To the Well Again

The railroaders and the striking longshoremen--who seemed near a settlement this week--were just about the last of the big unions still haggling over their 1948 wage boosts. The rest of labor seemed ready to go to the well again. Arriving in Portland, Ore. for the C.I.O. convention, the United Automobile Workers' President Walter Reuther lowered the first bucket.

Already assured of a 3-c--an-hour increase from his cost-of-living contract with General Motors, Walter Reuther made it plain that he would not be satisfied with any such driblets. Said he: "We're talking already about a fourth round. If you haven't heard about it already, you will hear about it next week. There's no question that the workers are due for another increase."

There was also little question but that a grateful Administration would look on labor's new demands with a kindly eye. Leaving the A.F.L. convention in Cincinnati, Labor Secretary Maurice Tobin reminded newsmen that wages of some 16 million workers were now trailing 9% behind the Bureau of Labor Statistics' figures on the cost of living. Labor, he implied, could count on his help to close the gap.

How long it would stay closed was something else again. On an inspection tour of his Chester, Pa. assembly plant, Automaker Henry Ford II reluctantly agreed that "the new pay boost is probably inevitable. I don't think anything can prevent it."

But, warned Ford, prices would go up, too. "Prices, as we see them today, can't go anywhere but up. There is no place else for them to go. Prices are high--maybe too high--but we can't lower them without lowering wages and material costs. I wish we had a buyer's market today. We are living in a fool's paradise."

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