"Good Faith Is Required"

To President Eisenhower, the lackadaisical approach of management and labor toward settling the steel strike called for some knuckle rapping. Last week, in a stern letter to the heads of the twelve major steel companies and the steelworkers' union, the President said that they "must find" a quick way to settle the nine-week-old shutdown. He was plainly irritated by the fact that both sides were merely going through the motions of negotiating. Demanded the President: "Halfhearted bargaining is not enough. Intensive, uninterrupted, good-faith bargaining with a will to make a responsible settlement is required."

In his strongest warning yet, the President specifically urged the two sides to compromise their differences. The American people, said the President, have a right to expect a "measuring up" to joint responsibility by union and management, since a "reasonable basis for a settlement" exists. Wrote the President: "The steelworkers and the steel companies must find that way expeditiously."

But the letter seemed to accomplish little. The industry's reply to Ike reiterated its position that a wage increase would be inflationary. Steelworkers President David J. McDonald renewed his bid for face-to-face meetings with the chief executives of the twelve companies. In deference to the President's request for uninterrupted bargaining, the union and management negotiating teams held their first weekend session, though neither side showed any sign of budging from its position.

Prospects are that the strike will continue into October, when steel inventories will become exhausted and the economy will be hard hit by the strike. If this happens, Secretary of Labor James Mitchell said he would recommend that the President invoke the Taft-Hartley Law. Such action would send the Steelworkers back to work for about 80 days, give a fact-finding board time to study the issues and try to persuade both sides to settle. If no settlement is reached during the 80-day cooling off period then the strike would resume.

The union has repeatedly asked that Taft-Hartley not be used, arguing that it would bail out the steel companies, which could resume production just when the pressure (from shortages) to settle is greatest. In 80 days they could build up production enough to satisfy some industry needs and face another strike. But there is a growing feeling among rank-and-filers that, Taft-Hartley or no, the union is already licked and will have to settle on the industry's terms.

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