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January, 1986, Vol. 109, No. 1

Collective bargaining during 1986:
pressures to curb costs remain

David J. Schlein, Phyllis I. Brown and Fehmida Sleemi

Contracts for about 3.8 million of the 9.1 million workers under major collective bargaining agreements (covering 1,000 workers or more) in private industry and State and local governments will expire or be reopened in 1986. The bargaining calendar in private industry is heavy; contracts for more than two-fifths of the 7.0 million workers under major agreements are up for negotiation. In State and local government, however, the calendar is relatively light: one-third of the 2.1 million workers under major agreements have contracts scheduled for renegotiation. In 1985, by comparison, one-third of private industry employees and more than half of the State and local government workers under major agreements were involved in contract talks.

Information on 1986 bargaining is based on data available to the Bureau of Labor Statistics on September 30, 1985. The proportion of workers under contracts that expire or reopen in 1986 would increase if settlements reached during the fourth quarter of 1985 results in contracts that expire during 1986. In State and local government, for example, 374,000 workers are under contracts that expire before the end of 1985 and for which settlements had not been reached as of September 30. In the event that all these contracts are settled during the fourth quarter and call for termination or reopening during 1986, bargaining activity for the year in State and local government would be heavy, involving about one-half the workers under major agreements.

Management and labor representatives, who will negotiate as 661 private industry and 238 State and local government major agreements expire or reopen this year, will face some issues that are common and some that are unique to their industry or individual bargaining unit. (See tables 1 and 2.)

This excerpt is from an article published in the January 1986 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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