STRIKEWAVE DUE AS UNIONS PRESS WELFARE DRIVES
RASKIN, A. H.
Strikewave Due As Unions Press Welfare Drives By A. H. Raskin New York Times Labor Correspondent c WITH THE PLANS OF THE TRUMAN ADMINISTRATION for a* liberalized social security program...
...Nothing has transpired to throw doubt on the permanence of Moscow's dominion over nearly half of Europe...
...Our statesmen had a superb opportunity for putting the Kremlin in the pillory before world opinion on a dozen counts...
...He asked why she wasn't back in the shop...
...They are currently running slightly over $30 a month...
...The Daily Worker finds it possible to declaim: "The door to peace has been forced open somewhat by the combined pressure of the Soviet Union, the eastern democracies, the Chinese people's victories, anti the enormous will to peace which has been manifesting itself in the capitalist-dominated countries...
...in that area it has lost by default...
...Lewis is no longer around...
...Moscow s press is not whistling in the dark when it hails this Paris conference I with satisfaction...
...The union contention is that more purchas- . ing power is the best antidote to recession...
...Her answer was simple...
...THE UNION WELFARE FUNDS in the men's and women's clothing industry operate on more stable financial lines than the Lewis program...
...That means introduction of welfare benefits in most of the Industries still without such protection for their workers...
...defensive...
...i *' » • WHAT THEY FEAR is that unions will suffer the same sharp decline in membership and influence that accompanied the slump after World War I if they submit to employer arguments that higher labor costs will drive' prices up and make unemployment worse...
...Lewis has sketched out for his fund...
...He should not merely be stopped but pressed firmly to retreat and disgorge...
...Russia has retained its j strategic advantage in Berlin, has gotten the West, to underwrite its right to rob »,Austria, icept us pinned down in Europe and has thus enjoyed a freer hand in China...
...This fund has just raised its monthly pension from $50 to $05...
...Paradoxically, the brightest chance ^ for a peaceful breakthrough exists in Othe industry that has the most extensive and expensive welfare program now in effect—coal...
...Usually • the supposed malingering turns out to be a case of misunderstanding on the part of the claimant or the com* plainant...
...In the pioneer pension system established by the Cloak Joint Board of the International Ladles Garment Workers •Union, a payment equivalent to monthly benefits for twelve years is set aside in the trust fund every time a member is certified for retirement...
...Hyman Blumberg, executive vicepresident of the Amalgamated, tells of one old woman who was sent home sick...
...The 1949 argument over welfare funds is complicated by management assertions in steel that pensions are specifically excluded from negotiations this year, Mr, Murray's reply has been to hint that he will qualify under the Taft-Hartley Law and bring unfair labor practice charges against' the steel industry...
...As far as we know, no serious concessions have been made to Stalin...
...This would throw the whole issue into the courts and also raise the • possibility that the union could claim back wages in the event of a strike...
...Its retirement benefits match social security dollar for dollar...
...They got their big push from the effort of unions and employers to find legal ways to circumvent the limitations on wage increases imposed by the War Labor Board's "Little Steel" formula...
...This is well ahead of its prospective income of $100,000,000 for 1949, but a further rise of 10 cents in the royalty would raise the annual take to $150,000,000...
...Those who feared the funds would be turned into union "war chests" or looted by corrupt officials have found their fears wholly without warrant...
...Rank-and-file members also show an intense interest in the administration of the welfare programs...
...The democratic ministers put up a united front...
...But some of us find it far from nourishing...
...We have no cause for pride as we survey the results of the Paris enterprise...
...If those mountainous labors have produced only a mouse, it is still preferable to the monsters of appeasement born at other meetings...
...The first is under construction in New York...
...Secretary Aeheson, on balance, finds that Moscow ft* on the...
...It finds them thoroughly consistent with its concept of voluntary medical insurance...
...Such is the propaganda moral Moscow draws from the Big Four meeting...
...This is even more true in cases where unions are the sole trustees than in those jointly administered by employer and union representatives...
...The average age of workers in the basic industries is getting higher, and pensions have ceased to be a visionary consideration in steel and automobile plants...
...Lewis is distributing an estimated $2,500,000 .a week in benefits from his fund...
...I was told I had to be away thirteen weeks on the welfare," she said...
...It operates on a "pay as you go" basis and UMWofficials are counting on Mr...
...Our editorial Pollyannas can, and do, make quite a soup out of these thin ingredients...
...If the West has acquired the offensive, it has used it meekly...
...fulfill all the goals Mr...
...No one is speculating too much on what will happen when Mr...
...th^ West on the offensive...
...Even at this gathering it did riot hesitate to inject the question of a Japanese peace treaty...
...True, these matters were not formally "on the agenda" at Paris...
...Anne O'Hare McCormiek confirms that Soviet diplomacy seems to have lost itsjmreness of touch...
...After she had been away a month, a union business agent saw her working in' her garden...
...This failure is symbolic...
...And towering behind ;he Paris talks was the unmitigated communist triumph in China...
...Strikewave Due As Unions Press Welfare Drives By A. H. Raskin New York Times Labor Correspondent c WITH THE PLANS OF THE TRUMAN ADMINISTRATION for a* liberalized social security program stalled in Congress, labor organizations in all the basic industries are fighting this summer for social security with a union label...
