Maxi-Split on Minimums

During his first four months in office, Labor Secretary Peter J. Brennan managed to remain all but invisible: he held no formal press conferences, granted precious few interviews and avoided appearing before Congress. Last week the former hardhat from Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen finally surfaced to detail for a House subcommittee the Nixon Administration's minimum-wage bil -and with that single appearance, Brennan provoked a maxi-split with his old colleagues in the union movement. Said AFL-CIO President George Meany: "We are aghast that Brennan has so completely abandoned the trade-union principles he espoused for all of his life before coming to Washington." Jerry Wurf, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, was more succinct. Brennan, he said, was "a son of a bitch."

Judged by the overall figures, what Brennan said hardly seemed to warrant that reaction. He suggested raising the minimum wage nearly 44% over the next four years, to $2.30 an hour. But men like Meany and Wurf learned long ago to read the fine print in any proposal. They were predictably annoyed that this year's increase would only be from $1.60 to $1.90 an hour, a dime less than the Administration itself proposed two years ago. The earnings of a full-time worker who got the minimum wage this year would stay well below the poverty line for an urban family of four. Moreover, Brennan did not advocate extending minimum-wage coverage to any of the millions of workers who are now excluded, and union men say that they are the ones who most need a raise. They include many maids, retail clerks, farm and restaurant workers, government employees and anyone working for a business that grosses less than $250,000 a year.

Brennan further argued for allowing employers to pay teen-age workers as little as 80% of the adult minimum wage, or $1.52 an hour this year -less than they get now. Among union men that proposal is known as the "McDonald's plan" because it has been strongly pushed by the McDonald's hamburger-stand chain, which employs 80,000 teen-agers -more than all but a few businesses in the nation. McDonald's is headed by Chairman R.A. Kroc, who gave $250,000 to the Nixon campaign last year.

No Plan. The idea of establishing a lower minimum wage for teen-agers has picked up support even among some liberal economists, who believe that forcing employers to pay youths as much as adults only discourages them from hiring the 14% of youngsters aged 16 to 19 who are jobless. Labor leaders argue that establishing a teen-age differential would prompt some employers to fire adult workers and hire youths to replace them. Brennan did propose that a teen-ager's pay be upped to the full adult minimum wage after 13 weeks on the job, but he offered no plan to prevent an employer from hiring a youngster for 13 weeks, then firing him and hiring another.

The broader question of minimum-wage legislation presents a difficult choice between economic and social values. Some liberal economists worry that the minimum wage spreads unemployment by making bosses pay marginal workers more than they think their labor is worth. There is some concern that a boost would be inflationary; though Brennan's proposal would cost employers only $771 million this year in raises to the 1,000,000 workers who actually get the minimum wage, it might raise the pay of many others who now get more than the minimum and would demand the same differential. For their part, a few conservative economists concede that there is a strong case in social justice for a generous hike: the minimum wage has not been raised for seven years, during which consumer prices have risen 32%, and any increase now would go directly to the working poor. Union men note causticly that Brennan himself, during his confirmation hearings early this year, endorsed an extension of the minimum wage to more workers. Brennan's reply: "The Secretary has to speak for the President, and that's what I did."

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