Labor: The Year of Confrontation

STRIKE, Strike, Strike!!!" That angry chant, booming out at the end of Clifford Odets' play Waiting for Lefty, typified the spirit of radical protest in the depressed 1930s. Now, in the affluent '70s, it is echoing from meetings of union men who would fit neatly into Odets' script (truck drivers, tugboat deckhands) and many others who would not (mailmen, air traffic controllers). Their mood of frustration is so intense that 1970 may go down in U.S. economic history as the Year of the Strike.

The Nation's Cost. Last week, although strikes in various cities idled gravediggers, schoolteachers and garbage collectors, the nation suffered less disruption of vital services than had been expected. At week's end enough air traffic controllers were still staying out "sick" to ground many U.S. airline flights and cause long delays on others. Most teamsters, on the other hand, were returning to work after brief strikes in 37 cities helped to win a tentative national agreement. Their pact showed how costly it will be to meet labor's demands this year: during the next 39 months, teamsters' wages are scheduled to rise $1.10 an hour, or about 27%, for 450,000 union members. At week's end Chicago teamsters were holding out for a fatter increase.

An even more expensive, and far more important settlement averted the threat of still another mail strike. In negotiations with Administration officials, and with the assistance of A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany, the postal unions won a 6% raise--not only for themselves, but for all 5,300,000 civilian and military employees--retroactive to Dec. 27. That raise is slightly larger than one that had been due in July. The 725,000 postal workers will get another 8% whenever they, the Administration and Congress can agree on Post Office reorganization. The deal will cost the nation $1.2 billion in the current fiscal year, ending June 30, and $2.5 billion in fiscal 1971. Such expenditures would surely wipe out this year's anticipated budget surplus. To pay for the postal raises, the President asked Congress to increase first-class mail rates from 6-c- to 10-c- and to boost second-class and bulk third-class mail and parcel-post rates by 5% to 15%. In addition, he called for a speedup in collection of estate and gift taxes. Portions of the deal face trouble in Congress, which appears reluctant to raise mail rates.

The agreement nevertheless set a precedent because it was hammered out in industry-style collective bargaining. In the past, federal workers have won raises by lobbying in Congress, which has the final say on Government pay. From now on, other Government-employee unions are sure to press for similarly bargained agreements.

Less Buying Power. Many other strikes could begin soon. Next week, when a congressionally legislated strike moratorium expires, the nation's railroads could stop running. Members of shop-craft union locals are threatening to walk off the job regardless of what their leaders advise. On April 20, contracts covering some 70,000 rubber workers run out, and a strike is a distinct possibility. Later in the year, 38,000 meat packers, 23,000 retail grocery clerks and 660,000 auto workers will be free to strike because their contracts will also expire. All together, contracts covering 5,000,000 workers run out this year; that is twice as many as last year, and the most in any year of the last decade.

Prospects for a year of strikes hinge on far more than the coincidences of the bargaining calendar. The U.S. worker has been taught to expect that every year he will live at least a bit better than the year before. The very idea is embedded in the American dream, but inflation has turned that dream into a cruel fraud. Because of increases in prices and taxes, the real purchasing power of the average U.S. worker in manufacturing or service trades has declined about 2 1/2% since September 1968.

Moreover, says Joseph L. Ames, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, workers have seen "that this is the day of organized protest in every field. You've got your student protest, your black protest, and this has coincided with the inflation spiral." That fact has made a particularly deep impression because one-quarter of all union members are now under 30, and almost half are under 40.

Faster Escalator. To make matters worse, union demands are colliding with falling profits and management determination to be tough. The hardest confrontation is shaping up for the autumn in the auto industry, where sales have been running 12% below a year ago. The United Auto Workers will be fighting not only for substantial wage raises and a faster-rising cost-of-living escalator but for extremely expensive pension increases. At present, a U.A.W. member can retire at age 60, after 30 years' employment, with a maximum pension of $400 a month. Union men are talking of retirement at a minimum of $500 a month and at any age after 30 years' service. Officials of General Motors, which may be Walter Reuther's prime strike target, are not only horrified but are talking of some tough demands of their own. Chairman James Roche has decried growing absenteeism (an average of 5% of the work force now v. 2.5% in 1960) and hinted that the company will press for contract guarantees of greater worker discipline.

The Nixon Administration so far has been maintaining a hands-off attitude toward the labor turmoil, intervening only when it has no choice, as in the mail strike. How much longer it can stick to its policy is questionable.

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