WAGE 1NEXATION IN INDIA 69 ever increasing wages have strengthened the bargaining capacity of the working class, reducing thereby its efficiency, and (iii) prevention of the fall in real value ofmon^y wages through periodic upward adjustments of dearness allowance has in recent years reduced strikes and, thus, the freedom that the employers could have had in 'hiriag, firing and lay-offs'. In spite of such reactionary outbursts, unsupported by objective facts, the book brings together in one place the different practices followed for wage fixing in the econoAny and serves as a useful reference to those who like to know the service conditions of employees in different sectors. Setting aside the conventional introduction and conclusion, the book is organised in the following order : a textual reproduction of the theoretical writings on indexation of wages; experiences of indexation in Western capitalist economies; the methods, trend and future wage-burdens of India's private corporate sector, governments at the centre and the states, and the public sector undertaking.; and lastly, the biases involved in the official consumer price index numbers which are used for indexing wages and salaries. Though the idea of indexation, i.e., a formally evolved mechanism for automatic linking of wages, loans and other monetary payments with an index of prices, could be traced back to the writings of Jevons, Marshall, Pigou and even Keynes, it was Milton Friedman who, in recent times, vigorously advocated the use of indexation or "escalator clauses" to deal with the inflationary upsurge in prices. Friedman argued that controlling the rate of growth of money supply, which is essential for easing inflation, being politically difficult for governments, as it leads to a reduction in their revenue and, therefore, to cutting down of public expenditure or to raising of taxation, the only politically feasible way out for ending inflation is the use of indexation or ^escalator clauses' ; that is, when inflation actually goes up the escalators' should be used to proportionately raise all prices, wages and interest rates so that nobody loses from the rigours of inflation. In actual practice, however, this does not work as envisaged. Some of the military regimes of Latin America which followed Milton Fried-man's advice had to face an unprecedented upsurge in prices, reminiscent of the inflation in post-war Germany, causing a drastic reduction in real wages, shift in income and wealth from labour to capital and from smaller to bigger capital, impoverishment of the workers despite rising money wages, flight of capital out of the country in the form of growing share of profits to foreign investors, and so on1. This aspect of indexation is not the preoccupation of the authors. Therefore the widely discussed recommendations of a group of economists in the early seventies, known as SEMIBOMBLA, for the adoption of a Friedman-type "escalator clause" to deal with India's inflation of that time do not find mention in the book. The Main Issue The 'burning' problem that the book addresses itself to is whether