Strategic Success

As the Senate battle over John Kennedy's minimum wage bill began, White House Aide Larry O'Brien sent a message to organized labor's lobbyists: "Leave the Democrats to us. You go after the Republicans." O'Brien figured he could twist Democratic arms by invoking patronage promises and the pressures of party loyalty; labor was delighted at the chance to prove to the Administration that it has the power to sway Republican votes. Last week the strategy worked perfectly.

Democratic Reluctance. For President Kennedy, passage of the wage bill was a must. Last month the House had handed him his first major loss by batting down his bill by a single vote and passing a Republican measure that would lift the wage floor from $1 to $1.15 and extend coverage to 1,400,000 additional workers, all of them engaged in interstate commerce. Kennedy wanted much more: a two-stage boost to $1.25 by mid-1963, with coverage for 4,100,000 more workers, mostly in the retail trades.

Kennedy's Senate emissaries found out that many Democrats were reluctant to buy such a big package. Some argued that the Kennedy bill would breach the Constitution by extending federal coverage to firms operating within a single state. Others feared that the Kennedy bill, by raising the employer's minimum wage-tax cost from $42.44 to $53.05 per person for a 40-hour week, would prompt many to lay off unskilled workers and thus swell unemployment.

But the labor lobbyists made mileage with the Republicans. Home-state delegations of unionists poured into Washington and called on some Senators whom they had not visited in years, telling each one of labor's reputed strength at the polls. They concentrated their fire on the biggest single threat to the Kennedy bill: an amendment by Oklahoma's middle-road Democrat Mike Monroney to exempt retail and service firms that do business in only one state. That amendment had lost by a cliffhanging 50 to 48 last summer, and now Monroney thought he had a chance of winning.

Republican Switch. When the key vote came last week, every single Democrat who had supported the Monroney amendment last summer voted for it again. The labor lobbyists swung the tide for Kennedy by picking up five new G.O.P. votes, mostly from Senators who represent states with potent labor blocs--New York's Kenneth Keating, Pennsylvania's Hugh Scott, Connecticut's Prescott Bush, Delaware's Caleb Boggs and Iowa's Jack Miller. After the Monroney amendment went down 56 to 39, the Kennedy bill breezed through, 65 to 28.

The bill now moves to a conference committee that will work for a compromise between the House and Senate versions. The Administration's strategy is to give in a little on the number of new workers to be covered, while fighting hard to preserve the $1.25 minimum.

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