LABOR: Paralysis Deferred

A strike of the nation's 650,000 United Steelworkers (C.I.O.) seemed so inevitable that mills had begun banking their furnaces when the Wage Stabilization Board sat down in Washington one evening last week for a final, desperate attempt at mediation. At dawn, the chairman, Nathan P. Feinsinger, 49, a University of Wisconsin law professor, fainted from exhaustion. The board recessed until evening. At 9:30, just 74½ hours before the strike deadline, its twelve haggard members emerged with a majority recommendation.

Its terms, as Feinsinger explained them, would grant the union wage and fringe benefits, such as paid holidays, which would eventually cost the companies 26.1¢ per man-hour (present average hourly wage: $1.81). The union demands had totaled about 35¢. The labor members induced the public members to join with them in recommending a union shop.

The steelworkers' policy committee accepted the package with whoops of joy; they set a new strike deadline for April 8. The steel companies bitterly labeled the proposal "unfair and unreasonable." They reiterated their previous stand that "the best interests of the public would be served by no increase in wages [or] prices," and estimated that the proposal would boost the cost of a ton of steel by $12 a ton (present price: about $100).

That put the Government, and the public, squarely on the griddle. The Wage Stabilization Board's proposal seemed to be the only alternative to a crippling strike, but to support it would lead inevitably to more inflation. The other big unions waiting in the wings (e.g., John L. Lewis' miners) would insist on similar increases—and employers would insist on price increases to pay the wages.

At week's end, President Truman called Mobilization Boss Charles E. Wilson down to Key West to talk over the problem. The Government had some leeway; the steel industry was owed a price increase, of perhaps $2 a ton, under the Capehart Amendment allowing for post-Korean cost rises up to July 1951. The question was how much higher to go above that. The steel companies were scheduled this week to resume direct negotiations with the union, broken off in December. But the talks would probably just mark time until Truman and Wilson decided how big the steel price increase should be.