Word: steel
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...happy" with the agreement, and a number of union locals showed their own displeasure by staging a series of wildcat strikes. Even so, the $1 billion-plus settlement was the biggest in the union's history. The contract will add at least 900 to the $4.93 the average steel-worker now receives in wages and benefits. By comparison, total compensation back in 1950 amounted to $1.91. Be sides a three-year pay increase of 440, the new pact calls for broadly improved pensions, a new $30-a-week vacation bonus and an eighth paid holiday. The two sides agreed...
Duly Noted Profit. Besides higher costs and White House antipathy, Bethlehem and other steelmakers also face a severely restricted market for their products. The reason is that steel users, having stockpiled a record 36 million tons in anticipation of a strike that never came, will be working off their inventories before placing new orders. The rush of hedge buying, of course, did give the industry a big lift during the first half of 1968. U.S. Steel last week reported earnings for the first six months of $128.5 million, an increase of 52% over 1967. Bethlehem's six-month profits...
...some steelmakers expect second-half shipments to decline by more than 20% from their first-half level of 53 million tons. The industry is also concerned about competition from foreign steelmakers, who increased their inroads into the U.S. market by taking advantage of the abnormally high domestic demand for steel earlier this year. Steel from abroad is expected to account for at least 15% of the nation's total 1968 shipments...
Less Clout. In threatening to divert Government orders from steelmakers adopting across-the-board price increases, President Johnson was brandishing one of the weapons that John F. Kennedy used in his 1962 price showdown with U.S. Steel.* While Government purchases account for about 8% of the steel industry's total output, it is questionable to what extent Government contractors can be forced to switch suppliers. Kennedy succeeded in beating back U.S. Steel's price hikes by persuading Inland Steel Co. to hold the line, but L.B.J.'s lame-duck status leaves him with far less clout than...
...else fails, Johnson is counting on the realities of the marketplace to force a rollback in steel prices. After all, higher prices figure to make it even more difficult for the industry to compete with low-priced foreign steel. Nor will they help steelmakers in their efforts to drum up business during the general economic slowdown expected during the next six months. "We hope," said Johnson, "the competitive factors will, as they have in the past, bring about a readjustment on the action that the Bethlehem company has taken...