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A Problem to Face. What the new Labor Secretary had to deal with was a problem in emotional economics, and he had no sound policy to guide him. The unions, now grown to a total membership of 14,500,000, were in no mood to slide back from the earning levels of the war years. Their methods of dealing with management had been developed to a science. Many of them had to demand wage increases and better working conditions to keep from losing their newly acquired membership; many of them, despite the efforts of top-level bosses, were unable to control rebellious and irresponsible locals.
With considerable backing from high Government places, they could (and did) argue that wages could be increased with out upping prices, that increased production efficiency would solve industry's and the public's price problems. This made utterly no economic sense to U.S. management, whose formula was that if wages go up, prices will go up, too. But management, knowing that the Government was running things, kept its head down for the most part, waited anxiously for Washington to state some kind of a policy.
Last week, one U.S. industrialist stuck his head up, and spoke his piece out loud. General Motors' usually reserved President Charles E. Wilson emphatically turned down the United Automobile Workers' demand for a 30% wage increase as "unreasonable and inflationary." He snapped: "While your union may have the power by coercion to close our plants and those of our suppliers, with or without the approval of a majority of the workmen, it is not clear that your union can or will live up to its agreements." The powerful U.A.W. branded this a "propaganda statement," coolly went on with preparations for a Government-approved strike vote Oct. 24. By the decision of U.A.W.'s strategists, G.M. would be the first motor-maker to be forced, by strike if necessary, to increase wages.
More Problems. Over & above such stalemates as this, Lew Schwellenbach had to deal with the constantly changing face of labor. The labor movement no longer had a single dominant force, like Gompers. Labor was now more highly developed and more sharply divided than ever before, represented by hundreds of interests, by dozens of leaders: the miners' scowling, independent John Lewis; C.I.O.'s thoughtful Phil Murray; A.F. of L.'s bland, dull William Green; the auto workers' alert young Walter Reuther; the longshoremen's burly Joe Ryan; the transport workers' belligerent Mike Quill; the oil workers' serious O. A. Knight; the telephone workers' clerklike Joseph Beirne; by bigshots and Joe Blows from New York to San Francisco.
Within such a variegated group, and with unions constantly fighting for position, strikes were called for many different reasons. An example: the telephone workers snarled up the nation's long-distance lines one day last week because an affiliated union had been ordered dissolved by the National Labor Relations Board, on the grounds that it was company-dominated; the workers struck to prove that they were free. Another: longshoremen struck, some because they were sick & tired of lifetime President ($20,000 a year) Joe Ryan, some because they thought no cargo sling should be loaded beyond 2,240 pounds.