ABSTRACT
All wage negotiations today focus on wage rates. This traditional focus, however, makes no sense at all. Wage rates per hour or per piece are not what the enterprise is interested in. The moment, however, negotiations focus on the factors relevant to the wage burden, both sides have to take a stand on policy and stick to it. Today negotiations over the general, the wage burden, are immersed in the negotiation over the specific, the wage rate. The union, for instance, will stoutly maintain that the cost of living is of first relevance to wages as long as the cost-of-living index goes up. It will equally stoutly maintain that it has nothing to do with wages as soon as the index starts going down. The basic issue is that of the relationship between above-average or below-average productive efficiency of a given enterprise and its wage burden.
