Meany the Meanie

The dispute had all the elements of a classic labor-management donnybrook. The workers' contract had expired months ago; bargaining was going nowhere. Finally the unions called an emergency meeting: the bosses were accused of unfair labor practices and a strike vote was scheduled. "Management," asserted one union firebrand, "is chicken to bargain in good faith."

All typical of contract negotiations that go on in hundreds of plants and offices across the U.S. every year. Except for one thing: this labor showdown happened to take place at the citadel of organized labor in the U.S., AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, where the management is none other than George Meany--Mr. Union himself.

The trouble began in October with the expiration of contracts that had covered the seven unions representing the AFL-CIO's office and organizing staffs, 550 employees in all. The AFL-CIO's headquarters staffers are fairly well paid --writers, for example, make what they might at Baltimore or Washington newspapers--but bargaining for new contracts got mired in the matter of extending cost of living clauses. As union leaders, AFL-CIO officials have adamantly insisted that American workers should have such clauses as protection against inflation. But as employers, staffers began to wonder, did AFL-CIO executives feel the same way?

Earlier this month the unions were stunned to discover that apparently they did not. A cost of living increase of 1 % that was due failed to show up in 1977's first paychecks. The local unit of the Newspaper Guild, which represents some 65 of the affected workers, called a quick meeting and won permission from the guild's Baltimore-Washington chapter to hold a strike vote last week.

Within hours management knuckled under and restored the pay boost. "Company" Spokesman Al Zack said it was all a mistake: the AFL-CIO's payroll department had not realized that the expired contracts required that all provisions, including the cost of living raises, be extended until a new agreement was initialed. Not all of the workers believed that explanation. Said one: "They wanted to kill the cost of living clause, in effect giving us a pay cut."

By week's end tempers were cooling. The union postponed its strike vote, and negotiations were proceeding smoothly. The AFL-CIO was determined to avoid a rerun of the embarrassing one-day walkout of part of its staff in 1970 (the issue then was wages). Yet tensions will persist within the AFL-CIO's walls --perhaps even after a new contract is signed. Complained one union chief: "This just goes to show that employers are the same everywhere."

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