e welfare of the industry's workforce. With respect to the industry's workforce, a major outcome of all of these factors is employment levels well below the levels of a decade earlier ("Current Labor Statistics," 1990).
Average hourly earnings in the industry in 1989 increased to $14.50, up 5.3 percent from the $13.77 level of 1987 ("Cur rent Labor Statistics," 1990). Average weekly earnings in 1989 of $617.91, however, were up only 3.4 percent from the 1987 level of $597.62 ("Current Labor Statistics," 1990). Produc tivity in the industry trailed the national average through 1982; however, since that year, productivity improvement in the industry has exceeded the national average (Council of Economic Advisers, 1990).
In the absence of a major reversal in trends, employment levels in the steel industry may be expected to, at best, 3remain flat during the remainder of the 1990s. At worst, further declines could easily occur.
The human resource problem examined is the effect on the American steel industry of the unionization of labor in the industry. At the outset of this examination, it must be recog nized that the performance of the industry cannot be assessed solely within the context of the industry's relationship with organized labor. In fact, labor is no more than one of several major factors which contribute to steel industry performance, and it may not be the most significant of those factors. Thus, while it may be possible to state that high wages in the Ameri can steel industry contributed to its poor competitive perfor mance, high wage levels may not be singled out as the sole cause of the industry's competitive decline. With mismanage ment, a failure to reinvest (at an optimal level) profits in productive capacity improvements, a poorly thought out and implemented American industrial policy, inconsistent fiscal and economic policy, and other factors all contributing to the decline in competitiveness of ...