Uneasy Peace

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Like widening ripples, the effects of U.S. Steel Corp.'s $25 million price cut last week splashed through the industry. One after another, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., Bethlehem Steel Corp. and Jones & Laughlin announced price cuts from $1 to $5 a ton, even though first-quarter profits were down. (Big Steel's were down to $33,957,341 v. $39,234,511 last year.) Republic Steel Corp., third biggest steelmaker, was studying prices, had not yet acted. In all, the nation's steel bill had been cut about $80 million a year, not quite what it had been boosted two months ago (TIME, March 1).

Would the cuts be passed on to consumers? There were no signs of it, especially in the auto industry, biggest steel user. The recent increase in freight rates had more than canceled out the savings in steel. So some automobile prices were still rising. (Last week the Ford Motor Co. upped the price of its new Mercury, a heavier car, by $315 to $420.)

Stone Wall. In turning down the C.I.O. steelworkers' demands for a third round of wage increases, the steelmakers had plenty of company. Last week several other major industries, including Chrysler, General Motors and General Electric, stood firm with the steelmen in refusing union third-round demands.

Management was determined to hold down wages, chiefly because it feared that it could no longer pass along such boosts to price-conscious consumers. Result: the third-round drive has made little progress to date. For the C.I.O., the hard-boiled meat-packers union had carried the ball—and run into a stone wall. After seven weeks of striking against Armour, Wilson, Swift and others, meat production was back up to 80% of normal.

Bulldozer? Last week in Wall Street, union labor took another walloping. The A.F.L.'s striking financial workers went back to work in the Stock Exchange for the same raises ($3 to $5 a week) they had been offered before they struck—and little else. In addition, 100 found themselves out of jobs; the Exchange, by stepping up efficiency during the strike, found they were no longer necessary.

Though slowed, the third round was far from stopped. The C.I.O.'s auto workers last week voted to strike at Chrysler May 12 and started taking a strike vote at General Motors' plants. The United Electrical Workers were threatening to strike General Electric, Westinghouse, and G.M.'s electrical division. Three railroad brotherhoods had called a strike for May 11 against 132 major railroads. And John L. Lewis notified the mine owners that after June 30 (when their contracts expire and the union may legally strike), he wants something better. It looked as if the showdown on the third round was at hand.