Pressure Gauge

After months of increasing pressure, the floor under wages began to buckle last week. In Congress, there were three loud, warning crackles.

Into Senate and House hoppers went identical bills amending the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, lifting its 40-c-minimum hourly wage to 65-c- (and to 75-c-after two years). The work week would drop to 40 hours when 75-c- was reached. Industry committees, under special circumstances, could drive basic pay rates upward even faster.

Three days earlier, a Senate labor subcommittee had called on the War Labor Board to regard all wages below 65-c- (instead of 55-c-, as at present) as substandard. And two days later, 70 House members had signed a petition asking President Truman to revise the battered Little Steel formula, permit a boost of at least 20% in the basic pay rate "to avoid sowing the seeds of a disastrous depression."

With the House already adjourned, no law could be enacted until fall. By then, Sidney Hillman promised, his Political Action Committee would see that everybody in the country knew that the wage floor must be jacked up.

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