...The ILGWU health centers have been cited for special commendation by AMA leaders...
...Thus far, howe ver, the industry response on- waif are, as wail as wages, has been an unbroken "no...
...On welfare demands, the unions argue that their members want and need protection beyond that available through the government...
...In steel, automobiles, electrical manufacturing, oil, rubber and scores of lesser Industries, demands for employer-financed, welfare and perisioasj'stems share the spotlight with pressure for fourth-round wage increases...
...She began drawing sickness benefits from the welfare fund...
...Notice was served — and this in my view is the most important item in the inventory — that the shameful Potsdum compact is no longer sacrosanct...
...Paris Gives No Cause for Pride By Eugene Lyons IF YOU TRY -REAL HARD you can squeeze a few drops of satisfaction and consolation out of the Four Power Conference that has just droned to its anticlimactic end in Paris...
...It need hardly be added that it is galling to leaders like Philip Murray and Walter P. Reuther to have to ride in John L. Lewis' wake on the welfare issue year after year...
...The fact that 3,500,000 workers already are covered by welfare programs established through collective bargaining creates an especially strong pressure on unions whose members are still without such funds...
...We have the moral, the political and even the physical power to take the initiative...
...Just what discussions took place on this score, whether any steps have already been agreed upon, we do not as yet know...
...There have been enough trial baloons, enough talk of a Little Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe,to suggest that the subject was central in the Paris negotiations...
...Top union leaders recognise that this is a poor time to strike, but there is little doubt that they will order their member* onto the picket line by mid-July if the answer stars no...
...An Influential' group of Northern operators is prepared to settle with John L, Lewis lor an increase of 10 cents in the present welfare royalty of 20 cents a ton if the belligerent leader of the United Mine Workers will scrap his demands for production control and a sbe workweek...
...Scores of complaints against malingerers have come from shop workers outraged that any of their fellow workers should seek to "chisel" In claiming benefits...
...We must make it clear tp the world end especially to the victims writhing under the Bolshevik iron heel, that we do not propose to settle for the status quo...
...I V * V THE MOST VITAL GAIN from the Kremlin's vantage point is in the opening of perspectives for East-West trade...
...This is about what happened in the railway industry when its private retirement system showed signs of collapsing...
...Some federal officials feel the union and the industry will eventually have to come around to the government and ask it to bail out the fund...
...Aware that the democracies at last have the strength to be tough, the Kremlin is evidently relieved to learn that we either do not*know how or do not wish to use the new leverage...
...Stop Stalin" may have been a good enough slogan two or three years ago...
...But the Kremlin has never been limited by such formalities in exploiting its advantages when it enjoyed the offensive...
...Lewis to see to it that there is always enough money available to pay the bills...
...And as usual, the West has obtained no propaganda values whatsoever from the event...
...This is big money, but not big enough to...
...that we do not propose to pay with other people s freedom for an illusory stabilization...
...It looks like a hot summer on the collective bargaining front, with pensions and welfare funds as the hottest Issues confronting the negotiators...
...Not a spark of hope was struck at the meeting for the 120,000,000 people in Eastern Europe, behind the Soviet wall of bayonets...
...We chose to spare Stalin's sensitive feelings and went home to boast of our new offensive position...
...Our rights in that city, particularly the right to access, remain as tentative and ambiguous as ever...
...It is no secret that the economic situation in the Soviet sphere is desperate and that Stalin needs our help desperately...
...It no longer suffices...
...The Amalgamated Clothing Workers operates its own insurance company...
...The anthracite fund would run to about $15,000,000 a year with the increase...
...None of the ^usurping Red regimes in the captive countries have been in the slightest discommoded, unless it be Yugoslavia, though all of them have violated treaties the 3ig Four are pledged to.enforce...
...Four years after the end of the war American public opinion should no longer be overjoyed because outright appeasement has ended...
...For purposes of <its propaganda, moreover, the Kremlin can claim the initiative in preserving "peace," without sacrificing any of the fruits of its aggressive and expansionist policies...
...Now they are beginning to permeate the entire industrial structure...
...The American Medical Association, chronic foe of "socialized medicine," looks upon the union plans with an approving eye...
...THE "VICTORY" WE BOUGHT in Berlin with American lives and treasure in the grueling airlift turns out to be empty...
...Before the war welfare programs under collective bargaining were a rarity...
...Austria's hope of independence has been advanced a little, with an extortionist pavoff to the Kremlin...
...Even the building trades and longshoremen are covered by such programs...
...The Amalgamated Is beginning to follow the lead of the ILGWUin * setting up health centers for its members in various cities...
...Indeed, there has been some criticism that unions are excessively strict in approving expenditures from the funds...
...With employers adamant against any rise In labor costs, the out-' look is for strikes that may exceed the costly walkouts of 1946 i i in length and bitterness...
...Lewis, whose miners now enjoy pensions of $100 a month a'f the age of 60 and have broad protection against the hazards of ill health and disability, gets more, the steel industry will almost certainly have to abandon its resistance to any concessions for Philip Murray's United Steelworkers, CIO...
...If Mr...
...The Railroad Retirement Board, which pays pensions more than twice as large as the regular social security retirement benefits, was the result...
Vol. 32 • July 1949 • No. 27
