Abstract
Britain’s complex pay bargaining system has come in for considerable criticism during the past twenty-five years. It is now widely regarded as a major cause of home-grown inflation, which has helped to ensure the country is increasingly uncompetitive on international markets because of our high unit labour costs. ‘We have been pricing ourselves out of markets’, warned Sir Geoffrey Howe, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in July 1980. ‘Around two thirds of our loss of competitiveness over the past two years has been due to the increase in UK unit labour costs in comparison with competitor countries. Not only have pay levels increased much faster here than overseas, but we have not earned them by faster increases in productivity’.1 Table 2.1 shows the rise in income over the period 1970–9.
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Notes and References
A. Jones, The New Inflation: The Politics of Prices and Incomes (André Deutsch, 1973) p. 9.
W. W. Daniel, ‘Wage Determination in Industry’, PEP, June 1976, p. 25.
The Political Economy of Inflation, ed. F. Hirsch and J. H. Goldthorpe (Martin Robertson, 1978) pp. 186–212.
F. Blackaby (ed.), The Future of Pay Bargaining (Heinemann, 1980) p. 100.
The Changing Contours of Britain’s Industrial Relations, ed. W. Brown (Basil Blackwell, 1981).
W. Brown and M. Terry, ‘The Changing Nature of National Wage Agreements’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1978, p. 124.
J. E. Meade, Stagflation, vol. 1, Wage Fixing (Allen and Unwin, 1982).
D. Hurd, No End of Promise (Collins, 1979) p. 128.
P. B. Beaumont, ‘Government as Employer, Setting an Example?’, Royal Institute of Public Administration, 1981.
R. F. Elliott and J. L. Fallick, Pay in the Public Sector (Macmillan, 1981) pp. 58–9.
R. Maudling, Memoirs (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1978) p. 266.
G. Routh, Occupation and Pay in Great Britain 1906–1979 (Macmillan, 1980) p. 214.
B. Wootton, The Social Foundations of Wage Policy (Allen & Unwin, 1955) p. 175.
W. G. Runciman, Relative Deprivation and Social Justice (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966) p. 66.
W. W. Daniel, ‘Wage Determination in Industry’, PEP, 1976, p. 14.
The Labour Government’s Economic Record 1964–1970, ed. Wilfred Beckerman (Duckworth, 1972) p. 314.
C. A. Blyth, ‘Collective Bargaining and Government Policies’, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1979, p. 90.
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© 1982 Robert Taylor
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Taylor, R. (1982). The Wages Jungle. In: Workers and the New Depression. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16923-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16923-8_2
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