ABSTRACT
The car workers’ advantage is more apparent if one considers what is probably the best available published guide to wage trends and relativities, average hourly earnings. The association of the majority of car firms with the Engineering Employers’ Federation, and of their operatives with the engineering trade unions, has of course involved the motor plants in general engineering wage-movements. One element in the sharp increase in wage-connected disputes in the motor firms during the 1950s was thus the contradictory pressures generated by new inter-firm and inter-plant differentials. In principle, the engineering wage-system provides for two types of payment: a straight time-rate which varies according to skill-level; and a piece-work wage which is compounded of two elements—a basic rate that varies with skill, and a bonus percentage. The virtual disappearance of the skill differential in the motor industry as a whole is symptomatic of a general tendency of its payment methods to erase systematic differences in wages.
