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Show : BEHINBj ' By BmjlMaLLON Jb" Released by Western Newspaper Union. iVAGE FREEZE TO BE THAWED OUT WASHINGTON. People here gen-arally gen-arally say Mr. Roosevelt deserves respect for his courage in standing arm upon his Little Steel wage freezing formula against the CIO unions un-ions so soon after his election victory vic-tory in which CIO loudly participated participat-ed (and with cash.) His decision was part of the deal by which James Byrnes remained in the right wing of the W h i te House to run war economics until victory in Europe. Eu-rope. Breakage of the wage - freezing formula would have frustrated all Byrnes' ef- """- forts to hold eco-James eco-James Byrnes nomics within the inflationary line, and he would have left the government, govern-ment, had it been broken, in such a way as to invite a genera) rising level of wages now. This inside of the matter naturally natural-ly was not made public, nor was any genuine thorough understanding of exactly what the government did give the unions. Within the decision was the core of a new policy to increase wage rates, industry by industry, indus-try, gradually over a period of months, without formally abandoning aban-doning the current economic front, or even confessing fully what is to be done. The wage freeze is thus to be thawed in spots without breaking the ice. After steel will come textiles, which really has a better case for a wage increase than steel, automobiles, automo-biles, rubber, etc. Frankly, the government was caught in a rather desperate predicament pre-dicament on this thing. The unions could not be stalled off much longer. They presented a fair case for some kind of increase, based on price advances, although they did not expect ex-pect to get as much as they asked (17 cents an hour.) Inflation Critical. On the other hand, every dollar given them complicates the inflationary infla-tionary problem which already is more critical than anyone here will admit (the shortage of goods continuously continu-ously forcing prices up through government gov-ernment ceilings as can be seen, for example, in the $20-a-cord local price for inferior wood that brought $4 a cord before the war.) Every additional dollar in circulation circula-tion will encourage payment of higher high-er prices, black markets, under-the-counter dealing and every device to defeat the government's war purpose pur-pose of holding the line. The administration took the same way out it used on former for-mer occasions. The labor board ordered reclassification of workers work-ers to increase their pay without with-out changing the scale, vacations with pay, shift preferentials, etc. By the device of reclassification alone it could grant nearly any wage increase desired, especially to the least skilled, lower grade workers. I know of one company which had the money and wanted to raise wages 10 cents an hour, but was refused permission under the wage freezing order. That company went through its employee list, group by group, reclassifying grade C workers work-ers as Grade B, and so on, until it had upgraded, ingraded and re-departmentalized re-departmentalized everyone and given giv-en them the 10 cent increase. It was all within the law, and the basic wage rate was not changed. Rates Uncertain. How much the steel men will get, nobody knows. Published accounts of the decision said 5 to 7 cents, but this is a Washington estimate. The steel companies themselves do not know. Days afterward, their economists had not even worked out a probable cost, because many of the concessions conces-sions in relation to vacations, etc., were left to future negotiation between be-tween the companies and the unions. I judge the union did not fare badly, bad-ly, as CIO president Phil Murray praised the decision. What we do know now clearly, however, is that the unions have found out what the game is here. They know now how to get their increases, in-creases, and are pressing along that line. In general, authorities here think they have compromised the situation situa-tion very well thus far, but everyone recognizes the danger on that front. Openly the big record-making companies (CBS and RCA) threw up their hands and granted Petrillo of the musicians union a bounty up to five cents each on the sale of every record for no good reason except ex-cept that the government had failed to bring Petrillo to terms in a long strike. The musicians do not need the money and Petrillo has only promised prom-ised he will expend it to further the appreciation of music. The public, of course, will pay it, as usual. A wave of strikes and greatly increased in-creased wage demands are expected. |