Labor's Day

Last week C.I.O. had something to crow about. After a four-and-a-half-year campaign, every major auto manufacturer was now ClOrganized. In a National Labor Relations Board election at the Lincoln and River Rouge plants, some 80,000 Ford workers were given the chance to decide whether they wanted C.I.O. or A.F. of L. to represent them in collective bargaining. Result: only a little more than 2% voted for no union at all; nearly 70% voted for C.I.O.

"A magnificent victory for democracy," crowed Michael F. Widman Jr., who had led the C.I.O. drive. Growled Ford's Harry Bennett: "A great victory for the Communist Party, Governor Murray D. Van Wagoner and the NLRB."

Union leaders still had to negotiate a contract. They predicted that they might have to threaten a walkout before the Ford management would come to terms.

Ford Attorney I. A. Capizzi sourly hinted as much: "Every detail of this law [the NLRA] is un-American . . . tyrannical,' and Benjamin Franklin said that 'rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.'" Ford might be bagged, but he was not yet tied hand & foot.

Yet C.I.O. was happy. In all its history, organized labor in the U.S. had never been stronger. A.F. of L. was happy too. Phenomenal gains marked the last twelve months:

P: A.F. of L. reported an enrollment of 750,000 new members, claimed a total membership of more than five million. C.I.O. leaders said they had added 1,000,000 new dues-paying members, boosting total enrollment to five million, an all-time high.

P: C.I.O. steelworkers alone reported a mushroom growth of 100,000 new members, pointed to 200 new contracts (total: 700), a general pay increase throughout the industry of 10-c- an hour.

P: A.F. of L. claimed that wide pay increases it had won ranged from five to 40% (some millinery workers in Holyoke, Mass.). C.I.O. said pay increases it had won since Jan. 1 in packing houses, coal, steel, auto, electrical, aluminum, rubber (more than $1,000,000 at U.S. Rubber Co. alone), garment ($18,000,000), shipbuilding and other industries had added half a billion dollars annually to the country's wages. Government figures on average weekly earnings in the durable-goods industries were $33.50, up from $28.90 twelve months ago. In the nondurable manufacturing industries: $23.63, up from $21.86.

P: C.I.O. had marched into the aircraft industry, signed first contracts with Ryan, North American, Consolidated, Vultee.

After years of stubborn rebuff, C.I.O. had succeeded in getting a signed contract in a Bethlehem Steel plant (through its affiliated Industrial Union of Marine & Shipbuilding Workers). It had signed up Westinghouse for the first time on a nationwide basis. Where would labor, angrily watched by its enemies, anxiously watched by its friends, head during the next few months? On good industrial relations depended the defense program. Labor still maintained its right to strike, it still struck (seep. 13).

It still hankered for the $2,000 annual average wage which some claimed was the adequate minimum living income for a family--although many economists held that if labor reached its $2,000 goal in this war boom it would get inflation rather than its money's worth.

One reef ahead in industrial labor relations was the growingly insistent "pattern demand" for a 10-c--an-hour wage increase, whether that figure was justified or not. The fast-growing aircraft industry, with a potential 800,000 employes, was a challenge. Trouble threatened this week at North American, where C.I.O. was trying to negotiate a new contract with higher pay. Another reef was C.I.O.'s determination to organize Little Steel and Little Steel's still stubborn anti-union stand. The five operating unions of the Railroad Brotherhoods announced that they would ask for a 30% wage increase, which will cause headaches in the transportation field. But labor's main objective, outside of improving conditions of work, was to extend its organization. With the two great unions waxing fat and hefty, they were likely to meet head on. Jurisdictional wars threatened, worried Government mediators and managers. For responsible labor leaders, the big problem was to square labor with a growingly antagonistic public.

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