STATE OF BUSINESS: First Big Strike

To A.F.L.-C.I.O. strategists, the aircraft industry, fat with Government contracts, seemed the perfect target in the fight for a new round of wage increases (TIME, Feb. 2). They figured that the big planemakers, with the biggest backlogs in their history on the books, could easily pass along the extra wage cost. Last week the target was hit. In the first big strike of the year 12,000 members of the International Association of Machinists walked out of the Republic Aviation plant at Farmingdale, N.Y., and three smaller branches (including a guided missile plant). The...