Word: order
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Dates: during 1950-1950
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...order was a direct slap at General Motors and Ford, which only a week before had turned down Valentine's request to suspend their price increases (TIME, Dec. 18). But it also affected Chrysler and Nash, which had raised prices last week...
Angry automen accepted the Government's mandatory freeze; they had no other choice. G.M. loudly damned the order as "discriminatory . . . ill-considered," if not actually illegal. Said G.M.: "We doubt that this arbitrary action complies with the letter or intent of the price and wage stabilization act." If auto prices were frozen, asked the automen, what about the price of raw materials? And what about wage contracts, which in the auto industry are directly tied to the rising cost of living...
...Irreparable Damage." The U.A.W.'s Walter Reuther, fearing a wage freeze, promptly sided with the industry against "pinpoint" price fixing. If Valentine's order meant that cost-of-living boosts were also outlawed, then the auto industry's long-term contracts with the U.A.W. might be voided, he said, and "irreparable damage" done to the "morale of all American industrial workers." To all these questions and criticisms, Valentine's office replied with a vague statement that it was studying the situation...
This week G.M. sent wires to Pontiac, Chevrolet and Cadillac dealers stopping sales, until further notice, of new cars shipped after the rollback order. G.M. did not say how long the freeze would last. But it looked as if it was done in hopes of getting the rollback rescinded or persuading Washington to roll back raw materials and wages as well. A price freeze, said G.M., would require an "equally arbitrary wage freeze" under the Defense Production...
...Warned that it would soon be forced to order a cut in the nonmilitary use of tin by "something less than 30%" and that it might ban copper and cobalt for nonessential products where other metals can be substituted...