End of the Line

A big, tough segment of U.S. labor was out of hand. Last week the nation's merchant fleet was tied up tight, the nation's ports were dead. This week there was some reason to expect a settlement of the biggest maritime strike in history, but only on labor's terms. The little moral authority which the Administration had left was wrecked.

C.I.O.'s National Maritime Union had started it. N.M.U. demanded a $17.50 a month wage boost, which the Government approved. Then rival A.F.L. seamen demanded $22.50-$27.50 boosts. The Wage Stabilization Board, believing that its duty was to hold the wage line, tried to limit A.F.L. to the C.I.O increase. Warned brilliant, 34-year-old Willard Wirtz, onetime law teacher, ardent puzzle fan and chief of WSB: this is a "stepladder" approach to further demands which would mean the end of Harry Truman's badly bent stabilization program.

That was almost WSB's last gurgle as A.F.L. seamen walked off their jobs a fortnight ago. The Administration's problem was how to give them what they wanted, get them back to work and still not make WSB look too silly. The man of the hour turned out to be Labor Secretary Lew Schwellenbach, who crawled into the musty archives of Government precedents and came out with a nugget.

Since 1862, he discovered, it has been Government policy to pay "prevailing rates" on Government jobs. Since the Government still owns many of the ships, all that was needed was for Economic Stabilizer John R. Steelman to rule that "prevailing rates" were those already agreed upon by some private shipowners, which included the $22.50-$27-50 boosts.

After this, the inspired Mr. Schwellenbach took to a hospital bed with a strained back. Mr. Steelman made the announcement.

The Breakoff. But that did not end it. Just as WSB had predicted, as A.F.L. seamen walked off the picket lines, N.M.U. seamen--who had honored the A.F.L. strike--rushed in. A.F.L. yelled wrathfully and in some cases A.F.L. longshoremen crossed the rival lines. But Joe Curran's N.M.U., repudiating its two-month-old contract, understandably demanded just as much as A.F.L.

At week's end, owners, A.F.L. and N.M.U. eyed each other, fought, threatened, broke off negotiations. N.M.U., to show how tough it was, even yanked its men off security watches aboard the struck ships, leaving them and their cargoes unprotected from fire, storm, accident or decay. Owners pleaded for the Coast Guard.

The cost of the strike was incalculable. Such badly needed imports as copra, rubber, tin, tung oil, hemp, lead, wool, coffee, tallow and hides were cut off. Almost half a million men were out of work.

But worse than any of this was the cost to Government, which found out that it had no practical or moral method of keeping maritime labor under control. Neither labor nor management would ever again take Harry Truman's wage stabilization policy seriously.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.