through a longer workweek. (8) Similarly, because of a sustained high rate of operations, certain jobs could no longer offer an advantage in steadier employment to offset comparatively low hourly rates. Unionization had added urgency to the creation of a standard wage structure. Big Steel unionism is only 10 years old. It came at a time when U. S. Steel was well advanced in the preparation, but not the actual application, of a program of job evaluation. The first contract in 1937 provided that wage inequalities could be adjusted during the life of the agreement on a mutually satisfactory basis. Apparently nothing more was contemplated than fragmentary treatment of wage inequalities, whether intraplant or interplant, through the piece-meal adjustment of individual grievances, without any broader program of rate review. There was no provision for arbitration in the event that agreement was not reached. The contracts signed in September 1942 provided for a joint unionmanagement commission to seek agreement for a complete overhauling of the corporation's internal wage structure. This temporary commission was to strive for a formula by which inequalities within the steel plants might be determined and eliminated. Such an over-all review was not to result in any "substantial increase in the company's total pay-roll cost or prejudice to the company's competitive position.' This commission made a determined effort, over a period of 6 months, to reach agreement. It failed. The corporation sought negotiations on the basis of its evaluation manual. The union counter-proposed the creation of an 8-million-dollar fund to correct inequalities. With persistence of this deadlock, the commission was disbanded. The processing of individual wage inequality grievances, which had been suspended during the life of the commission, was then resumed. In subsequent months, the issue of wage inequalities grew in importance until it furnished about two-thirds of the grievances processed in the corporation's plants. Wartime conditions helped to aggravate the problem. A high rate of production, steady employment, and reduction of product varieties tended to enlarge the imbalance between most hourly and incentive workers. The national wage stabilization program served to channel the pressure for increased pay which came from a tight labor market and rising prices into the demand for elimination of wage inequities. Rate Reclassification Under NWLB Directive Order A directive order of the National War Labor Board finally began. the successful efforts at over-all rate reclassification. On December 1-2, 1943, a National Wage and Policy Conference of the United Steelworkers of America had formulated a 22-point program, which included a demand for "equal pay for similar work throughout the industry." This formed the basis for an extended case before the War Labor Board. The companies objected to any interplant or intercompany equalization of rates. As a counter-proposal, representing the attitude of most of the companies, U. S. Steel indicated that it favored the elimination of intraplant inequities through the application of an agreed-upon formula under which stabilized wage scales might be fixed for the duration of the basic labor contract. In its directive order, the National War Labor Board ordered negotiations between the parties for the elimination of intraplant wage-rate inequities in a form which showed a careful assessment of the positions taken by each side and of their fruitless experience in the past. The directive applied to 86 "basic steel" companies and was later extended to 10 more. November 25, 1944. |