The miners, with an average pay of over $55,000 a year, are among the best-paid workers in Canada.

The highest-paid captains earn as much as $300,000 a year, placing them among the best-paid hourly workers in the nation, but the averages are less impressive.

Boeing said the new contract would make union members among the best-paid workers in the nation.

Nicolas Martinez Martinez, a senior power technician and one of the plant's best-paid workers, earns about 4,000 pesos a month, or roughly $3 an hour.

Joseph Loffer, leader of the best-paid workers in the world, pilots whose average salary topped $30,000 a year, awoke, presumably to go downstairs to start the coffee.

Its best-paid workers earn only $13 an hour, with nothing for sick days.

But Mr. Kim denounced the walkouts as the selfish acts of some of the best-paid workers in a society in which average wages are $10,000 a year.

It was during this time that the auto and steel unions, in competition with each other, extracted wages that made their members among the best-paid industrial workers in the world.

And nurses are among a hospital's best-paid workers.

The best-paid workers in Belorussia were in the bristle industry.