Still Rolling

WAGES & SALARIES

Onward rolled the portal-to-portal snowball. By last week labor unions had filed suits for retroactive pay under the portal principle (TIME, Dec. 16 et seq.) to the staggering total of $3 billion.

To stop the snowball, Michigan Republican Clare E. Hoffman rose up in the new Congress and introduced legislation which would: 1) define the work week as consisting only of time actually spent in productive work; and 2) through retroactive provisions, throw all portal suits out of court. Few experts thought it would be that easy, or that the retroactive provisions would be constitutional. But other bills were being readied for the congressional hopper, in a frantic attempt to slam the door on portal pay. One of them would levy a 100% windfall tax on retroactive portal payments.