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The main ingredients of blue collar anger have combined and erupted in the crucible of Detroit. Determined to catch up with inflation, 400,000 G.M. workers are on strike. They demand that their hourly wages, which now average $4.05, be raised by 61.5¢ in the first year of a three-year contract (26¢ of it in deferred cost-of-living allowances), and they want additional increases if strong inflation continues. They are also in revolt against the numbing prospect of spending all their years until old age on the assembly lines. The central issue is a demand for "30 and out": retirement at any age after 30 years of service, on a pension of $500 a month. The walkout is costing the economy $1 billion a week and so far has led to layoffs of more than 50,000 other workers in industries that supply or service G.M.
General Motors, which last week reported its alltime high loss of $77 million in the third quarter and could lose up to $1 billion in this quarter, sees its role in the strike as a Horatio at the bridge, holding fast against the onslaught of inflationary demands. The company has offered the men "58 and out," or retirement on a $500-a-month pension at age 58. G.M. argues that it cannot afford to lose too many of its most experienced hands. Fully 42,000 workers have 25 years or more of service. The public interest and the needs of the economy and of society, argues management, require that everyone work until close to the accepted retirement age of 60 to 65.
The Ultimate Weapon
If the G.M. stoppage continues into December, the entire economy could show a decline for the year's fourth quarter. In the event that the strike drags on beyond Christmas, that would signal an impasse so acute that the workers would probably stay out until February. But last week the company and the union went into what they called "intensive" bargaining and announced a news blackout—a traditional hint that rapid progress is being made. Any settlement is bound to exceed General Motors' final pre-strike offer of a 9.8% increase for the first year of a three-year contract, and will be inflationary. It will also set a target for other unions to match or exceed. Next year the steel industry will open wage talks, and a strike is widely expected when contracts expire Aug. 1.