Scheduled wage increases and cost-of-living provisions in 1982, (EXCERPT), Monthly Labor Review Online, January 1982

Scheduled wage increases and
cost-of-living provisions in 1982

Douglas R. LeRoy

In 1982, about 4.3 million workers in private industry are scheduled to receive wage increases under major collective bargaining agreements¹ that were negotiated in earlier years. These "deferred" increases will average 6.3 percent—the highest average recorded since 1971 (7.7 percent). About 3.4 million workers covered by agreements that will be in effect during part or all of 1982 may anticipate wage changes from cost-of-living adjustment clauses. Some 2.3 million of these workers will also receive deferred increases. About 3.7 million workers will be covered by contracts expiring or with provisions for reopening in 1982, making this a relatively heavy bargaining year.²

This article focuses on deferred wage increases and cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) provided by the major agreements that will remain in effect through 1982. The analysis of deferred increases does not include contracts covering 1.2 million workers which expired before 1982, but had not been renegotiated or for which data were not available at this writing.³

This excerpt is from an article published in the January 1982 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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Footnotes

1 Major collective bargaining units are those which cover 1,000 workers or more in the private nonfarm sector.

2 For an analysis of the bargaining schedule for 1982, see Mary Anne Andrews and David Schlein, "Bargaining calendar will be heavy in 1982," Monthly Labor Review, December 1981, pp. 20-30.

3 These units include 70,000 workers covered by 185 agreements which expired or reopened prior to Oct. 1, 1981, but for whom settlements were not reached or for which information was not available in time to be included in these tabulations. About half of these workers were in railroad industry agreements. Another 284,000 workers were covered by 108 agreements expiring or reopening between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 1981, after the closing date for this article.

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