LABOR: Escalator Going Up

A million members of the United Auto Workers Union (C.I.O.) got on their escalator last week and rode up to another 1¢-an-hour increase in pay. A new rise in the Bureau of Labor Statistics cost-of-living index called for an automatic increase which will add $20 million a year to the automobile industry's wage bill. On Oct. 15, the BLS index stood at a record-high 187.8 (the 1935-39 average is 100), an increase of .7% since Sept. 15. The automatic rise will add to the pressure for another round of wage increases in all industries which, in turn, will encourage further price inflation.

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In its first major enforcement case, the Wage Stabilization Board last week accused an employer of paying employees too much. The J. D. Hedin Construction Co. of Washington was charged with paying bricklayers $3 an hour, 25¢ more than the WSB maximum, to work on a new veterans' hospital at Ann Arbor, Mich. Said Ann Arbor contractors: the only way to get bricklayers is to pay $3, which is the new WSB-approved maximum in Detroit, 26 miles away.