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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR • BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

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898 The Working Wife and Her Family's Economic Position:
Comments by Jacob Mincer; Rejoinder by Margaret S. Carroll

900 Labor Turnover in the Soviet Union:

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Major Wage Developments in 1961

The size of wage changes put into effect under major collective bargaining contracts (those covering 1,000 or more workers) ranged widely during 1961. Counting wage changes negotiated during the year, deferred increases, and cost-of-living adjustments, nearly half of the workers under such contracts received increases averaging 2 but less than 4 percent. In the industries covered (construction, service trades, finance, and government are excluded), contracts applying to 21 percent of the workers were either not open for wage bargaining or wage negotiations were not concluded during the year. This group accounts for most of the workers in the no wage change category.

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The chart above shows some highlights of the Bureau's annual study of wage developments under major union contracts. An article discussing these and other findings of the study will appear in the September issue. That issue also contains an analysis of the 1961 wage changes in manufacturing, which includes small as well as large bargaining situations and nonunion as well as union establishments.

DEPOSITED BY THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The Labor Month in Review

DURING ITS FIRST 7 MONTHS, 68 cases have been settled through the internal disputes procedure adopted at the 1961 AFL-CIO convention, and two unions have had the plan's automatic sanctions applied to them. Preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of the plan is found in a report prepared for the August meeting of the Federation's Executive Council, which emphasized that most of the cases have been resolved by mediation.

THE PRESENT PLAN is the fourth attempt in the last 6 years to resolve interunion strife. The previous plans were not fully effective, partially because of their lack of enforcement procedures. Attempting to solve this problem, the 1959 AFLCIO convention directed a special peace committee, headed by Machinists' President A. J. Hayes, to develop a procedure that would include final and binding arbitration in the settlement of disputes. It was intended that the committee would deal with such conflict-producing areas as raiding, boycotts, transfer of directly affiliated locals to international unions, and ethics in competitive organizing campaigns.

The Hayes committee was unable to find a solution that could gain approval of a majority of the Federation's affiliates and during its 22-year term the main protagonists, the building trades unions and the industrial unions, became increasingly antagonistic.

The plan eventually approved at the convention was a compromise between the two groups. It is indicative of the basic conflicts in the labor movement that the Federation, despite the 21⁄2 years spent by the Hayes committee on all types of union disputes, could reach agreement only on what was basically an improved no-raiding plan.

THE DISPUTES PLAN, article XXI of the constitution, enjoins affiliates from violating the "established collective bargaining" and "work" relationships of other affiliates. It also bans attacks by one union on the public repute of another.

Once a raiding charge is filed under article. XXI, the president's office attempts to settle the

case through informal discussion with the parties involved. If the dispute remains unresolved, it is processed through machinery created by the article, including mediation by prominent trade unionists, determination by an impartial umpire, and enforcement through imposition of automatic sanctions for noncompliance. The plan also allows appeals of decisions through a permanent subcommittee of the Executive Council. Time limits are specified for each step, but may be changed by the president at his discretion.

Under special circumstances, unions may be allowed to take action which otherwise would violate the strictures of article XXI. A union may file a "justification" claim under section 4 of the article, and the umpire, after hearing the case, will issue a fact-finding report rather than a determination. On the basis of the report, the Executive Council can find justification by a two-thirds vote of its membership.

AS OF JULY 31, 1962, 100 complaints and claims of justification had been filed since January 1, 1962 (the effective date of article XXI). Through the mediation process, 54 disputes were settled by mutual agreement of the parties. In 13 cases, mediation is still in progress.

In the 14 cases determined by the umpire, 10 violations were found and 4 cases were dismissed on the grounds that no violation had occurred. In addition, four fact-finding reports were submitted to the Executive Council on justification cases. The umpire has 15 cases pending.

The permanent subcommittee received five complaints of noncompliance with rulings issued by the umpire, three of which had arisen under the old no-raiding procedure. (The compliance procedure was retroactive.) Compliance was achieved before final subcommittee action in two cases, and in a third, in which compliance followed the imposition of sanctions, they were removed with the assent of the complaining union. In the remaining two cases, both involving the Stone Cutters Association, the automatic sanctions were imposed and remain in effect.

The subcommittee has received seven appeals from the umpire's decisions; five were denied, one was withdrawn, and one is pending.

Fifty unions have filed 100 complaints to date; six unions account for almost half of the total complaints. Over two-fifths of the complaints against 48 offending affiliates have been received

by 8 unions. Approximately one-fifth of the cases were between the 12 unions most often involved. (Two of the unions most often complained against were also among those most often complaining.)

Section 2 of article XXI, requiring respect of "established collective bargaining relationships," was cited in approximately one-half of the complaints, while section 3, dealing with violations of "established work relationships," was cited in one-third of the cases. The remainder involved complaints that unions had not complied with the umpire's rulings under the old no-raiding pact, justification claims, and allegations of damages to a union's reputation.

