Greek Tragedy in Detroit?

There was one happy break with tradition as leaders of the United Auto Workers and the Big Three car makers began separate labor talks last week. Both sides agreed to start serious bargaining immediately, rather than propagandizing until close to the strike deadline. That was the only hopeful sign in an atmosphere as heavy with a sense of menace as the opening of a Greek tragedy. Not since the talks that preceded the record-breaking 1959 steel strike has a major union-management confrontation begun with both sides assuming such an intractable line.

Company and union men take it almost for granted that when contracts expire on Sept. 14, the auto workers will call a strike. The most widely anticipated action is for the union to hit General Motors, its toughest opponent. An alternative forecast is for an initial walkout against Ford, which seems more willing to compromise, to establish basic money terms of a contract; that would be followed by a shutdown of G.M. in which work rules would be a central issue. Many Detroiters expect the strike--or strikes--to last until Christmas, or later. The union's $120 million strike fund could carry workers through a ten-week closing of G.M., or a longer one against Ford or Chrysler. The major questions appear to be how much damage will be done to the U.S. economy --which, according to many predictions, will just be starting to turn up around the strike deadline--and how inflationary the final settlements will be.

Convictions of Righteousness. The auto talks threaten to take on a special bitterness because in 1970, more than ever, both sides are convinced that they are in the right. Industry leaders correctly contend that hourly wage increases in the auto plants have been far outrunning gains in productivity. They sense that this is the year to take the union to the mat and gain more control over labor costs, quality control and discipline on the production lines--even if it takes a long strike. They feel that public worry about inflation and the Nixon Administration's pledge to keep hands off labor disputes will strengthen their position.

Union men argue, equally correctly, that it would take a big wage boost just to repair the damage that inflation and recession have done to their pay envelopes. Despite rising wage rates, the loss of overtime and reductions in regular working hours cut the average weekly pay of G.M. workers to $175 in the first quarter, down from $184.60 last year. On top of that, inflation made each dollar worth less.

U. A.W. President Leonard Woodcock, who succeeded the late Walter Reuther, will settle for no less than an 8% annual pay and benefit boost--for openers. That would match the average increase in U.S. union contracts negotiated in 1970's first quarter. The U.S. wage spiral will not be broken until one major labor leader settles for less than the average, but that leader will quite possibly be tossed out of his job by angry unionists. At G.M., an 8% raise would work out to 46-c- an hour for the first year, raising the company's average labor costs to $6.22 an hour.

An 8% increase, though, would barely restore the purchasing power that union men had a year ago. Beyond that, Woodcock still wants an additional 26-c- an hour that U.A.W. men already would have got if Reuther had not agreed in 1967 to put a limit of 8-c- an hour on annual cost-of-living increases. The companies have promised to pay the 26-c-, but contend that it should be counted as part of a new contract package; Woodcock insists that it be granted separately and that all limits on cost-of-living raises be removed in the new pacts. The 26-c-, added to an 8% basic raise, would put the first-year increase in a new contract above 12%, and would cost the automakers well over $1 billion a year.

In the fringe area, the union battle cry is "30 and out," echoing a proposal that workers be allowed to retire after 30 years' service regardless of age, on monthly pensions of $500 or more. Other demands include a company-paid family dental-care program, company-paid auto insurance, year-end cash bonuses for workers, and even a vague call for an end to pollution.

With their profits down, automen hint at some tough demands of their own. G.M. Chairman James Roche has complained vehemently about absenteeism in car plants, wildcat strikes and shoddy quality production. "In the negotiations of 1970," he has said, "unions and management must strive together to achieve regular attendance, eliminate unnecessary work stoppages and cooperate in improving quality."

Because productivity has risen only 9% since 1965 while hourly pay and benefits have climbed 25%, automakers insist that sometimes they can make a satisfactory profit only by shifting operations overseas. Ford and Chrysler will manufacture engines and transmissions in Europe for their new small cars, then import the parts to be fitted into U.S.-assembled cars. All parts for G.M.'s minicar, the Vega, will be made at home, but company officials plan to have the Vega assembled partly by robots in place of union workers. The robots, called Unimates, are one-armed, computer-controlled machines that G.M. will program to do welding. G.M. executives think that a Vega assembled entirely by humans would cost too much to compete successfully against imported cars, which have won 13% of the U.S. market so far this year.

Two New Men. A complicating factor in the auto negotiations is that they will be headed on both the U.A.W. and G.M. sides by men new to their jobs. Woodcock, 59, is a quiet intellectual. He sometimes speaks so softly that he can barely be heard, and he spends much of his free time listening to classical music. He is under intense pressure from an unruly rank and file to hold out for a fat settlement. Discussing the problem of absenteeism, he once admitted that the union's younger members "just do not respond to the threat of discipline." Every move he makes will be compared with what U.A.W. members think Reuther would have done, and Reuther had a reputation for squeezing out the last possible penny in bargaining. Woodcock's chief bargaining adversary, G.M. Vice President Earl R. Bramblett, also 59, has worked for the company for 41 years but took over the role as principal negotiator only three months ago.

That the industry and union could become locked into such seemingly intransigent positions is melancholy testimony that unchecked inflation, no less than recession, breeds sharp social conflict. The bargainers could sorely use a U.S. presidential definition of where the national interest lies. Without it, they seem to be drifting into a battle that will be decided by brute force. In the present climate of social turmoil, that sort of clash between two of the nation's mightiest economic institutions is about the last thing the U.S. needs.

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