Labor: A Plague of Strikes

NEITHER the wage-price freeze nor presidential exhortation was enough to hold back a wave of labor unrest that swept the country last week. Most serious was the walkout of longshoremen on the East and Gulf coasts, which, together with the three-month-old strike of West Coast dockers, closed down virtually all U.S. deep-sea ports for the first time in history. In addition, a strike of miners brought practically all soft coal production to a halt. And the possibility of a crippling work stoppage hung over the nation's railroads. The disruptions are both a rebuke and a challenge by labor to President Nixon's new economic policies aimed at holding the line on prices and wages.

The four main battles: >The key confrontation is between the New York Shipping Association, which usually establishes the contract pattern for the East and Gulf coasts, and the International Longshoremen's Association, which represents 45,000 workers in locals from Maine to Texas. Bargaining foundered when neither side could agree on the formulation of a guaranteed annual-wage clause, which in the old contract required employers in New York to pay dockers whether they worked or not. The longshoremen are also demanding a wage increase of $2.90 to $7.50 an hour, double time for work after eight hours and substantial pension benefits.

> The deadlock between Harry Bridges' International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union and the Pacific Maritime Association drags on, though the tempo of negotiations quickened last week after an earlier meeting with Nixon. The 15,000-member union wants a wage increase of $14.40 to $52.92 a day, a guaranteed weekly wage, and total jurisdiction over loading and unloading cargo containers near the docks. This last demand precipitated the strike and remains the major cause of the impasse. The Teamsters union now claims jurisdiction over loading containers, and the shippers have refused to turn this work totally over to the dockers. The issue is critical to the ILWU because container loading provides work for the union's members who are being squeezed off the docks by labor-saving technology.

>The United Mine Workers Union and the mine operators failed to agree on new terms before the old contract expired. Though Union President W.A. (Tony) Boyle did not call a walkout, the 80,000 UMW members, following the "no contract, no work" tradition, walked off their jobs anyway. The union wants daily wages increased from $37 to about $50, a doubling of the 40-c- per ton "royalty" that the operators pay into the union pension fund, paid sick leave and increased medical benefits. The biggest complication is the confusion caused by the freeze and the controls that will follow it. The owners do not know how much they can increase their prices; the union is not sure how large a pay increase the Government will allow.

>The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen was free to strike last week as Government-imposed restraints expired. Though a strike that would snarl the nation's rail system is possible, the indications are that the signalmen will await the outcome of contract talks involving the larger shopcraft unions before pressing their demands. They want at least a 54% increase in their $3.78 an hour wage over three years.

The immediate effect of the work stoppages in the coal fields and on the waterfront will be minimal. Most electric-power firms, the major coal users, have large enough stockpiles to keep their facilities humming for more than two months. Shippers, aware that every ILA contract negotiation since 1951 has ended in a strike, have moved their goods early. Even with a dock settlement, activity in East and Gulf Coast ports will be slack for at least a month.

Of the four walkouts, the New York dock strike shaped up as the most intractable, largely because of the guaranteed wage issue. Differences on this issue in New York blocked agreement on other demands, which traditionally serve as the standard for ILA contracts. Thus dockers in all ILA ports, most of whom do not have a guarantee and are primarily concerned about wages and benefits, nonetheless walked off their jobs. Whether New York longshoremen work or not, they are assured of pay for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year at a rate of $6.31 an hour in wages and benefits. Smaller guarantees are also in force in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and ILA President Thomas Gleason would like the benefit extended to other ports.

Seniority Rules. Chief Management Negotiator James Dickman notes that in the past year the guarantee has cost New York stevedore and shipping firms $30 million. Though there is often work available, each day thousands of New York's 18,000 dock workers remain profitably idle, partly because some rigid and complicated seniority rules enable them to turn down work and still get paid. Employers argue that workers also abuse the guarantee by putting in a mandatory appearance at one of the city's 13 hiring halls, then slipping away before work can be assigned to them.

The New York employers agreed to include a guarantee in a new contract on one major condition: dockers would have to sign up as employees of individual firms and take what work was offered rather than being assigned jobs at hiring halls. The union, seeing the threat to its featherbedding work rules, rejected the proposal, and prospects for a quick settlement are dim.

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