Shared Victory

Despite intense Government pressure, negotiators for General Electric and eleven A.F.L.-C.I.O. unions seemed hopelessly deadlocked. Then, with only 60 hours to go before 125,000 workers were scheduled to strike, G.E. raised its offer by a tiny amount; though the raise fell far short of their demands, union leaders seized it rather than risk an 80-day Taft-Hartley-Act injunction against the walkout.

General Electric had already proposed pay raises of nearly 5% in each of the next three years, plus fringe benefits and a cost-of-living escalator clause that might add as much as 3%. But that was not enough for the union coalition led by the 79,400-member International Union of Electrical Workers and its new president, Paul Jennings, who was negotiating his first big contract. Jennings demanded reduction of regional wage differentials, arbitration of all contract grievances and a huge, 7% cost-of-living escalator. In the settlement -- still subject at week's end to approval by the I.U.E.'s conference board -- the union surrendered on the first two points, agreed to a 3 1/2% escalator. In all, the three-year contract will cost G.E. about 5 3/4% a year in higher pay and fringe benefits.

Prestige on the Line. In past months Government spokesmen have denounced settlements of that size as being inflationary. But this time the Administration seemed downright pleased -- as well it might, since it had placed its own prestige squarely on the line.

Only personal intervention by President Johnson on Oct. 2 had persuaded the unions to postpone the strike for two weeks. At that time, the President named a mediation panel whose members included Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Labor Secretary Willard Wirtz and Commerce Secretary John Connor. Summoning the labor-management negotiators to Washington, McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff lectured them about G.E.'s "vital importance to national defense." Mc Namara noted that the U.S. depends on General Electric to supply, among many things, the engines for the nation's best fighter plane, the F-4 Phantom.

McNamara's appeal did not seem to move either side at the time. Said Jennings: "I don't buy the argument at all." But the negotiators then moved to a windowless room in the basement of the Labor Department building where, under the anxious eye of Administration mediators, they finally hammered out their agreement. For months, labor-management analysts had been saying that the G.E. contract would set the pattern for more than 30 major industries over the next year. When last week's settlement was reached, it was difficult to see how it could set any sort of pattern. In fact, it was hard to tell who won.

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