Word: automen
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...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...
While the debate went on, automen were open in charging that they had been double-crossed by Washington. After G.M. and Ford had raised their prices-and Valentine had requested them to rescind the increases-the automen had trekked to Washington with charts and figures to show that labor costs had risen 11% and that materials had jumped anywhere from 7% in steel to 300% in natural rubber this year...
...National Production Authority, which for some time has been nibbling at the civilian use of various scarce materials, last week took the biggest bite yet. It ordered a 15% cut in non-defense copper for the first two months of 1951, and a 20% cut for March. Automen said the cut would mean a 10% slash in auto production in next year's first quarter because there was no practical substitute for copper in auto radiators...
When the Chrysler Corp. delegated Lester Lum Colbert to negotiate a new wage agreement with the U.A.W.-C.I.O. last August, Detroit's automen gossiped that he was being groomed for the presidency (TIME, Sept. 4). Last week, Chrysler directors made it official. President K. T. Keller, nudging the retirement age of 65 and busy three days a week with his new job as director of the Defense Department's guided missile program, moved up to board chairman-a post vacant since Walter P. Chrysler's death in 1940. Into the presidency went "Tex" Colbert, 45, boss...
...shift to automatic transmissions, automen have added a shoal of new words to the language. Most of them, as might be expected, end in "matic" (e.g., Hydra-Matic, Gyro-Matic, Ultramatic). Last week the Ford Motor Co. announced a new automatic transmission of its own, developed with Borg-Warner Corp. for the 1951 Mercurys. Its name: "Merc-O-Matic." In a few months the company will bring out a new transmission, optional on all 1951 Fords. The name, to nobody's great surprise: "Ford-O-Matic...