Payment Deferred

What is a work day? When it passed the Wages & Hours Act in 1938, Congress neglected to say. So the Supreme Court last June did the job for Congress—and thereby made U.S: industry liable for enormous sums in back pay, portal-to-portal (TIME, Dec. 16).

By last week, labor unions had filed suits demanding the whopping sum of $1,300,000,000. The suits came so fast that newspapers ran lists of companies sued in long columns, like disaster victims—which they well might be. The unions sued Bethlehem Steel for $200,000,000, Curtis-Wright for $29,000,000, National Biscuit Co. for $50,000,000, and prepared to sue the...