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William M. Davis
T he bargaining calendar for 1994 is the lightest in a decade, with scheduled contract negotiations affecting a little more than one-fourth of the 8.2 million workers under all major agreements (those covering 1,000 or more workers) in private industry and State and local government. In every year since 1985, at least one-third of the workers under major agreements had their contracts slated for renegotiation. (See table 1.) Bargaining in 1994 will cover about 2.1 million workers under 592 major agreements that are scheduled to expire or that can be reopened during the year. (See tables 2 and 3.)
Bargaining will cover relatively few workers in both private industry and State and local government. In private industry, only one-fourth (1.4 million) of the 5.5 million workers under major agreements are slated to have their contracts renegotiated in 1994. The comparable proportion in 1993 was 37 percent. Nearly two-thirds of the private industry workers who will be affected by negotiations in 1994 are in nonmanufacturing, with the transportation (258,000 workers), construction (254,000 workers), and retail trade (162,000 workers) industries accounting for three-fourths of the total in nonmanufacturing. About 491,000 workers are in manufacturing industries, chiefly in apparel (129,000 workers), electronic and other electric equipment (96,000 workers), and food and kindred products (61,000 workers).
In State and local governments, three-quarters of a million workers are under 223 major contracts that are scheduled for renegotiation in 1994. The represents 28 percent of the 2.7 million State and local government workers under major agreements, about the same proportion as in 1993. In local governments, bargaining activity will involve some 497,000 workers under 176 contracts. In State governments, negotiations will occur for 267,000 workers under 47 agreements.
This excerpt is from an article published in the January 1994 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.
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