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Some Aspects of the Problem of Guaranteed Wages and Employment*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

H. F. Ross
H. F. Ross*
Affiliation:
The International Labour Office, Montreal
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Extract

The Need for Income and Employment Security. In modern times insecurity of income has been the lot of many workers in most countries. This income insecurity is the result of the effects of seasonal variations, cyclical fluctuations, secular changes, and random fluctuations upon production in individual plants and businesses. Production in industries such as meat packing, fruit canning, or clothing manufacturing is typically seasonal because of the nature of their raw materials, or of the demand for their products. Cyclical fluctuations in economic activity affect the economy as a whole but hit particularly severely durable goods industries such as the building and construction industry, or the automobile industry. Further, the economy is subject to secular changes owing to such causes as changes in the size and age structure of the population, technological advance, or changes in the buying habits of consumers. In addition, economic phenomena exhibit chance or random fluctuations.

The security of income and employment of the working population is affected by all these different types of economic variations but it is with cyclical and seasonal unemployment that we are concerned chiefly here. It is difficult to determine whether a worker is suffering as a result of either cyclical or seasonal unemployment as there is generally a combination of both in most industries. In many cases, however, unemployment is markedly cyclical or seasonal in character although it is little consolation to the worker to know the kind of unemployment of which he is the victim.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , November 1947 , pp. 545 - 562
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1947

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Footnotes

*

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Quebec, May 30, 1947.

References

1 Cf. International Labour Office, Year Book of Labour Statistics 1943-44 (Montreal, 1945), pp. 55–60.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., pp. 61-70.

3 Ibid., p. 79.

4 Latimer, Murray W., Guaranteed Wages: Report to the President, 31 Jan. 1947 (Washington, 1947), p. 23.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., pp. 19-20.

6 Latimer, , Guaranteed Wages, p. 296.Google Scholar

7 Business Week, 04 26, 1947, pp. 110–11.Google Scholar

8 See Ministry of Labour and National Service, Time Rates of Wages and Hours of Labour, 1st Aug. 1946 (London, 1946).Google Scholar

9 American Management Association, Annual Wages and Employment Stabilization Techniques (Research Report no. 8, New York, 1945), p. 24.Google Scholar

10 Department of Labour, Labour Gazette, 12, 1946, pp. 1769–70.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 1779.

12 Canadian Unionist, 02, 1947, p. 42.Google Scholar

13 American Management Association, Annual Wages and Employment Stabilization Techniques, p. 60 Google Scholar; see pp. 61-92 for a detailed discussion of these methods.

14 New York Times, Feb. 19, 1947.

15 Watkins, and Dodds, , The Management of Labor Relations (New York, 1938), p. 241.Google Scholar

16 Walters, J. E., Personnel Relations (New York, 1945), pp. 249–51.Google Scholar

17 For a full discussion of the effect of employment stabilization on costs, see American Management Association, Supplement to Research Report no. 8, pp. 3-16.

18 United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, Wage Stabilization and Post-War Security (partial brief submitted to National War Labor Board by the General Motors Department, UAW-CIO 11, 1943), p. 3.Google Scholar

19 Latimer, Murray W., Guaranteed Wage Study: Interim Report, Nov. 12, 1946 (Washington, 1946), pp. 1, 3–5.Google Scholar

20 New York Times, Feb. 6, 1947.

21 Cf. Leontieff, Wassily, “The Pure Theory of the Guaranteed Annual Wage Contract” (Journal of Political Economy, 02, 1946, pp. 76–9).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Cf. Dale, Ernest, “The Guaranteed Annual Wage” (Personnel, 11, 1944, pp. 148–50)Google Scholar; United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, Wage Stabilization and Post-War Security, pp. 17–23 Google Scholar; American Management Association, Annual Wages and Employment Stabilization Techniques, pp. 25–33 Google Scholar; Bogardus, Emery S., “Security and the Annual Wage” (Sociology and Social Research, Los Angeles, 03-Apr., 1946, p. 304)Google Scholar; Riis, R. W., “Pay by the Year is Labor's Goal” (Survey Graphic, 10, 1944, p. 422)Google Scholar; National Industrial Conference Board, “Annual Wage and Employment Guarantee Plans” (Studies in Personnel Policy, no. 76, New York, 1946), pp. 23–4.Google Scholar

23 American Management Association, Annual Wages and Employment Stabilization Techniques, p. 55.Google Scholar

24 See Latimer, Guaranteed Wage Study, chap. I.

25 Press Release of Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, Feb. 25, 1947.