LABOR: Strike at Westinghouse

Westinghouse Electric Corp., which has been plagued by a multitude of problems, last week faced a new one: 45,560 employees, members of the C.I.O. International Union of Electrical Workers, walked out, idling 10,000 other workers and shutting down roughly half of the company's production. Main points in Westinghouse's first major strike in nine years:

¶Westinghouse asked for a five-year labor contract, while the union did not want to be tied down for that long. Said Robert D. Blasier, the company's industrial-relations vice president: "Westinghouse cannot continue to face periodic walkouts and threats while its major competitor [General Electric, which got a five-year pact from I.U.E. in August] enjoys a long period of labor peace."

¶Westinghouse offered a complex wage plan amounting to a minimum 23½¢-an-hour increase spread over five years, said that this, together with various other benefits, matched the raise given recently by G.E. The G.E. agreement, replied Union President James B. Carey, gives workers total gains of 18¼¢ an hour in the first year, compared with 10¢ to 11¢ in the Westinghouse proposal.

¶The union protested Westinghouse's productivity studies of men at work (the issue caused a three-day strike last month), wanted some kind of union control over such studies.