National Affairs: Fine Words & Parsnips

There had been warnings of labor troubles. But last week’s explosion caught Washington unprepared. Even as Labor Secretary Lewis B. Schwellenbach worked over plans for a labor-management get-together, war burst out.

Giant Ford Motor Co., first manufacturer to get postwar cars rolling off the lines in any quantity, suddenly closed down. Sporadic strikes against Ford suppliers had crippled production, Ford said. The worst strike was at Kelsey-Hayes Wheel Co., where 4,500 workers had been out for three weeks in defiance of their own union leaders. In retaliation, Ford shut virtually all its plants, locked out 50,000 workers.

The powerful C.I.O. United Auto Workers were ready to fight. They already had plans for an assault on Detroit to wrest an industry-wide 30% wage increase. Fortified with a $4,000,000 war chest, they had named General Motors as the first target of their well-planned offense (see BUSINESS).

The combustible auto industry was not the only trouble spot. There were sporadic walkouts up & down the country. Where there were no strikes there were threats.

Management and labor, after four years of armed truce, had taken up their ancient weapons—the lockout and the strike—and once again were back at the old game of beating each other around the ears.

War or Peace? The Administration had apparently expected something more rational. Only last spring the C.I.O. News trumpeted: “IT’S INDUSTRIAL PEACE FOR THE POSTWAR PERIOD!” Labor Leaders Phil Murray and William Green and the Chamber of Commerce’s Eric Johnston had promised: “Management-labor unity . . . must be continued in the postwar. To this end, we dedicate our joint efforts.” But the National Association of Manufacturers had not joined in, and such fine words had buttered no parsnips.

Labor’s demands, as usual, were for shorter hours and higher pay. Labor wanted to work less, spread employment and get the equivalent of wartime pay. The cost of living, labor pointed out, is still up. Said Walter Reuther, the auto workers’ brain truster: full production, full employment and full distribution depend on keeping wages at their present level.

Management’s answer was the usual one: wages cannot go up without increasing costs. After that, either prices must go up or the profit system goes out the window Said Henry Ford II: “It’s difficult to admit that a company like Ford must be closed because labor insists on selfish policies when everyone’s economic future is at stake.”

Harry Truman flew back from a weekend in Independence, Mo., to try to straighten things out. He already had a hint—in the Senate Finance Committee’s rejection of his proposal to raise unemployment compensation to $25 a week for 26 weeks—of how basic was the conflict.