"He Ain't Going To Get Nothing"

Labor rejects Carter's plans

In the first few months of his presidency, Jimmy Carter was viewed with fond and hopeful pride by the leaders of organized labor, who felt they had been decisive in his victory at the polls. "We were in a state of euphoria," recalls Al Zack, AFL-CIO spokesman and a confidant of Labor Chief George Meany. "We had a wish list that was a mile long." But then the disappointments began. Carter and Meany clashed over minimum wage, unemployment, and Social Security legislation. Meany found so many black marks on his list that he added them up and gave Carter a grade at this February's AFL-CIO meeting in Florida. "C minus," he grumped.

Last week Jimmy Carter expressed a wish of his own to Meany and his AFL-CIO executive council during an hour-and-a-half meeting in the White House Indian Treaty Room. Carter told Big Labor that he wanted its support for his program of voluntary wage and price restraints to curb inflation. Only the day before, at a lavish White House breakfast meeting, Carter had announced a gift of sorts for the 83-year-old Meany: a solid Administration endorsement for the troubled labor-reform bill. But despite Carter's help on this pet Meany project, the labor leader turned a cold shoulder to the President's request.

So badly has the Carter-Meany relationship degenerated that Meany's rebuff was never in doubt. "George Meany has nothing but contempt for Carter," one union staffer confided before the meetings. "The way George sees it. Carter doesn't have any real sympathy for the labor movement." A more laconic labor strategist called the outcome of the meeting on wage restraint before it took place:

"Carter ain't going to get nothing." In an earnest 20-minute speech, Carter diplomatically stopped short of asking Big Labor for a public endorsement of his voluntary wage guidelines, which seek to hold wage hikes below the 7.5% average of the past two years, but he did ask for general support for wage restraint without guidelines--if prices ease.

Apparently missing the point, an angry Meany thundered that any guidelines were interference in the collective bargaining process. According to one participant, the President's lips were white with anger as he left the room for his next appointment. Meany said afterward: "We feel that the pressure should be put on the prices rather than the wages." And as for the whole anti-inflation program, he said, "It's not my job to try and make it work. It's his job."

The bitter words showed that Meany had not been softened by the President's support for the labor-reform bill. That bill, which the Senate is scheduled to take up this week, allows the National Labor Relations Board to impose stiff cash penalties on employers who unlawfully block union organizing efforts. It also shortens from 45 days to 30 days the allowed organizing period before employees vote on union representation (thus allowing management less time to campaign against unionization). After the House approved the measure last October, businessmen descended on Washington to lobby against it, and it now faces the dangers of a filibuster in the Senate.

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