LABOR: Five out of Six

• Share

Do workers in U.S. steel mills want their union (membership: 1,250,000) to push for higher wages? Yes, of course, says the United Steelworkers' President David J. McDonald, getting ready to call a strike when present contracts run out in early summer. No, says doorbell-ringing Pollster Samuel Lubell, after interviewing steelworkers in ten cities around the U.S. "Of the steelworkers interviewed," reports Lubell this week for United Feature Syndicate, "five of every six are against further wage hikes."

Steelworkers and their wives, Lubell found, have sharply noted that price increases follow close behind wage increases. "Everything else goes up and you're no better off," said one worker. "Wage increases are as useless as fuzz on a frog," said another. Instead of higher wages, says Lubell, many steelworkers would prefer "additional fringe benefits, such as expanded hospitalization, paid-up insurance, and—the one demand with the strongest support—a lower retirement age with more generous pensions."

"But the really big concern that gnaws most steelworkers today," reports Lubell, "is the dread of unemployment." And with an economic sophistication that might surprise some of their union chieftains, many steelworkers see that "raising wages may mean less jobs," that higher costs in U.S. steel mills spur imports of foreign steel. Concludes Pollster Lubell: "Often it is asserted that labor leaders have little choice but to demand ever higher wages because of pressure from their own membership . . . My talks with steelworkers leave little doubt that currently the main pressures for 'more' are being generated by the union leaders and not the rank and file."