Bull Session

In Miami last week, Secretary of Labor James P. Mitchell tried a bold experiment. He had a speaking engagement at the C.I.O. International Union of Electrical Workers' convention, and such occasions, he knew from experience, were likely to be routine and cause little excitement. As a moderate spokesman of labor in a businessman's administration, Mitchell had no prepared pyrotechnics for dazzling the delegates. And besides, he was intensely interested in learning what was on the workingmen's minds. So he decided to skip the speech and present himself as a target for all questioners.

It was a brave and highly successful performance. For upwards of an hour, the 700 sport-shirted union leaders pelted questions at him and Mitchell affably fielded them back. The Secretary's responses drew both boos and cheers from his audience, but in the end, the electrical workers gave Mitchell a roaring, standing ovation that indicated that, although they have doubts about the Republicans, they at least admire and respect Republican Jim Mitchell. Excerpts from the tape recording:

Delegate Frank Canada, Local 1199 (Chicago): I would like to ask Mr. Mitchell what the Republican Party or himself did. They put in a movement for the excess-profits tax for the manufacturers, which in our shops saved them $200,000 in this last year. Did they do anything for the working people? Have they ever done anything for a union member . . . ?

Mitchell: That is a question I am very happy to answer . . . I refer you particularly to the Social Security Act, which has increased the number of people covered by social security by some 10 million . . . I refer you to the President's comment in his economic message that the states of this Union should review the adequacy of benefits of unemployment compensation . . . In addition to that, as Secretary of Labor, I have written to the governors of every state, urging them to look to the adequacy of their unemployment-compensation benefits . . . I refer you to the housing program, which adds some 35,000 additional units, which helps the working men and women of this country . . . I refer you to the federal road-building program which was passed by this Congress . . . Our program has been directed at the working people of this country to the fullest extent that it is conceivable to have been done in one legislative session.

Delegate Albin Hartnett, Local 113 (Philadelphia): I read to you from the 1953 convention proceedings of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. In your address, you said: "We are working hard to find ways and means to bring about an increase in the present 75¢ an-hour minimum to a more realistic level, in keeping with the present-day wage levels. We do not know yet what that level should be. I do know that the C.I.O. platform calls for $1.25. Just as soon as we come up with our findings, the Department of Labor will make recommendations to the President for action by Congress this coming session." Congress has met; Congress has adjourned. How much longer must we wait for the study?