Solidaristic Wages Policy: The European Experience

This book considers the role of both wages and unions in economic theory, asking whether wages are merely a mechanical outcome of the economic process or a political variable subject to influence by organized labour?

Introduction Part 1: Political Economy of Wages and the Trade Unions 1. The Classical School: Subsistence and Wages Fund Theories of Wages 2. Marxism: The Law of Wages and the Politics of Wages 3. The Neo-classicals: The General Equilibrium Wage and the Political Wage of Neo-liberalism 4. Keynesianism: Political Nominal and Economic Real Wages Part 2: Trade Union Wages Policy in Europe 5. Trade Union Conceptions of a Solidaristic Wages Policy 6. Political and Institutional Prerequisites for Trade Union Wages Policy 7. Development of Wages and Income Distribution between Capital and Labour 8. Development of the Wage Structure and Distribution within the Class' 9. The Crisis of Trade Union Pay Bargaining Strategies 10. The Reorganisation of Industrial Relations in the European Multi-level System 11. Trade Union Collective Bargaining Coordination in Europe 12. Reconstructing Solidaristic Wages Policies in Europe: Prospects and Obstacles