LABOR: The Break?

Within a few hours one day last week the whole labor picture changed.

> Ford Motor Co., leading the way, agreed to sign up with its 100,000 United Auto Workers at an 18¢-per-hour wage increase (see BUSINESS).

> Chrysler, following suit, put its name to a contract calling for an 18½¢-an-hour increase for its 48,000 production employes.

> The nation’s railroads and 18 railroad unions (all except the Trainmen and Locomotive Engineers) agreed to submit their wage dispute to arbitration, the findings to be binding on both parties.

> The C.I.O. Packinghouse Workers went back into the Government-seized plants (see below).

Was, this the big break everyone was looking for?

In Washington, where there is a continual bull market in optimism, feeling ran high. But Washington had had little to do with it. The President and his labor advisers had shot their bolt. The labor picture had been brightened not by White House action but by two overtures by industry (Ford and Chrysler), a mollifying gesture by a union (the Packinghouse Workers) and an agreement reached with but routine Government intervention (the railroad case). Decisive moves to clear up the picture completely would likewise have to be initiated by industry and labor.

Next Moves. As such moves got under way this week much of the oratory, demagoguery and threats of the past few months suddenly seemed hollow and beside the point.

The lie had been given to labor’s claim that it was fighting a sinister capitalist plot to destroy unions and break up the American system. Labor’s charge that industry could and would sit on its haunches all year taking its profit from the “carryback” provisions of the tax law, was also shaken.

The whole ideological battle, in which Walter Reuther had fired the opening shots, had subsided, at least temporarily. The day after Ford and Chrysler signed with U.A.W., even Walter Reuther spoke in strangely subdued tones. Gone were his cries of “let’s see the books” and “ability to pay.” He now was content to get his wage raise of 19½¢ an hour and go back to work.

The plain fact was that the people everywhere, not caring much who got what, sensing that both higher wages and higher prices were in the air, wanted labor and industry to get back into production on almost any terms. This mood was reflected by the people’s representatives in Congress, where U.A.W.’s R. J. Thomas and G.M.’s Charles Wilson were both roundly mussed up at a hearing by Senators Morse and Taft, impatient of stubbornness on both sides.

Charlie Wilson was still fighting an ideological battle, contending the U.A.W. was out to destroy free enterprise. But the battle had turned into a simple haggle over prices and wages, and Mr. Wilson was a very lonely man indeed. As long as the steel strike remained in force he could, if he wanted, sit out his own strike without fear of being dangerously outstripped by Ford and Chrysler. But once the steel strike was settled, G.M. would have to get back to work or watch its competitors take over the market.

In steel, the next move was up to Ben Fairless. This week he again trudged to Washington, along with other steel executives, to confer with the President’s labor and reconversion advisers. Both Phil Murray and Harry Truman stood fast on an 18½¢-an-hour wage increase. But dickering over a price increase to make up for the inevitable wage rise could go on.

A week before the steel strike Reconversion Boss Snyder had forced OPA Boss Bowles to give Ben Fairless a $4-per-ton increase. Another $1 or so might be in the cards. The real battle against Inflation would have to be fought some other day.