LABOR: The Businessman

Pink-cheeked and cold-eyed, Teamster Chieftain Dave Beck is one labor leader who not only admires the U.S. Big Businessman but considers himself a self-made if not yet fully recognized member of their lodge—he is proud of having made a fortune as a capitalist himself.

When a group of 200 Harvard Business School graduates asked him to address them at Pasadena's high-hat Huntington Hotel last week, Beck (perhaps not knowing they had first failed to get eleven less controversial capitalists, among them Studebaker's Paul Hoffman and Lockheed's Robert Gross) was proud and happy to oblige. "I contend," said Beck, "that we are in a very serious recession. Ten weeks ago, I stated that the auto industry was in a terrible condition. Everybody said I was a prophet of gloom. But about three weeks later the Wall Street Journal came out with an article about the trouble the auto industry was having. What is the sense of closing our eyes to the facts? You can't take something out of the bucket unless it's in the bucket.

"Labor is a human equation but the handling of labor unions is a business, a big business. I've got 32 million dollars in my treasury. As a businessman, I can see we're going into a severe recession . . . and I think business should call us in to discuss it." He did not blink when he was asked: "Mr. Beck, in view of this recession you speak about, wouldn't it be unwise for your men to ask for more money?" Said Businessman Beck: "Since I firmly believe we are in a recession, I am cautioning the members of this international union to study very carefully before they shock industry with demands for an increase in the pay structure."