CORPORATE BOOKS must now be opened to unions when employers claim inability to pay as the basis for refusing wage increases. The NLRB, in a test case brought by the A.F.L. Iron Workers against North Carolina's Truitt Manufacturing Co., ruled that an employer must open the books even though the profit disclosure hurts his competitive position.

GAMBLING HOUSES in Nevada will rack up the biggest winnings in history for 1954, predicts the State Tax Commission, which gets a 2% tax on gross winnings. Gamblers' estimated take: $90 million.

COLORED STRIPES on taxpayers' envelopes, which the Bureau of Internal Revenue hoped would make it easier for clerks to classify returns, will be discontinued after this year. The red and yellow stripes, which reveal whether a person makes less (red) or more (yellow) than $10,000 a year, brought a flood of protests from privacy-conscious taxpayers.

ROBERT R. YOUNG, who pulled his Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad out of the Association of American Railroads in 1946, has finally made his peace with the trade group. Young will keep his New York Central in the association. The A.A.R. has elected Central President Alfred E. Perlman to its board. Young's old C. & O. will also return to the A.A.R.

ACTION (The American Council to Improve Our Neighborhoods) will soon launch a nationwide campaign to clean out slums. The new, nonprofit organization, formed by groups representing some 100 million people, estimates that of 50 million U.S. homes 35 million need repairs, while another 8,000,000 are rundown areas that can be classed as slums.

C.I.O. AUTO WORKERS Union is planning to build up a $25 million strike kitty in readiness for negotiating with the auto industry next spring over a guaranteed annual wage. The U.A.W., whose strike fund is now $9,000,000, hopes to boost it by raising dues from $2.50 per month to $7.50 per month for three months.

RAILROAD MERGER between the Louisville & Nashville Railroad and the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway will result in the South's second biggest road (5,780 miles of track), just behind the Southern Railway. Reason for the merger: competition from trucks, buses, and planes has cut the roads' revenues.

INDIAN OIL REFINERY, the biggest single U.S. investment in India, was opened in Bombay last week by Standard-Vacuum Oil Co. Costing $32 million, the new refinery will produce some 25,000 bbls. a day, about one-third of India's petroleum needs.

COLOR TV SETS are selling so poorly that Admiral Corp. Vice President John B. Huarisa does not think color will be a factor in the industry "for several years to come."

SHIP TRADE-IN program will get another big boost from Maritime Administrator Louis Rothschild. In addition to trading in tankers (TIME, Nov. 8), Rothschild will now also let shipowners trade in their dry cargo vessels to the reserve fleet, give them a big allowance to be used for building newer and faster ships.

EASIER OVERSEAS CREDIT is being planned by the Chase National Bank to help U.S. businessmen compete with foreign companies, whose governments often underwrite long-term payments. Chase's plan is to form a huge credit pool called Foreign Finance Co. to minimize the risk to any one company. Under the plan, exporters would only collect a 20-25% down payment from foreign buyers; the remaining 75-80% would be financed jointly by the company itself, the Export-Import Bank and the new Foreign Finance Co.

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