Wage Security

Proposals for a Guaranteed Annual Wage

Labor demands for a guaranteed annual wage have been advanced with increased frequency, and with steadily increasing force, at recent hearings before the National War Labor Board. Like the depression demand for a 40-hour week, the guaranteed-wage demand is—in essence—a demand for regularized employment. To date the new demand has been put forward chiefly by the mass unions affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, but it is receiving attention also from the American Federation of Labor as a means of compelling employers to provide steady work. In the recon version period the demand for a guaranteed annual wage may emerge as the leading claim of organized labor upon American industry.

Payment of guaranteed wages the year around is held ...