| Show Wai Wage Restrictions To When some major union contracts come up for renegotiation next there will undoubtedly still be limitations on wage increases under Phase 2 or some extension of liberalization of working conditions is likely to receive more emphasis at bargaining tables than Two important issues will lake center stage during Shortening the workweek and planning for earlier MORE controversial of the two demands is that concerning a cutback in the length of the While leaders in the auto and railway unions have placed the shorter workweek on the agenda for next year's there is as yet no great rank-and-file pressure for such a The four-day week has become rather widespread over the past year or more in smaller and its acceptance has been enthusiastic where it is workable in terms of industry Involved even though the ten-hour day has generally been ONE is If the shorter workweek becomes a key bargaining point in autos and-or the demand will be for a thirty-two hour week spread over four days but at same take-home The forty-hour week accepted by many smaller industrial employee groups is definitely out as far as the big unions are This would mean a ten-hour which is scarcely doing away with job boredom one of the chief reasons for considering cutting weekly RAILWAY union chieftains are not overly enthusiastic about a four-day even though Railway Employees Department delegates unanimously endorsed the thirty-two-hour week at forty hours The Machinist pace setter for railway has shown little interest in this Nor is it expected to unless there is enough unemployment next year to create local support for the short workweek as a key more EVEN if there is overwhelming support for a shorter most labor officials will fight to the end against a ten-hour day no matter what the pay They will stress that the eight-hour day was a major goal of organized labor from the time of the first Federation convention in and surely not a prize to be lightly even for the purpose of cutting THE United Automobile Workers are not to draft bargaining demands in specific terms until next just before negotiations But there is little doubt that the issue of early retirement will be one of prime possibly with top A major cause of the prolonged strike against General Motors in was the determined union drive for retirement after thirty years in the regardless of AFTER this bitter a compromise was permitting retirement at age fifty-six after thirty t years with Look for renewed pressure at the bargaining table during 1973 to allow retirement after thirty years regardless of And there will be a new demand that would be more costly for the auto NEXT year the union will call for an early-retirement pension of a an amount it considers more realistic in terms of the inflationary price pressures since Even a tough price board would be less likely to object to this pension than to a sizable pay The Research Department of Babson's Reports is of the opinion that both a shorter week and early retirement will be significant objectives of labor for a long EACH step in these directions will be a drives to increase the All of this will keep labor costs in a decided |
