Through the Ceiling

At one time last week 80,000 workers were on strike, including 5,000 at the Crosley Corp. in Cincinnati, 7,500 at the Southeastern Shipbuilding Corp. in Savannah. There were 40 work stoppages throughout the nation; new ones threatened daily as the old ones ended. Even the oldtime prewar gags to attract picket-line attention reappeared -- in Hollywood, of course (see cut).

To many a U.S. citizen, the continued seething recalled the recent warning of the United Automobile Workers' R. J. Thomas. Predicting "a lot of strikes" after V-J day, he said: "We will authorize strikes in every plant where a present grievance continues to exist."

In Washington, where most Congressmen were aware of the turmoil, Michigan's Senator Arthur Vandenberg stepped up with a plan for industrial peace. He proposed that top spokesmen for labor, management and Government get around a conference table, face their problems in the manner of the United Nations. Asked Vandenberg: "Is it impossible to apply this formula at home in respect to vital industrial relationships?" Labor Secretary Lew Schwellenbach promptly agreed it was a good idea.

But meanwhile, the public members of the War Labor Board, who had long kept a nervous eye on nervous U.S. workers, came up with something more definite. They were ready to ask President Truman for virtual abandonment of the three-year-old Little Steel formula.

Specifically, the public members would urge the President to permit voluntary wage-rate increases arrived at through collective bargaining, even where they break the Little Steel formula. One condition: that employers do not ask a corresponding increase in prices. One exception: they were willing to order wage boosts above the formula in exceptional hardship cases, even if higher prices were necessary.

WLB's industry members felt the recommendations went too far; labor members felt they did not go far enough. They might still force some modification. But the new policy had been cleared with OWMR Boss John W. Snyder and with Economic Stabilizer William H. Davis.

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