United States 1955

Synopsis

In the early 1950s, the United Auto Workers (UAW) under President Walter Reuther began to inject the issue of a guaranteed annual wage into contract talks with the "Big Three" auto makers. Throughout the auto industry's history, its workers had suffered economic setbacks when plants were shut down for annual model changes or during times of slack demand. Without unemployment insurance or other social safety net measures, workers were plunged into periods of insecurity and poverty, often without warning. To provide more economic security for workers, Reuther argued that employers should be required to pay a guaranteed wage to their employees throughout the year. Although Reuther was never able to gain such an agreement in collective bargaining talks with the Big Three, the UAW's contract with the Ford Motor Company in 1955 produced the industry's first supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB) provision. Under...