Immediately after World War II, strong unions used short pacts to keep pressure on management for hefty wage increases. Today the balance of power has changed.
Unions are on the defensive, and it is average workers who want protection from an uncertain future.
That security increasingly is coming in the form of labor contracts that last longer than the three-year pacts that have been standard since the late 1950s. Perhaps most stunning is the 17-year local pact General Motors Corp. won last year at a parts operation outside Dayton. In the old days, labor always wanted contracts of shorter duration, and management always wanted them longer. And now we're seeing that the principle of shorter contracts within labor has been kind of eradicated as unions have desired to get more security and more stability. A Bureau of National Affairs analysis of 647 contracts reached in 1996 found that 49 percent of the pacts were for three years, down from 65 percent in 1990.