Staving Off the Strikes

The dilatory 91st Congress stands a good chance of surpassing Harry Truman's "do nothing" 80th as a model of legislative nonactivity. Faced with the possibility of several nation-crippling strikes, however, both House and Senate last week proved that they could overcome inertia and act with dispatch. While an illegal strike by "sick" air controllers entered its third week and wildcatting Teamsters threatened chaos on the highways, Congress moved quickly to head off further trouble with the railroad and postal unions.

What forced action on the railroad crisis was the end of the 37-day moratorium that Congress had approved in March to block a strike threat by 6,000 intransigent sheet-metal workers--who constitute only 1% of all rail employees but have the power to halt the railroads. Last week, as the end of the moratorium approached and no agreement had been reached between railroad management and the workers, Congress reluctantly turned to an unusual solution. By legislative action, it imposed what would be the terms of the unions' next two-year contract--an action that some labor experts thought might face a constitutional challenge. The terms, which provided a 68-c--an-hour wage increase for 48,000 shopcraft workers who now make $3.60 an hour, were the same as the ones that the railroads and negotiators for four rail unions had agreed upon last December. At that time, the rank and file of the sheet-metal workers, the smallest of four rail unions, balked, principally because of an anti-featherbedding clause that would have allowed other rail employees to perform "incidental work" in areas normally assigned to the metal workers. That provision remains in the terms imposed by Congress. Though sheet-metal men expressed displeasure, the expectations are that the new contract will stick.

Dead on Arrival. On the postal front, Congress also moved quickly to make good on the promises that the Administration had made to end the illegal eight-day postal strike. Both the House and the Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation, which President Nixon is expected to sign this week, providing a 6% pay increase for 5,300,000 federal employees. The increase would include the nation's 725,000 postal workers, who stand to get annual pay hikes ranging from $371 to $507 a year. Even that did not please everyone. Gustave Johnson, leader of the letter carriers' Manhattan Branch 36, which began last month's strike, called the settlement a "wisp of smoke" and threatened another one if Washington did not increase the ante. The Administration may have trouble enough just paying for the current raise, which will cost $2.5 billion a year. Congress has made it clear that it will not pick up the President's suggestion that first-class postage rates be raised from 60 to 100.

Almost lost in the maneuvering on the postal-pay question was the latest flurry of congressional action on Nixon's once-vaunted plan to modernize the mail system by making it a nonpolitical, Government-owned corporation. Several junior members of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee made a last-gasp effort on behalf of the concept by pushing through a bill embodying the original Nixon proposals. Politically, however, the bill was dead on arrival. Many powerful Congressmen have been opposed all along to corporate reform of the postal system, and they have the votes to defeat any such measure.

Second Installment. The White House has now placed its hope for postal reform on a more modest Senate bill sponsored by Wyoming's McGee and Hawaii Republican Hiram Fong. The McGee-Fong bill, among other things, would retain a Senate-approved Postmaster General but would give Congress' cherished power of setting postal rates to a new, semi-autonomous board of commissioners. Though the slowly progressing bill is now in its eleventh version, Congress will be under strong pressure to pass some legislation before long. Almost certain to be attached to it is another 8% postal pay increase, which is the second installment of the Administration's agreement with the postal unions.

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