WAGES & SALARIES: Jingle Bells

Are Christmas bonuses to employees subject to collective bargaining? Yes, ruled the National Labor Relations Board last week, ordering Niles-Bement-Pond Co., of West Hartford, Conn., to bonus-bargain with a local of the C.I.O. United Automobile Workers. The company, which has paid a bonus for twelve years, had cut the total from $108,000 in 1949 to $40,000 in 1950, when it started a new and more expensive pension plan.

Said NLRB's majority opinion: "The issue this case is whether the bonus . . . was a gift, as the company argues, or part of 'wages' within the meaning of the [Taft-Hartley] Act ... Although we ... believe in the Christmas spirit, we agree ... that the bonus constituted an integral part of the company's wage structure." Humphed dissenting Board Member Abe Murdock, onetime 100% New Dealer from Utah: "A genuine Christmas gift has no place on the bargaining table."