The Guardian - Economics blog:
Why falling inflation is a false pretext for keeping wages low
29 March 2015
There was a time, as the LSE economist Alan Manning notes in his contribution to a collection of essays published by the Resolution Foundation when year after year of falling real wages would not have been tolerated. ''Forty years ago an improving labour market and prices rising faster than wages would have led trade unions to march into the boardroom demanding higher wages and threatening strike action if those demands were not met. Pretty soon, union leaders would have been invited round to No 10 for beer and sandwiches to be cajoled into wage moderation to prevent and inflationary spiral taking hold. A lot has changed in the past 40 years.''
This article was published by The Guardian - Economics blog on March 29, 2015
Link to article here
Related publications
Manning, A. (2015) Shifting the Balance of Power: workers, employers and wages over the next parliament, in Gavin Kelly and Conor D'Arcy (Eds) (2015) Securing a Pay Rise: the path back to shared wage growth, Resolution Foundation
Related links
Alan Manning webpage
Labour Markets Programme webpage
Community Programme webpage