Labor's Love Lost

Ailing A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany limped painfully* to the lectern.

There, jowls aquiver with indignation, he roared at a union convention in Washington: "We can't buy either party. If we are looking around for a party to adopt or control, we don't want the Democratic Party, because they can't deliver!" President Johnson was un moved. "As far as I have been aware," he said laconically, "labor has always been independent, and should be."

Sitting on Situs. Nonetheless, Meany's blast brought the smoldering feud between labor and the Democratic Party close to open warfare. Already irked by the Administration's tepid efforts to win repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act's Section 14(b), labor's No. 1 legislative goal for the 89th Congress, union tempers were raised to boiling point last week by the House's failure to act on another measure eagerly sought by the unions. Stalled in committee was a bill that would over turn a 1951 U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibiting a union from picketing one employer at all entrances to a construction site where several employers are at work, on grounds that this amounts to a secondary boycott.

One reason for the so-called "situs" bill's failure to clear Adam Clayton Powell's Education and Labor Committee is that it would chiefly benefit the construction trades unions, which have been notoriously reluctant to admit Negroes. In addition, though the bill has more than enough votes for passage, House Democrats have decided to leave it in committee until the Senate acts. Reason: Democrats from conservative districts feel that they lost votes unnecessarily by supporting the 14 (b) repeal bill only to have the Senate filibuster it to death.

Love Call. Labor's inability so far to win passage of a single major bill that it sought from the 89th Congress attests to its diminishing influence on Capitol Hill and at the polls. Moreover, for all their outcries, the unions are in the curious position of demanding cooperation from the Administration while giving none in return. Union leaders have coldly and consistently ignored the President's request that wage-price hikes be held to a noninflationary 3.2% a year. In current negotiations alone, the International Association of Ma chinists is asking the nation's major airlines for a 15% increase, Denver ironworkers want 15.7%, Kansas City carpenters are asking 10%, Albuquerque bricklayers want 19%, and Baton Rouge operating engineers 17.5% .

More from habit than necessity, the Democrats made a token effort to woo labor last week. Showing up for the final session of the construction trades union convention, Vice President Humphrey shouted buoyantly to the 4,000 delegates: "We Democrats need the labor movement. The President of the United States is your friend, and we are not going to let you down!" But even that ardent love call brought no more than a few tepid claps from the disgruntled labor leaders.

* In Manhattan at week's end Meany underwent an arthroplasty operation to ease the pain in his arthritic right hip joint, a disability that has forced him to use a cane for several years.

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