Guaranteed Annual Wage

Report Outline
Trade Union Demands for Wage Guarantees
Operation of Guaranteed Wage Plans
Annual Wage and Employment Stabilization

Trade Union Demands for Wage Guarantees

The Guaranteed Annual Wage is coming to the fore as a leading demand of labor organizations in the mass production industries for the period immediately ahead. New long-term contracts negotiated in this period would carry over into the expected period of slackening economic activity and rising unemployment when defense production levels off. The main battles will be fought by C.I.O. unions in the heavy industries which are most severely affected by downturns of the business cycle, and where, even in the most prosperous times, workers' regular periods of employment are punctuated by intermittent layoffs.

The C.I.O. has announced plans to press for guaranteed annual wage provisions in contracts covering all men and women in its industrial unions whose incomes are now determined by the number of hours they work. Big industry has resisted pressure for the annual wage in the past and is not likely to accept it in the future without a struggle.

Pressure for Annual Wage in New Contracts

Elevation of Walter Reuther to the presidency of the C.I.O. has given strong impetus to the movement for wage guarantees; assurance of steady income has long been a leading plank in his program of action for workers' security. Reuther regards the guaranteed annual wage as the natural successor as a union target to seniority protection, overtime and vacation pay, night-shift premiums, call-in and holiday pay, old-age pensions, hospital-medical care, and cost-of-living wage rate adjustments.