Barnyard Bargainer

Whatever else General Motors may lose to Walter Reuther at the bargaining table, it is almost certain not to lose its temper. G.M.'s corporate temper is kept in the strict but benevolent custody of Vice President Louis Goermer Seaton, 55, dean of the auto industry's labor negotiators and one of the most extraordinary adversaries a union leader ever faced.

Unlike the flint-hard company men often assigned to wrestle with labor, Detroit-born Lou Seaton possesses an easy geniality and a deep concern with the problems of the working stiff. As personnel chief for the world's biggest corporation, Seaton takes unconcealed pleasure and pride in his responsibility for the pay, training, health and morale of G.M.'s 556,000 employees. When he is at the bargaining table, voices rarely rise, fists seldom pound, and the loudest sound is often the Seaton chuckle. Says Leonard Woodcock. U.A.W. vice president in charge of the G.M. locals: "Lou has an intuition for what the key problem is in a plant. If Seaton weren't around, I think we'd have hell running out of our ears."

No Bogeymen. Lou Seaton tries hard to convince his fellow G.M. executives that not all union leaders are bogeymen --and vice versa. Despite a six-figure income, he continues to live in an unpretentious suburban home that he bought 20 years ago, takes little part in Detroit's posh country-club life. In off-bargaining season, he plays poker and cribbage with union buddies, attends union social functions, and has been known to shell out of his own pocket for old union friends who fell on hard times. On first-name terms not only with Reuther but with "Jimmy'' (the Teamsters' Hoffa), "Jim" (the Electrical Workers' Carey) and "Dave" (the Steelworkers' McDonald), he frequently puts in phone calls to them to settle a point of argument. "If you treat most people right," says Seaton, "you get treated back the same way."

This benign philosophy does not prevent Seaton from being a tough and savvy bargainer. "That amiability of his," la ments Leonard Woodcock, "doesn't lead him to give away anything at the bargaining table." Because he helped pioneer G.M.'s labor relations in the '30s without benefit of a degree in law or psychology, Seaton likes to call himself a "barnyard bargainer." But he is a pretty slick country boy. A regular reader of dozens of union publications, he has an intimate understanding of the political realities of the labor movement, on occasion has stayed up all night to find a method of settling a wildcat strike without loss of face for the union.

The Non-Graduates. Seaton played a major role in negotiating the pattern-setting contract that ended the 1946 strike at G.M., has had no authorized strikes since he took over as director of labor relations the following year. "I just hate strikes," he says. "Collective bargaining is a device by which we can work out our problems without legislation, in a peaceful manner. It keeps us out of the trouble other nations have had." A Catholic convert who had to drop out of Detroit's Wayne State University for lack of money, thoughtful Lou Seaton is well able to lecture fellow Wayne dropout Walter Reuther about social justice--whenever the voluble Reuther lets him get a word in.

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