STEEL: Small Cost

Following the lead of U.S. Steel Corp., most of the other steel companies last week upped prices an average of $4 a ton, or 4%. The rise was to compensate for higher costs, including the steelworkers’ new pension program. Bethlehem Steel Co. was the first of the big steelmakers to tell just how much its new pensions would cost. Chairman Eugene G. Grace said: “Only a relatively small percentage of employees will . . . receive pensions, because the great majority of them either die or otherwise terminate their employment before . . . pensionable age.”

Because Bethlehem has been paying pensions, it will have to pay out only an additional $2,500,000 a year during the first five years of the new system’s operation, said Grace. The total cost will be between $7,500,000 and $10 million a year. In addition, for one year, there will be an added expense of about $10 million to provide for employees coming under the plan for the first time. The amounts of pensions paid, said Grace, “are small when compared with the total payroll of . . . approximately $490 million.”