Contact: Dr. Julie Dickinson
Tel. 0171 631 6392
Fax. 0171 631 6750
EMail ubjv682@bbk.ccs.ac.uk
There are important advantages for both employers and employees when wages and wage differentials are perceived to be fair. Employees are unlikely to maintain a strong commitment to their job if they feel that wage differences are not justified. Equally, rigid adherence to traditional patterns of differentials can make it difficult for firms to respond to the changes in the demand for different levels or mixes of skill that arise when new technology is introduced, or when work practices change. During the last decade there has been a decrease in collective bargaining and an increase in wage setting at the level of the plant. However, very little research has been carried out on the role of considerations of fairness in the new system of local wage bargaining.
This project will investigate wage setting in organisations through a detailed examination of the annual pay- bargaining round in a small number of companies from the viewpoint of employers, personnel managers and employees' representatives. The research will cover financial services and engineering companies in order to allow a comparison between different sectors of the economy. The main focus of the study will be the extent to which the different groups share beliefs about the factors that currently determine wage differentials, the criteria that should be used to set differentials and the fairness of the existing pattern of wages.
The research will be of considerable use to those engaged in wage-bargaining on both sides of industry. It will also have implications for our understanding of the role ideas about fairness play in an important area of economic life.
JULIE DICKINSON is a Lecturer in Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck College. She has written extensively on perceptions of social justice and of wage differentials.
OTHER RESEARCHERS:
Lucia Sell-Trujillo, Research Assistant, Birkbeck College.
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