The Steel Curtain

For more than six months, the U.S. has been trying to settle the strife in its basic industry, steel. Before their contract ran out last December, management and labor tried to solve the problem by negotiation and failed. The three branches of the Federal Government, executive, legislative and judicial, put in their hand but brought out no solution. This week 475,000 steelworkers began the third week of a strike, almost 90% of the nation's steel industry was paralyzed, and no solution was in sight.

Almost. In their last-ditch conferences last week, negotiators for Big Steel and Big Labor almost made it. In Washington, a three-man industry subcommittee headed by Jones & Laughlin Steel's Ben Moreell sat across the table from a labor trio headed by Steelworker Boss Phil Murray. Point by point, they took up each economic issue, e.g., pay raise, holiday pay. They made tentative agreements, went on to the next issue. Finally, they approached agreement on a wages-benefit package which would eventually cost the company 24.6-c- per man-hour (present average hourly wage: $1.83).

But before they could sew up their final agreement, they had to pass the most difficult point of all: the union's demand for a union shop. Many modifications were discussed, and Republic Steel's President Charles White questioned Murray carefully about a plan similar to the General Motors modification in which old employees are not forced to join the union, and new employees can drop out, if they wish, after one year's membership. Union and Government men listened eagerly. They thought Big Steel was about to compromise on the big issue.

Next day, the industry team came back after a half day meeting with representatives of all the big six steel companies and half a dozen smaller firms. Now, they were firmly against any form of union shop, as a matter of "principle." Said U.S. Steel's Vice President John A. Stephens: "In the U.S., membership or nonmembership in a union should be a matter of free choice with the individual." Phil Murray scoffed. He wanted to know how the companies could say they were standing on principle when they have union-shop agreements with other groups of employees, such as their coal miners, seamen and railroad workers.

With that, the negotiations collapsed. The steelmasters, confident that the Government would allow them a price increase, had tentatively offered a bigger wage-benefit boost than most observers thought they would. By doing so, they had hoped to isolate the union-shop issue, so that they could argue that Murray was keeping the strike going only to build his union's membership and its treasury. Phil Murray, who didn't want the union-shop issue isolated, contended hotly that there had not been a final agreement on anything.

"Good Old Harry." At that point, Harry Truman, who had seized the industry earlier only to have the Supreme Court rule that he had no power to do so, stepped into the picture again. He rode up to Capitol Hill, asked Congress for seizure power. An injunction under the Taft-Hartley law, said Truman, would be unfair to the workers. After they had already worked more than 150 days without a contract, it would force them to work 80 days more without a raise. In Pittsburgh, Steelworker Tom Zema glowed: "Good old Harry. He talks like he's a Steelworker too."

Congress gave Truman less applause than any President in recent years has received for a speech on Capitol Hill. (Bob Taft laughed derisively during the address.) The Senate promptly turned down three seizure proposals, then requested the President to use the Taft-Hartley law. Truman in his speech had made it clear that he was against the law, and would use it only if Congress urged him to, i.e., if it freed him of political responsibility for invoking it in this election year. Phil Murray was violently against it too. Like Harry Truman, he didn't want the law to get any credit for settling the strike.

Glumly, the nation's mobilizers turned their attention to living with the strike. They would try to route critical orders to the 29 steel plants still operating (because their workers are unorganized, or because they have new or unexpired contracts), and they would try to take advantage of Phil Murray's offer to reopen enough plants to keep defense production going. A mobilization official was less than confident about how much steel these efforts would provide. Said he: "It won't be a drop in the damn bucket."

In most cases, civilian and defense production has enough steel to carry on for 20 to 35 days, although the pinch might come sooner for some manufacturers (e.g., jet engine plants), who need special high-alloy steel. On the television-equipped picket lines, the workers have not yet asked for help from union welfare funds, but the steelworkers' treasury and those of other big C.I.O. unions are ready to help in hardship cases.* Phil Murray and his lieutenants vowed that they would "never surrender." Said Murray: "There just isn't any group or citizen in this country big enough to whip this union."

After six months, the steel curtain between labor and management seemed to be far heavier than ever.

* During strikes Phil Murray cuts off his own $25,000-a-year salary and the pay of all his officers and organizers.

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