STEEL: An Industrial Revolution

The C.I.O. Steelworkers had already had their say on wages and pensions before Harry Truman’s steel fact-finding board. In Manhattan’s federal court house last week, it was management’s turn. Up before the three-man board stood Inland Steel Co.’s tall, square-jawed President Clarence B. Randall. In crisp words he made the steelmen’s case against the theory of wage-fixing by government. Said he:

“When the President announced the formation of this board he was in fact announcing an industrial revolution in America. By doing so he has . . . proclaimed that wages shall be fixed by the Government. This step is always the first one taken by those who set out to establish a socialist or corporative state. The fixing of profits comes next, and then when incentive is killed and production falls, the final step of nationalization follows.

“It is now quite clear that at no time did [the Steelworkers] actually intend to come to an agreement with [Inland]. We were but an insignificant part in the . . . global strategy by which the establishment of this board was to be forced upon the Government. The wage demand which was presented to you gentlemen was never brought to our bargaining table … It was pensions the union asked . . . We made an offer . . . We were confident that our employees liked that offer, but . . . the union required that it be rejected.

“So we find ourselves pleading our cause before strangers … It isn’t human to expect that in the few brief moments that we shall be before you you can understand our problems. Collective bargaining has been . . . repealed by the President. And if this union strategy works this time, collective bargaining will never come back.”