Evening star., 1942-10-17

beled as an in David Lawrence.
centive to bring back workers who
have gone to aircraft or other in
dustries in recent months.
While workers who have been
getting the previous wage rate are
frozen" in their jobs, the unions
demanded, it is said some form of
compensation, and this now has
been definitely related to or founded
upon the incentive priciple.
1t is generally agreed in Washing
ton that such critical materials as
copper. lead and zinc must be mined
in greater and greater quantities and
that workers are needed. The fact
Is the War Labor Board is confront
ed with a condition and not theory
and has rested its case frankly on
the grounds Of expediency.
Alternative improbable.
The decision or order must be ap-
proved by Director of Economic Sta
bilization James F. Byrnes, but it is
doubtful whether he can find an
alternative that will satisfy the situ-
alton.
What is much more embarrassing,
howeve., is the proclamation of a
wage increase in the face of a ma
tional announcement that wage in
creases were to be stopped except
to correct sub-standard wage scales
or cost Of living inequities. To use
the wage increase to do battle with
the perpleXing subject of migration
is merely to reveal that in a free
economy the competition between
industries will draw labor to the
highest wage level and will hurt
those who do not 90 with the pro-
cession.
The wage spiral which now causes
such difficulty began with decision
by what was then called the Ma
tional Defense Mediation Board
which announced an advance of 10
cents an hour in the automobile
industry in June, l941. This set the
pattern for other industries and
soon the hourly rates began to rise
in all related machine industries.
The announcement also by the
administration in 1910 and reiterat-
ed in l941 and 1912 that the 40
nour week law would not be amend
ed and the sophistry that nobody
was prevented from working his
employees more than 40 hours week
was widely publicized. But it has
resulted in the biggest single in
crease in pay envelopes that has
ever been known. To lengthen the
work week was no problem, but to
pay for it, the United States began
initiating
Lure Is Apparent.
When the earnings of a copper
miner in Idaho or Utah are compared
with what he could get as a worker
in one of Kaisers shipyards or in
the airplane factories it becomes
apparent why the miners left home
and sought elsewhere the total earn
tngs for work weeks that included
heavy overtime bonuses and even
premium pay for holidays
1t was inevitable that sometime
there would come day of reckoning
"A time when the Nation would
face shortage of manpoWer and an
eXtravagant wage expense on Gov
ernment contracts and orders paid
for by the taxpayers in ever-increas-
ing levies. Now comes a series OF re-
strictive measures and freezing
orders in a desperate effort to halt
imitation.
What has happened in the copper
mines has happened on the farms,
too The food supply of the Nation
is not yet imperilled, but the drain
of farm labor by high wages paid by
the Government itself to get camps
or planes or ships built has lett a
painful residue of unsolved prob
lens.
Maybe in the end all manpower
will have to be drafted and put on
a basis somewhat similar to selectlve
service The American Legion tor
wears after the last war cried out Tor
universal conscription. If wage in
creases are given now on the incen-
tive principle, the spiral will not stop
till wages in a given region or area
In all industries are about the same,
which means that there must oe an
upward move of the lowest salaries
to whatever happens to have been
the highest scale in the best paid in
dustry in an area or region.
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