The quest for the ‘just wage’ is perennial, but the concept has eluded satisfactory definition. Despite its imprecision the notion has played a key role in the determination of wages in Australia. The continuous adjustments of employees’ wages indicate that, in matters of remuneration, there is little agreement on the ‘value’ of a person’s work. This disagreement alerts us to the many difficulties involved in the setting of ‘just’ wages. This monograph deals with relatively recent development in this aspect of industrial relations, namely, the introduction of the comparable-worth method of wage setting.
