G.A.W. Creeps On

The guaranteed annual wage came to a second major U.S. industry last week. After a one-day strike, the C.I.O. National Maritime Union won a contract for supplementary unemployment payments from Atlantic and Gulf Coast ship operators. Shippers will contribute 25-c- daily for each man working, build a fund to make up the difference for 26 weeks between state unemployment compensation ($36 a week in New York, $30 in New Jersey) and $40 weekly when maritime workers are laid off.

For their G.A.W. victory the seamen could give much of the credit to the breakthrough at Ford Motor Co. by Walter Reuther's United Auto Workers. As for the U.A.W. itself, it wasted no time in pressing on to the next automaker with an expiring contract: American Motors.

Most automen had guessed that the U.A.W. would go easy on American. American President George Romney expressed the same hope before a Senate committee investigating competition in the auto industry. He pointed out that American is already paying higher wages than the Big Three, and its books are just beginning to show a profit (v. a $654,390 loss in 1955's first quarter). But last week the U.A.W. made it clear that the independents must follow the Ford-General Motors pattern. Said Leonard Woodcock, U.A.W. vice president and Reuther's chieftain for American Motors: American's auto workers need G.A.W. "even more than the bigger firms because of its ups and downs in employment."

New Worlds to Conquer. The auto workers also stepped up the pressure on another big industry: farm equipment. John Deere & Co. has already gone through three bargaining sessions over G.A.W., and the union is demanding nothing less than a contract like the one at Ford. Reuther has also notified International Harvester Co. and Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co., whose contracts expire in August, that the U.A.W.'s new contract demands will include G.A.W.

For the U.A.W. the guaranteed-wage plan was not only a collective bargaining problem; it was also a political issue. Many states have laws or administrative rulings that bar unemployment payments as long as a worker receives money from his employer. The union's lobbyists are going to work to get them changed, because the Ford agreement to G.A.W. is off unless the governments in states containing two-thirds of Ford employees agree by June 1, 1957 to permit the supplemental G.A.W. payments.

Thus, G.A.W. must get the blessing of Michigan, which has 56% of Ford employees, and several other states before the plan can go into effect. The state senate of Ohio (where 10% of Ford employees live) refused to go along with a G.A.W. plan last week, does not meet again until 1957. California has also ruled against G.A.W., and a political fight is shaping up in Illinois over the issue. But New Jersey permits the tie-in payments, and last week New York's Governor W. Averell Harriman gave them his approval.

Moral Support. Whatever happens, it was plain that U.S. businessmen had been caught flat-footed by what had happened in Detroit. In Chicago last week, the National Association of Manufacturers held a special meeting to consider one subject: G.A.W. The meeting was scheduled weeks ago, timed to give moral support to the automakers' battle against G.A.W. But the sudden settlement by Ford upset their plans and angered many of the delegates.

Having come prepared to argue that G.A.W. could not and must not be accepted by U.S. industry, N.A.M. speakers revised their speeches. Keynoter Robert E. Wilson, chairman of Standard of Indiana, called it "unthinkable" that a worker should be paid nearly as much "for not working as he is for working." On the other hand, he added, as a note of calm, "neither should we assume that any new burden would be intolerable." At week's end the N.A.M. took a firm stand against G.A.W. Said its board of directors: "Such plans will create inequities among employees . . . deplete state unemployment compensation reserves, and jeopardize the financial strength of many companies, especially the newer and smaller ones. If widely adopted, they will inevitably have seriously damaging effects on our American economy."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.