Business: Breakoff in Steel

“We are going home. This farcical filibuster has ended.” So said United Steelworkers’ President David J. McDonald last week as he and his aides broke off Manhattan negotiations with management on the eleven-week-old steel strike, left for Pittsburgh. Said McDonald: “The industry has not offered one cent. You cannot bargain with a stone wall.”

Replied R. Conrad Cooper, chief negotiator for management: “The steelworkers’ union has not deviated from its insistence that the companies grant increases in wages and benefits of inflationary proportions. The steel companies cannot yield to such demands.”

The break came as shortages were putting heavy pressure on management. In Peoria, Caterpillar (tractors and earth-moving equipment) announced layoffs of 11,500 men at three Illinois plants and in San Leandro, Calif. In General Motors’ parts plants, there were widespread layoffs. The corporation also said that it will have to begin closing many assembly plants, starting with Chevrolet the first of October, although it thought it could keep some Chevy plants running to Nov. 1. Chrysler said it will start shutting down in November. Even Ford, which makes 40% of its steel at the integrated Rouge plant, expects to be hit by early December. This week at his press conference President Eisenhower said he was “getting sick and tired of the apparent impasse.” Free collective bargaining, added Ike, “the logical recourse of a free people in settling industrial disputes, has apparently broken down.” The President strongly suggested that the Administration would now step in if labor and management failed to reach agreement.