Labor's Losses

After many jolts to the jaw, a setback on minimum wages

One of the political surprises of the year has been the inability of organized labor to win its way with the Carter Administration or the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, despite its heavy campaign support of both. A conservative mood in Washington and the efforts of a newly vigorous business lobby have offset AFL-CIO influence. Big Labor failed to persuade Carter to appoint many of its favorites to high Administration posts. The AFL-CIO also suffered a painful defeat when Congress rejected the common-situs picketing bill. Labor leaders blamed the common-situs loss on their own failure to realize how hard a lobbying effort would be needed. They had no such excuse last week, when the House voted on the minimum wage; the AFL-CIO deployed 100 "educators on labor law reform" to spread its gospel. Result: another series of jolts to the jaw.

The House did vote to raise the minimum wage from $2.30 an hour now to $2.65 on Jan. 1 and $3.05 in 1980. But it turned down a labor bid to specify that the minimum wage from now on must be at least 53% of average manufacturing wages. It voted to let employers of waiters, waitresses and other workers who receive tips continue to pay only half the minimum wage. It decided to exempt any business with sales of less than $500,000 a year from paying minimum wages at all. The ceiling had been $250,000. Only the tie-breaking vote of Speaker Tip O'Neill prevented the House from legislating a lower minimum for teenagers. Hardly much of a victory after such a massive lobbying campaign--and not one to give labor much confidence in what might happen when the minimum-wage bill goes to the Senate.

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