Wages & Workers

Over luncheon trays at the White House fortnight ago President Roosevelt listened to Walter P. Chrysler expound the theory of more jobs, better ways of mass production, a theory which the President had disavowed in his Jefferson Day speech. Last week Chrysler Corp. reinforced its founder's precept with examples by announcing a 5% wage increase for all Chrysler workers. Pointedly President Kaufman Thuma Keller hinted that in the case of Chrysler employes, at least, the benefits of mass production had not reduced their purchasing power. In the last three years Chrysler has boosted wages three times, beginning with a 20% increase in August 1933.

"In March, 1934, the hourly rated em-ployes received a further increase of 10%," said hard-boiled President Keller. "This brought hourly rates back to a level slightly higher than prevailed prior to the beginning of the depression in 1929. The report recently issued by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics . . . showed that living costs in the Detroit area were 15.7% less than those which prevailed in 1928-29. ... In September 1935, the minimum rates for male employes were increased to 60-c- an hour, and the minimum rates for female employes were increased to 52-c- an hour. . . ."

Other recent moves to make workers happy:

P: Westinghouse Electric announced a profit-sharing arrangement whereby wages are hiked 1% for every $60,000 increase in the company's monthly earnings above an arbitrary monthly base of $600,000. Westinghouse pay checks will be 10% larger if second quarter earnings equal those in the first quarter, which averaged $1,244,151 per month. The plan also provides for a 1% wage reduction for every $60,000 by which monthly earnings fall below the $600,000 level.

P: E. I. du Pont de Nemours authorized a flat 10% increase for white-collar em-ployes, effective June 1.

P: For the first time in its history, U. S. Steel announced that vacations with pay will be given this summer to workers "with five or more years of continuous service." Roared President Michael F. Tighe of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel & Tin Workers: "I think it is a fake thrown out by the corporation for the purpose of keeping the employes interested in com-pany unions." Using the added costs of vacation pay as an excuse, U. S. Steel's biggest subsidiary, Carnegie-Illinois, promptly opened its books for third quarter business with prices boosted as much as $2 a ton.

P: Other steel companies which followed U. S. Steel in granting paid vacations included Jones & Laughlin, American Sheet & Tin Plate, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. Steelmen estimated that vacations would cost the industry $9,000,000. Ernest Tener Weir's Weirton Steel offered employes the choice of a paid vacation or double pay for working straight through.

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