Meany's Rebellion

As union protests go, the campaign led by AFL-CIO President George Meany and maritime union chiefs against the latest Soviet purchase of American grain is unusual, to say the least. Up in Washington, Meany & Co. last week continued to denounce the grain deal, and to insist that the "boycott" of Soviet ships would continue. But meanwhile down at the Gulf Coast grain ports, loading was going on as usual. The longshoremen have in fact been kept working by court injunctions ever since their job action was announced two weeks ago, and they seem unperturbed. Said Luther Wiggins Jr., a union official in Houston: "If the judge says we load ships, we load ships."

While the phantom boycott has not slowed the loading of the initial 10 million tons of American grain that the Russians ordered in July, it has helped to keep the emotionally charged issue of Soviet sales and rising food prices high up in the public consciousness. AFL-CIO spokesmen claim that their mail is running 20 to 1 in favor of the unions' rebellion.

U.S. Ships. Clearly, many Americans are persuaded that the U.S. is being had once again. Meany has called the Soviet grain buying "just a rip-off of the American consumer" for the sake of a "phony" detente. But he also shares a specific concern of the maritime unions: shipping arrangements. The dock workers are still angry about 1972, when the bulk of the 24 million tons of grain and soybeans sold to Russia was shipped in vessels belonging to foreign countries. This time the unions want Administration assurances that 50% of the Russian-bound grain will move in U.S. ships manned by American seamen. More broadly, the unions want the Russians to stop cutting cargo rates as they have been doing recently. U.S. and Soviet officials have been negotiating the issue, but no agreement is in sight.

Meany is particularly irritated by the secretiveness of the Soviets in their dealings with individual U.S. companies. He favors a scheme whereby the Government would buy up grain and sell directly to Russia; and, according to one of his aides, he wants the Russians to "negotiate civilized contracts over a number of years rather than wreck our economy and prices." On that score, Meany clearly has a point. Again this year, the Russians reportedly planned their American grain purchases carefully, in order to get their ships' charters nailed down before word of the deal could get around and drive up rates. To maintain secrecy, they went so far as to set up a Paris-based charter company through which they quietly--and anonymously--lined up at least ten grain ships in late June and early in July.

The department in effect halted further sales to the Russians last month so that it could gauge the size of the U.S. harvest. Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz has said that Soviet purchases so far will lift retail food prices, already up 3.8% since January, by no more than another 1.5%; he now believes that the Russians could buy another 10 million tons without increasing prices much further. Meanwhile, some Administration economists fear that this year's grain sales could lead to a price surge in 1976. If grain stocks are low going into the new year and something should then happen to 1976 crops, grain and consequently food prices could shoot up.

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