National Affairs: Art of Negotiation II

After a mollifying and gratifying gesture from the U.A.W. last week, Henry Ford II came back with one of his own.

The union's Richard Leonard, to the surprise of almost everybody, answered Ford's demand for security against wildcat strikes (TIME, Nov. 26) with a counterproposal: any union work-stopper would be fined $3 a day ($5 for a second offense), provided similar penalties were imposed on company chieftains who deliberately provoked a stoppage.

For this sweetly reasonable gesture, the company thought the union was "certainly to be commended." But it went on to suggest that settlement of general wage increases be postponed until production volume, costs and profits were known, until company and union had probed their "joint ability to increase the productivity of employes . . . and our ability to get into full production." The company hoped that Leonard would approach the production problem with the same "constructive thought" he had given to work stoppages.

Then young Henry Ford made an unusual gesture of his own. He apologized to the U.S. public for falling 50,000 cars short of the 80,000 he had promised to make by Christmas. But he exonerated Ford employes of blame, put it instead on parts suppliers, hampered by price ceilings or by labor troubles of their own.

Negotiations continued amiably. Detroit dopesters believed that a new Ford contract, with a compromise wage boost, was on the way.