seniority system

Because of the seniority system, many are well past middle age before they achieve high status. There are signs that the system is weakening, however, as efforts are more often made to lift promising young men and women out of low-echelon positions. Criticism of the traditional method has…

…rights for workers (beginning with seniority and pay equity); a formal procedure to adjudicate grievances arising from those rights; and a structure of shop-floor representation to implement the grievance procedure. Corporate employers would have much preferred to keep this regime under nonunion conditions. Indeed, it had taken shape in the…