Sweethearts on Parade

Though he is a plumber by trade, AFL-CIO President George Meany becomes a master stagehand when he sets up an appearance by President Nixon before the nation's labor leaders. Late in 1971, when union bosses were complaining that wage-price controls were rigged against workers, Meany personally wet-blanketed the President; he even forbade the union orchestra to play Ruffles and Flourishes when Nixon arrived at the AFL-CIO convention. But a rapprochement began when Meany turned benevolently neutral in last year's election. Last week, if music had been called for when Nixon addressed a closed-door session of the AFL-CIO executive council in Bal Harbour, Fla., it would have had to be Let Me Call You Sweetheart. Meany and Nixon paraded arm in arm out of the meeting and past applauding union officials. Said Meany of Nixon's talk: "I thought he done very well."

So, apparently, had Meany. This week the labor-management advisory committee to the Cost of Living Council, the agency that administers Phase III, is expected to replace the old 5.5% guideline for negotiated wage increases with a much more flexible standard. Instead of hewing to any numerical guideline, Phase III labor contracts would then be allowed to reflect the current rate at which the cost of living is rising, how much productivity has increased and even the profit level of the industry involved.

The new standard, which Nixon must have known was coming, obviously risks giving a new spin to the destructive wage-price spiral. United Rubber Workers President Peter Bommarito, who will be negotiating several important contracts later this year, told colleagues in Florida that he plans to shoot for a 10% pay raise in the first year of each new pact. An implied tie between wage increases and the cost of living would almost surely prompt union negotiators to press for extra-high wage boosts, since the Government's consumer price index has lately taken some big jumps. In January it rose by a distressing .5% almost entirely because retail food prices took their wildest leap on record--an increase of 2.3% in a single month.

Even so, Nixon may well have been acceding not only to Meany's wishes, but also to those of COLC Chairman John T. Dunlop. As head of a special Government council organized in 1971 to cool off wage inflation in the construction industry, Dunlop deliberately shunned any "one number" in reviewing pay settlements, arguing that equity varies widely from contract to contract. Dunlop's success with that philosophy was impressive: average construction wage hikes dropped from a ruinous 18% annually in 1970 to a moderate 5.7% last year.

Nixon's appearance at the AFL-CIO meeting and the new flexibility in wages were only the two freshest roses tossed by the White House lately in labor's path. Meany was respectfully consulted on both Dunlop's appointment and that of Peter Brennan, a New York City hardhat leader who became the first union man to head the Labor Department in almost 20 years. The President also took the extraordinary step of inviting Meany to submit his personal nominees for several top-ranking jobs in the Housing and Urban Development, Commerce and Defense departments. Finally, Nixon promised to do what he can to protect industries that are losing jobs because of foreign competition.

What did Nixon get in return? For one thing, he seems to have diluted labor support for the blatantly protectionist Burke-Hartke bill. Meany pronounced "attractive" a proposed Nixon bill that would instead give the President discretionary power to raise tar iffs against nations that are thought to discriminate against U.S. goods. Also, labor leaders pledged to be "cooperative" about keeping any strikes this year to a minimum. Nixon has taken great pride in recent labor peace, and puts a high priority on keeping the now-humming economy from developing a case of 1973 strike sputters.

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