Word: wage
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Organized labor struck against the mobilization program last week. At a sullen, midnight meeting of the Wage Stabilization Board, outvoted, unable to get their demands, labor's three WSB delegates went into an elaborate huff and quit the board. By their drastic action, taken with apparent disregard for the consequences, labor's bosses brought half of the Administration's price-wage machinery to a standstill, confronted War Mobilizer Charles Wilson with a war in his own backyard, imperiled the nation's whole economy...
...Cynical Hoax." Labor's manifesto made it plain that the argument over wage controls was only the climax of "a whole series of shocking developments which we find insupportable." Ever since mobilization began to take shape, labor's nose had been out of joint. The price program was "a cynical hoax"; the wage program was "inflexible, inequitable and unworkable"; the tax program bore down on the working man, favored corporations and the rich...
Salve. To soothe labor's slow burn, the mobilization high command quickly made a salving gesture. Economic Stabilizer Eric Johnston appointed George M. Harrison, president of the Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, to be a special assistant, specializing in price and wage issues. It was a salve-but not enough to quiet union leaders' grumbles...
...With wages frozen, prices rising and their demands for a voice in the mobilization high command unheeded, labor was in a disgruntled, resentful mood. Its discontent was not eased by the Wage Stabilization Board, whose nine members were still unable to agree on a formula for letting wages catch up with prices-and whose Board Chairman Cyrus Ching let it be known that as soon as the board does agree, he is going to quit and return to the more relaxing job of U.S. mediation chief. Probable successor: W. Willard Wirtz, Northwestern University labor law professor and acting executive director...
Grumbled President Emil Rieve of the C.I.O. Textile Workers: "As far as the American people are concerned there is no stabilization program-except wage stabilization. Wages have been selected for control while other areas of the economy have sufficient freedom to go their merry...