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Show MONEY & MARKETS ByJamer McMullin The Tihimi'i EacJrnh (Hnnii , Ai e W.I Street . NEW YORK The solution of an acuta local labor problem ia New York may have national con-sequences. con-sequences. The Transport Workers' Work-ers' union militant (X I O. organization or-ganization seeks exclusive bargaining bar-gaining representation for employes em-ployes of Brooklyn - Manhattan Tranairtsubwsy system) via an " election. Hitch Is that B.-M. T. motor-men motor-men hare belonged to the Brotherhood Broth-erhood of Locomotive Engineers for years, and the brotherhood has no Intention of being frozen out by an "upstart" union. This jurisdiction squabble is packed with dynamite. Federal, state and city officials concerned with labor matters see only one possibility possi-bility of a peaceful answer designation desig-nation of the motormen as a collective col-lective bargaining unit separate from all other B.-M. T. employes and henca not Involved in the election. The possibilities of such a precedent for splitting workers in a single corporation Into two or more bargaining units divided on craft lines are easy to visualize. visual-ize. The straw would be eagerly . grasped by the A.. F. of L. and by big time industrialists deter-" mined to restrict the growth of the CIO. The steady rise in bank loans and discounts and the correspond-in correspond-in riftplinA in hanlr aorurirv in- vestments is significant in two ways: Commercial credit expanding expand-ing at a pace which will bear watching and the demand for high grade bonds is contracting. There are no signs yet that credit expansion is getting out of hand and becoming inflationary but it might with a little further acceleration. ac-celeration. Evidence also accumulates accumu-lates that the bond market has seen its peak. Aa previously noted in this column, a large proportion of the Increase in bank credit is accounted ac-counted for by loans to carry unusually un-usually heavy inventories. Another An-other important but unpubllcized factor in the expansion is the undistributed un-distributed profits tax. A number of corporations paid auch generous dividends in 1936 to escape taxation that they have found themselves short of working work-ing capital this year. Business improvement for 1937 was overestimated over-estimated in many cases. The obvious ob-vious remedy for this condition was a bank loan wherever the corporation's credit was good for It. Most of this type of credit will be repaid out of earnings but some will be transmuted into bond or preferred stock issues after a few months. New York gets a laugh out of Governor M. C. Townsend's unique system lor settling tns Youngstown Sheet Tube strike in Indiana. He took a simple memorandum of policy sent him by the Youngstown management for his personal Information and got leaders of the Steel Workera Organizing Committee to "accept" "ac-cept" it The company's indignant protest pro-test that it hadn't signed any agreement with anybody was legitimate. Only trouble was that nobody cared. The governor waa tickled to have ended the strike even though the ethics of his method could be questioned. And the S. W. O. C. we delighted to be given even a faint excuse to call off the abortive walkout The whole affair was the baldest bald-est bit of face-saving for tha C I. O. yet The desperation of the strike leaders is revealed by tha eager way they grabbed at it Evidently tha rank-and-file of courts. Clarification of the disciplinary dis-ciplinary powers of the commission commis-sion would be of national importance. im-portance. A number of bus lines operating operat-ing between New York City and points in New Jersey recently decided de-cided to raise their fares. The Interstate commerce commission Intervened and said no. The bus lines are beginning to find the I. C C. a first-class nuisance. nui-sance. Where they used to alter tariffs, wages and schedules at will, they now practically have to aneeze. Their costs havs risen. As rugged Individualists they resent re-sent it, but there doesn't seem to be much they can do about it Their howls of anguish get the horse-laugh in railroad circles. Having been subject to rule by ths I. C. C. for years, rail men figure that since they can't get free of It the next best thing is to have their competltora In the same boat Wall Street privately concedes that tha S. E. C.'s object lesson in how to simplify a prospectus was worth while. But the following phrase in ths 8. E. C comment drew plenty of chuckles. "Msticulousness, aa practiced by lawyers in drafting Indentures, is out of place in a prospectus." The ghost of truth-in-securltles might haunt the S. E. C for that blasphemy. Copyright McClure Newspaper strikers were fed up too otherwise other-wise they would hardly have celebrated cele-brated such a transparent subterfuge subter-fuge as a tremendous triumph. The famous resort city of Atlantic At-lantic City, N. J., may soon lose its municipal radio station. Ths federal communications commission commis-sion is thinking seriously of refusing re-fusing to renew the license. The Atlantic City station, WPG, has been sharing time at 1100 kilocycles kilo-cycles with WLWL, the Paultst fathers' station in New York. WLWL waa recently purchased by the Bulova watch people and rechristened WBIL. Bulova interests in-terests also bought WOV at 1130 kilocycles and offered via the F. C. C. to give up this channel to WPG in order to get exclusive use of the 1100 kilocycle band. The commission favored this simplification. sim-plification. ' But Mayor Charles D. White of Atlantic City, aniffing around for a Senegambian in the woodpile, rejected ths proposition. The F. C. C. ia sore at his refusal to cooperate. co-operate. It believes it haa full authority to cut tha station off the air though this is a matter which might be contested in the |
