Skidding Shoes

When it started bargaining last fall on a new contract, the New England unit (around 12,000 members) of the C.I.O.'s United Shoe Workers of America loudly demanded a raise of 15-c- an hour. Last week it quietly signed a contract with 90 Massachusetts factories without a boost in pay, thus became the first big union to forgo a raise this year.

United Shoe Workers' about-face was caused by the serious slump in the industry. A dozen smaller Massachusetts plants had closed or moved out of the area in the last few months. Part-time production schedules were spreading; many operators talked of leaving the New England "high-cost area."

But things were not much better elsewhere. Throughout the industry, January and February sales were an estimated 20% lower than in the same period of 1947, which were considerably lower than in 1946. Said the head of one big Midwestern factory: "The situation is bilious."

Consumer resistance to high prices was the chief cause of the biliousness. Yet most manufacturers did nothing to cure it by cutting prices even though hide prices are down 15 to 25% from last fall's peak. Instead, they cut production in hopes that shortages again would make prices more palatable. A few shoe men talked of price cuts--but only vaguely.

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