Word: contractive
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Stopping Paris traffic with her slim figure and undiminished stage presence. Old-time Operatic Soprano Mary Garden concealed all but the younger half of her 81 years. Stirring from retirement in Aberdeen, the Scots prima donna was reportedly in the city on business: to sign a contract for a motion picture and TV series based on her life. Trilled Mary Garden, who refused a similar proposal from Hollywood producers nearly five years ago: "None of those dumb blondes can play...
...With contract negotiations between the United Auto Workers and the three big automobile manufacturers still stymied, the U.A.W. last week stepped up the pressure on the companies. A sudden rash of wildcat strikes virtually shut down plants in Michigan, Ohio and Delaware; by week's end almost 16,000 workers had gone out. Their reasons for striking were often thin-in one case a leaky water pipe. More important, the U.A.W. high command, which has been discouraging strikes-at least publicly-seemed to have a change of heart. It was not only doing little to get the membership back...
Many big companies still like long-term contracts. General Motors' position: the longer the better for all concerned. Yet even G.M., which started the trend to lengthy contracts by signing the first important five-year pact with the United Auto Workers in 1950, has been burned. In the first half of 1958, when earnings dropped by $147,700,000, its labor bill went up per worker, because of a cost-of-living rise. G.M., U.S. Steel and the other giants can afford such bumps as the price of labor peace. Many a smaller company cannot. Says a spokesman...
...Shorter contracts also are preferred by firms in fastmoving industries where technological changes come with dazzling rapidity. A rigid, long-term contract only tends to damage their competitive position. Electronics firms and oil producers must have flexible labor relations if they hope to take advantage of technological breakthroughs. In aviation, Lockheed and other planemakers prefer short-term contracts, not only because the state of the art is proceeding in quantum jumps, but also because the business itself comes in fits and starts...
...wants to scrap long-term contracts altogether. More and more companies now aim at the compromise middle ground of a two-year contract. What U.S. industry also needs is a contract that will give it some of the same protection that U.S. labor gets. Just as labor's wages are often pegged to the cost-of-living escalator, so might they be tied to earnings, with the automatic wage boosts being granted in fat years and withheld in times of temporary recession. In a dynamic economy, the escalators should run in both directions...