Word: reuthers
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...beyond the squalid skulduggery of any individual labor leader is the question of labor's role in a nation confronted by creeping inflation. United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther, aware of a growing resentment, tried to pass the blame to management-and had it tossed right back (see below). Indeed, there was justification for the idea that labor's basic appetites are inflationary. Said the New York Times this week: "There is a built-in 'political' need for the labor union leader to win a wage increase every year, if at all possible...
Walter Philip Reuther, 49, the redheaded boss of the 1,500,000 United Automobile Workers and vice president of the 15-million-man A.F.L.-C.I.O., remained utterly aloof from the tawdry discourse about Jimmy Hoffa and Johnny Dio going on in Washington. Instead, the U.A.W.'s Reuther chose to initiate a new public debate, not about labor corruption, but about economics. Aware of public concern about inflation, Reuther astutely proposed that the big three automobile makers cut prices on 1958 models by $100 or more below 1957 prices, whereupon his union would give "full consideration" to lower company earnings...
...result of the exchange: a spate of publicity for Walter Reuther and his odd theory that U.S. private enterprise should be limited by some kind of labor review and control. As Walter Reuther must have realized all along, neither the proposal nor the discussion made any real contribution to the critical struggle against inflation...
...time of growing public concern about inflation, United Automobile Workers' President Walter Reuther last week fired off an astute challenge to the presidents of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. He proposed that 1) the Big Three should cut prices on 1958 models by a specific $100 below prices for 1957 models-or more; 2) the U.A.W. would then give nonspecific "full consideration" to lower company earnings in framing its 1958 demands (reportedly to include the four-day week and a substantial wage increase); and 3) if U.A.W. demands appeared to force the companies to raise prices again, U.A.W...
...Reuther was obviously asking a lot and offering almost nothing. He was just as obviously taking a line designed to soothe the growing public conviction that immoderate wage demands by big labor add up to a big factor in inflation (TIME, Aug. 5). But the fact remained that he had astutely framed his argument in the terms of inflation and thereby caught a public ear that would likewise be tuned to the answers of the auto companies...