ABSTRACT

Much of the literature on union participation, as discussed in Chapter 2, explores reasons for union participation in terms of work-related factors, particularly commitment to work. This chapter first examines the occupational structure in local government as a background to research findings discussed in the second part of this chapter. For local government workers the issue of grading was important in terms of the rewards of work. Material in this section is organized under the following headings: patterns of occupational segregation; departmental variations in occupational structure and job grades; the grading system in local government; the history of equal pay in local government; regrading disputes; the issues of low pay and grading.