Strategic bargaining with firm inventories

This paper characterizes how a firm's opportunity to sell from its stock of inventories affects the outcome of strategic wage negotiations with a union of workers. In equilibrium, the union and firm share the benefits from an immediate return to work less the costs of a strike of infinite duration. This outcome is equivalent to a Nash bargaining solution in which the threat points are the agents' expected payoffs should a strike last forever. We also demonstrate that for a given level of inventories, the wage increases when demand is high. Conversely, given demand, the wage falls as inventories rise.