Labor: The New Mood

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Growing Maturity. So fiery a unionist as United Auto Workers President Walter P. Reuther noted in St. Louis that "there seems to be a growing maturity and understanding in collective bargaining." Though Reuther's own union members have gone on a wildcat strike at Ford's Chicago plant and Shell Oil workers are involved in a bitter strike in Texas, the number of strikes has sharply declined in the past few years (see chart). One reason is the spread of "human relations" committees of union and management that work together on long-term studies of touchy labor problems. A committee has been working for months toward a steel accord, and similar ones have been set up with West Coast longshoremen, plumbers, auto workers and rubber workers. George Meany favors more of such continuing committees. "It doesn't make sense." he says, "to have a relationship with an employer only when you're going to bargain with him. You don't have a strike when you have constant contact."