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Show Friday tfoveinber 16, 1945 UTAH VALLEY NEWS li XL XL HP IT 7 XL XL aWShJ QrplPT Dv XL XLmXLmXXLm4 TRY XL Cannot Pay Increased Wages Now )i levels Steel Prices were frozen by OPA at Pre-WCosts have Soared Many steel products now sell at a loss Answer to present wage demands depends on steel price policy of OPA. ar v. because of prices TODAY, costs, many steel products are being sold at a loss. That is why the steel industry catmot how bay goysmtnent-controll- &l higher wages. A demand for a general wage increase of $2 a day has been made by the United Steelworkers of America-CIIn presenting this demand. Philip Murray served notice that this demand was not subject to dickering or compromise. To enforce this demand, strike votes are being taken this month in the steel industry. Any general stoppage of steel production would be a calamitous blow to reconversion. O. Increased Wages cannot be paid out of thin air. Proceeds from sales of steel provide the only fund out of which wages can be paid. Today the ceiling prices imposed by OPA do not provide a sufficient return to pay current costs of steel operations, let alone any increase in wages. Present OPA ceiling prices for steel products are generally less than steel prices in 1937.. However, labor and other costs in the steel industry have gone up trecosts have squeezed mendously. These out virtually all of the profit originally contained in ever-mounti- ng pre-w- ar steel prices. Collective bargaining conferences between steel producers and the Union have already been held. Nothing can be accomplished toward negotiating any wage increase until OPA performs its statutory duty. Under act of Congress, steel producers are entitled to ceiling prices which yield on each product a profit equivalent to that of the base period, established by OPA as Wages in the steel industry do not need to be further advanced to keen pace with increases in the cost of living since January 1941. Increases in average straight time hourly earnings in the steel industry, (without overtime) between January 1941 and August 1945 rose 34 percent, or more than the advance during this same period in the U, S. Department of Labor index of the cost of living. Today steel workers rank among the highest tiald wage earners in American industry. In August 1945, average straight time pay for steel workers was $1.15 an hour, without counting overtime pay. The end of the war has not eliminated all overtime in the steel industry, and a considerable period of time may elapse before the industry fully returns to a normal work week. 40-ho- Accordingly, today steel producers are entitled to substantial increases in these ceiling prices. Many months ago they asked OPA for such price relief. OPA has not acted. : k v ur Until OPA authorizes fair prices, nothing can he settled through collective bargaining. American Iron and Steel Institute i : 350 Fifth Avenue. New York 1. N. Y. OUR COMPANY MEMBERS EMPLOY 93 PERCENT OP THE WORKERS IN THE STEEL INDUSTRY. ' si W'J ii jin... Jl |