The public actions and words in the nation's steel capital last week suggested that another labor crisis is comingbut the behind-the-scenes atmosphere did not. By a unanimous vote of its 163-member Wage Policy Committee, the United Steelworkers served notice that it would strike if a new contract is not signed by Sept. 1. Steelworkers' President I. W. (for Iorworth Wilbur) Abel called the industry's current bargaining stance "unrealistic" and "indefensible."
The industry's veteran chief negotiator, U.S. Steel Vice President R. Conrad Cooper, condemned the union's "tired old tactics." But the antagonists did not have that oldtime fervor and invective.
The strike...
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