The New Refrain

The big bosses of Big Labor had evidently been studying the signs. They had read the election returns and had seen what happened to John L. Lewis. They had sent up a trial balloon (the Nathan report) for higher wages without higher prices, and seen it riddled with buckshot by industry's sharpshooters.

Thus, when C.I.O.'s three biggest bosses --the Steelworkers' Phil Murray, Auto Workers' Walter Reuther and Electrical Workers' Albert Fitzgerald--met in Pittsburgh last week to set a common bargaining policy, they exuded sweet reasonableness. Only a year ago, all three of them had gone out on defiant strike. Now the theme in Big Labor was peace--at almost any price.

Phil Murray stated the theme in his thick-carpeted, 15th-floor office, seated behind his glistening walnut desk. (Big Labor's offices are very like Big Business': the United Steelworkers of America have almost a million members.) Said Murray, the C.I.O. must apply the rule of reason to its demands. He devoutly hoped for a peaceful outcome next month.

Murray's Steelworkers and Fitzgerald's electrical workers decided to make no specific demand for a flat wage increase. But redheaded, aggressive Walter Reuther was already out on a limb; he had announced a demand for 23 1/2-c- more an hour for his auto workers.

Though less specific on the wage question, the Steelworkers wanted plenty, e.g.: "substantial" wage increases; union shop with checkoff; a guaranteed annual wage; portal-to-portal pay; a social insurance plan to be paid for by the industry; paid holidays. But the demands were only a basis for horse trading. Big Steel was believed willing to give wage hikes of 10-c- to 15-c- an hour. In his present mood, Phil Murray, who struck for four weeks last year and got 18-c-, would settle for that.

Murray was sure that his biggest unions could get contracts without strikes--"always, always without strikes." The words recurred like a refrain in everything he said. What went for the Steelworkers would go for the electrical workers and would have to go for the auto workers, too. As of last week, the outlook for high production in 1947 was good.

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