FIRST UNION MERGER under the newly combined C.I.O.-A.F.L. will bring together two big rivals in the packing industry. The A.F.L.'s Amalgamated Meat Cutters and the C.I.O.'s United Packinghouse Workers have agreed to join, with 450,000 members.

MONOPOLY SUIT has been filed against American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Corp. Justice Department charges that American-Standard (40% of the iron bathtubs, 38% of the sinks) "substantially" reduced competition by buying Mullins Manufacturing Corp. (18% of the sinks). Suit demands that American-Standard divest itself of Mullins stock and assets.

PROXY FIGHT for Fairbanks, Morse between management and Penn-Texas' Leopold Silberstein (TIME, Feb. 6) has gone to management, at least for now. At the annual meeting Penn-Texas forces claimed 440,000 shares v. 863,000 (of 1,371,000 shares outstanding) for the management, led by Chairman Robert H. Morse. Under Illinois' voting rules, Penn-Texas will probably get three or four seats on the eleven-man board, but Morse will keep control.

COPPER PRICES are floating down from their ceiling. After long strikes last year which cut supplies by 150,000 tons and pushed prices up some 60% to a peak 55-c- a lb. for U.S. custom-smelted copper, U.S., Chilean and African mines are finally starting to catch up. Result: prices in the world (i.e., London) market last week tumbled nearly 5-c- to 49-c- per Ib.

CANADIAN MINING DEAL, one of the biggest in the country's history, will throw together Uranium King Joseph Hirshhorn's properties (TIME, Feb. 21, 1955) with Britain's big Rio Tinto mine interests. For $34 million in stocks and bonds, Hirshhorn has sold his holdings in the Blind River area (Pronto Uranium, Pater, Plum,

Peach, etc.) to Rio Tinto, which will merge them into a new company with Hirshhorn as board chairman and biggest stockholder.

PREFAB HOUSING sales went over the billion-dollar mark in 1955. Builders sold 93,000 prefabs worth $1.3 billion, predict that totals will hit 120,000 in 1956, and that prefabs will capture 50% of the market by 1965.

PENNY TRADING on the Toronto Stock Exchange is growing so fast--and is so profitable to brokers --that a seat on the exchange sold for $105,000, just about what it costs to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

MERGER TALK is buzzing between International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. and Underwood Corp. I.T. & T. (1955 revenue: more than $400 million) and Underwood (1955 sales: $82 million) would each benefit from the other's automation and electronic work. Deal would probably involve some sort of straight cash transaction, since I.T. & T. policy is usually against stock swaps.

TRANSAMERICA CORP., already giving Banker Marriner Eccles and his First Security Corp. tough competition in Idaho and Utah (TIME, Feb. 13), is invading Montana. For $2,200,000, Transamerica, which once controlled the Bank of America, bought Great Falls' Montana Bank, is reportedly out for four or five more Montana banks.

STRATEGIC STOCKPILE of 74 critical defense materials is more than halfway completed. Of $11.2 billion worth of materials to be bought, the Office of Defense Mobilization has already purchased $6.3 billion, has another $500 million on order. Among the individual goals completed: abrasives, crude aluminum, rare earths, coconut oil, industrial diamonds, sisal fibers, palm oil, quartz crystals, natural rubber, sperm oil, zinc.

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