Offbeat

Pudgy James Caesar Petrillo, boss of U.S. music, got the first real drubbing of his career. Last week a WLB panel urged that his A.F. of L. musicians be ordered to end their 19-month no-recording strike against R.C.A., Columbia and R.C.A.-Victor. It beat down all his objections with the fury of a kettledrummer in a Wagnerian climax.

The panel, by 2-to-1 vote, ruled that it had no power to compel the giants of the recording industry to pay $500,000 a year direct tribute to Petrillo's treasury (TIME, Oct. 11). Petrillo wants the money put into an unemployed musicians fund--which he alone would administer. Such a system, said the panel dryly, might be acceptable "under proper safeguards."

Boss Petrillo's favorite contention, that "canned music" has caused widespread unemployment among musicians, got harsher treatment. Said the panel flatly: "No present important unemployment of musicians exists. Two union members out of three do not depend on music for a livelihood. The union's criterion, that a member not working full time on music is unemployed, is untenable." Also, the panel concluded after 1,970 pages of testimony, radio and the phonograph record probably have not decreased employment.

These were hard blows to Boss Petrillo, who gets $46,000 a year for the most tight-fisted union control in all organized labor. The panel even called Petrillo's ban a strike--a word Czar Jimmy abhors. Petrillo, offbeat, trumpeted that he would appeal, even to the Supreme Court.

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