MY ASSIGNMENT is to discuss the performance of collective bargaining in the nonagricultural sectors of the economy, leaving to the other speakers and to the audience the inferences if any to be drawn for -farmers. A brief appraisal of collective bargaining must necessarily be inadequate, since bargaining relationships are so varied and so complex. I shall have to cut through the complexities and gloss over the variations to present what seem to be the central tendencies. The sale of labor services by a worker to an employer differs from most transactions in commodity markets because it usually takes place over long periods of time-even in a few instances over the whole working life of the employee. The employer-buyer or his representative is therefore engaged in a continuing personal relationship with the workerseller, and the bargain struck when the employee is hired must be continuously reappraised in the light of his performance or effort, which can vary from time to time. The presence of collective bargaining can alter any or all of the three main aspects of the work situation: the wage bargain, the effort bargain, and the personal relationship. Perhaps some analogy to these relationships can be found in certain commodity markets where the same buyer and seller deal with one another over long periods, but even here the personal contacts are relatively brief. In discussing collective bargaining, I shall touch on its effect on all three aspects of the work situation, starting with wages and ending with noneconomic factors. This order is such that I begin with the most negative elements of my appraisal, and end with the most positive. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that in 1961 approximately 150,000 separate collective bargaining agreements were in force in the United States. Of these, 1,733 major agreements, each accounting for 1,000 or more employees, covered 8.3 million workers, or about half of total union membership. The 138 contracts covering 10,000 or more employees accounted for a total of 4.4 million employees. About onethird of the major agreements were multi-employer agreements, which are typical of situations where many competing employers, including small ones, deal with the same union. Most employers covered by bargaining agreements fall within the scope of the National Labor Relations Act, and therefore are required by law to bargain with organizations representing the majority of the employees in a bargaining unit. As is well-known, the coverage of collective bargaining is much higher