LABOR: One Sweet Note

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In the labor cacophony last week there was one sweetly reasonable note. The wage demands of some 1,000,000 railroad workers were settled peacefully after two months of negotiation without strikes, stoppages, or even the threat of a walkout.

The workers, members of 15 non-operating unions (clerks, signalmen, freight handlers, etc.), had asked for a 25¢-an-hour boost, retroactive to Dec. 1. The railroads met them half way with 12½, but wanted it retroactive only to March 1. The final agreement, engineered by Presidential Assistant John Steelman: 12½ retroactive to Feb. 1.

This peaceful ending did not affect the long dispute involving the operating unions (enginemen, firemen, "sick" switchmen, etc.), which for the past year has periodically blown up in strikes, threats, bitter recriminations, and is still as explosive as a powder keg.