National Affairs: Labor v. Management

Walter Philip Reuther, 49, the redheaded boss of the 1,500,000 United Automobile Workers and vice president of the 15-million-man A.F.L.-C.I.O., remained utterly aloof from the tawdry discourse about Jimmy Hoffa and Johnny Dio going on in Washington. Instead, the U.A.W.’s Reuther chose to initiate a new public debate, not about labor corruption, but about economics. Aware of public concern about inflation, Reuther astutely proposed that the big three automobile makers cut prices on 1958 models by $100 or more below 1957 prices, whereupon his union would give “full consideration” to lower company earnings in preparing wage demands (TIME, Aug. 26).

The automakers were unanimous in their answer. “Another publicity maneuver,” shot back General Motors Corp. President Harlow H. Curtice. Retorted Chrysler Corp. President Lester Lum Colbert: “You are proposing that management abdicate its responsibilities—and that months after sustaining a drastically reduced income, a company would go before the U.A.W. or before a three-man panel to attempt to justify its need for partial relief.” Henry Ford II: “The rapid increases in wages of automobile workers over the past ten years, which were negotiated under the duress of your demands, have unquestionably contributed to inflation. Thus, having poured gasoline on the fires . . . you now stand by and tell us how to fight the blaze. In return, you say you will consider using less gasoline next time—or maybe only kerosene.”

Net result of the exchange: a spate of publicity for Walter Reuther and his odd theory that U.S. private enterprise should be limited by some kind of labor review and control. As Walter Reuther must have realized all along, neither the proposal nor the discussion made any real contribution to the critical struggle against inflation.