The Work's Too Long

At the staid headquarters of General Motors last week, officers of the United Auto Workers jokingly presented company executives with a huge white cake iced with the words 30 AND OUT NOW! They were emphasizing the union's push for retirement with a monthly pension of $650 after 30 years' employment--whatever a worker's age.

At the Ford Motor Co., a U.A.W. official turned up in a kilt and sporran, sporting a button that demanded a wage increase of 27.5%--JUST LIKE HENRY.

Chairman Henry Ford's pay last year rose some 27%, to $874,567.

The fun and games marked the start of the biggest of this year's labor-management confrontations--U.A.W. negotiations with Detroit's Big Three for a new wage contract covering 700,000 auto workers before the old pact expires on Sept. 14. The workers seem to be in a better mood than in 1970, when rank-and-file anger at being left behind on pay led to a disastrous 67-day strike.

Both U.A.W. Chief Leonard Woodcock and company men agree that chances for a peaceful settlement look good.

Home Life. The hottest issue is the union's demand that employees be permitted to refuse overtime work. Workers complain that long hours hurt their health and home life. Managements contend that mandatory overtime is necessary to keep assembly lines moving smoothly. The union's reply: G.M., Ford and Chrysler operate profitably in Canada and Europe, where involuntary overtime is forbidden by law.

Union officials say that they will seek "a substantial wage increase" over the present average of $5.19 an hour (with fringe benefits, it comes to about $8). They are also asking for a clause that would increase wages by four cents an hour for every one-point rise in the Government's cost of living index; now they get two-and-a-half cents every time that the index goes up a point.

Government officials and economists have made much of the "moderate" settlements that other major unions have agreed to this year. Increases in rubber, oil, trucking and apparel have averaged no more than 7%. But 7% seemed tolerable because the strong productivity gains that accompany a surging economy held production costs down. As the economy slows, however, output per man-hour will grow at a lower rate. Even if labor is moderate in its demands, production costs and prices will go up, and 7% pay gains will be harder to accept. If the unions decide to go for broke, a cost-push inflation could well be added to the present demand-pull inflation. Together they are a prescription for trouble.

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