This book examines in detail the impact of tiered compensation structures on unions, employers, and employees. (Tiered compensation structures are defined as pay systems in which employees who start working or change jobs in a company after a certain date receive a lower rate of pay than employees who were doing the same or similar jobs before that date.) Chapters 1 and 2 introduce tiers and describe their role in the United States industrial relations system. Chapter 3 includes a detailed discussion of labor-management relations in the retail food industry and the competitive pressures that led to the implementation of tiers. Chapter 4 discusses the historical and environmental factors that led to the implementation and maintenance of tiers at Mayway Food Market Company. Employees at the Mayway Company (a fictitious name) were surveyed. Chapter 5 describes the sample and the methodology used in the survey. Both Chapter 6 (which examines the research questions) and chapter 7 (which examines the hypotheses) concern the perceptions of rank-and-file employees at Mayway and build upon the previous research and literature on tiers. The final chapter advances five propositions that appear generalizable to other mature tiered employment settings. It also examines the relative costs and benefits of maintaining tiers at Mayway and the generalizability of the Mayway experience and concludes with a perspective on the future of tiers. Appendices contain survey items and response formats, scales used, and a brief discussion of tiers and store productivity. A 153-item bibliography and an index conclude the volume. (KC)