At present, the Stone Cutters Association is the only union in noncompliance. As such, it is subject to automatic sanctions which forbid noncomplying unions to file complaints under the plan (leaving them vulnerable to raids from other affiliates), deny the noncomplier any aid or support from affiliates of the Federation, and authorize aid by the Federation to the union suffering from refusal to comply. Under these provisions, rankand-file members of the United Stone Products Workers, as well as an executive board member assigned by its international, helped in an election between the International Association of Marble Polishers and the Stone Cutters. The Marble Polishers won the representation election by a substantial majority. Results of two other elections, involving the Stone Cutters and the Marble Polishers, and the Stone Cutters and the Stone Workers, have not been announced.

THE INTERNAL DISPUTES PLAN has received a few tests of its ability to cope with contracting-out and maintenance disputes, the arena for the bitterest struggles between the industrial and the building trades unions, and has been able to resolve such cases where there was an established work relationship. But, as a recent case demonstrated, this criterion excludes disputes at new work sites. Umpire David L. Cole ruled that he could issue no determination in the dispute between the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers over installation of equipment at the new PanAmerican building in New York City, because article XXI covers only "established work rela

tionships," which exist where work has been "customarily performed at a particular plant or work site," and in a building under construction all such work relationships must of necessity be new. Although the umpire's decisions may be appealed, in this case the competing unions worked out a settlement. In the same manner, organizing disputes do not come under the scope of the procedure. To aid its unified organizing drives, the Federation is relying on voluntary agreement on jurisdiction prior to organizational attempts, as exemplified by the plans for cooperative organizing in Los Angeles.1

The procedure in effect legalizes past raids, since work and bargaining relationships that have been recognized or certified for at least 1 year are held inviolate. A union raided in the past has no opportunity to recoup its losses unless it can convince the umpire and then two-thirds of the Executive Council that disallowing its claim "would be violative of its basic jurisdiction or contrary to basic concepts of trade union morality or to the constitutional objectives of the AFLCIO or injurious to accepted trade union work standards." Only one union has surmounted these intentionally difficult barriers. The Executive Council gave the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union permission to raid the United Garment Workers at the Judy Bond Blouse Co. in Brewton, Ala. The company had signed a contract with the UGW after moving from New York City, where it held an ILGWU contract. The ILGWU also took its complaints against Judy Bond to the blouse industry's impartial arbitrator who ordered the company to pay $108,762.14 in damages for contract violations. An unfair labor practice charge against Judy Bond is pending before the National Labor Relations Board.

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International
Comparisons of
Unemployment

ROBERT J. MYERS AND JOHN H. CHANDLER*

EDITOR'S NOTE.-The article which follows is the first of two dealing with the comparison of unemployment in industrial countries. It focuses on statistical reasons for the differences in unemployment rates. The second, in the next issue, will discuss other factors in the differences, such as demographic composition of the labor force, laws, social attitudes, and rate of economic growth. A fuller report on the authors' research in this field appears in Measuring Employment and Unemployment, the Report of the Committee to Appraise Employment and Unemployment Statistics, appointed by the President in November 1961.

MOST OTHER INDUSTRIAL COUNTRIES, in recent years, have reported unemployment rates considerably lower than those in the United States. Methods of measuring unemployment vary considerably from country to country, however, and there is a widespread impression that such differences in method account for most of the reported differences in the severity of joblessness.

The major objective of this article is to determine approximately how many unemployed and what rate of unemployment would have been found in foreign countries if they had used the concepts, definitions, and methods currently employed in the United States. For practical purposes, the study has been confined to seven countries which have experienced a good deal of industrial development and whose unemployment problems are similar in nature to our own; specifically, Canada, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and Sweden.

The system of unemployment statistics adopted by a particular country has depended in large part on the country's needs and institutions. In most countries unemployment statistics are a byproduct of the operation of administrative programs, such as the placement or unemployment insurance services. The United States and certain other countries, however, have developed specialized measurement systems, usually sample surveys of households, which are not dependent on any administrative program but are specifically designed to reveal the employment status and the characteristics of the population of working age. Although international definitions of employment, unemployment, and the labor force exist,' few countries have as yet incorporated them into their official statistics.

Review of National Statistics

Development of unemployment statistics for the seven foreign countries which are roughly comparable with those for the United States has involved a detailed study of the system of measurement and the definitions used in each country, based on examination of national records, manuals of instruction, etc., and where possible, discussions with the responsible national authorities. This country-by-country study has, in some cases, led to the conclusion that the foreign statistics are closely similar to our own and that no adjustments are necessary. More commonly, however, it has been found necessary to adjust the foreign data in order to offset differences in scope or definition as compared with U.S. unemployment statistics. In some cases the most widely published statistics of unemployment have been discarded, for present purposes, in favor of alternative series or spot studies that lend themselves more readily to comparison with U.S. data. In no case do the adjustments made imply adverse criticism of the unemployment statistics of other countries. Such statistics are, of course, designed primarily to meet national needs. In most cases,

*Respectively, Deputy Commissioner of Labor Statistics and Chief, Branch of International Comparisons, Division of Foreign Labor Conditions, Bureau of Labor Statisties.

1 The International Conference of Labor Statisticians, sponsored by the International Labor Office, has played a major role in the development of these definitions. The definitions currently recognized were approved by the 8th session of the ICLS meeting in Geneva in 1954.

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