Evening star., 1943-06-06
Strikes 10 Become
Increasing Threat,
Magazine Warns
Business Week Cites
Race to Curb Prices,
Hold Wage Line
Special Dispatch to The Star.


NEW YORK, June 5.-With coal
again in the forefront of the news
this week, the effects on the wrong
side of the balance sheet of infa.
ton and production began to mount
up, reported Business Week today
Even last months stoppages, in
Guiding wildcat strikes in the Mines
lost more than 10000 tons of pro.
duction, l per cent of total 1e43
needs, the publication states. This
last weeks shutdowns have reduced
available supplies by more than that.
What's more, it is clear that, Just
as the miners defiance of the no.
strike pledge a month ago stirred
workers in other fields into "un-
authorized strike f1urries, so will
their new walkout accelerate all the
latest tendencies towards direct
action in other industrial fields.
Strikes loom as an ever larger debit
factor in the immediate production
outlook.
Another 13 per cent jump in April
has lifted the cost of living to %
per cent above the January, l94l
level-as compared with the Is per
cent increase upon which the Little
Steel wage formula is based. And
the official index reflects only some
by no means all, the price ceiling
violations. The biggest advances, of
course, have come in retail food
costs, which the Office of Price Ad-
ministration is now trying to roll
back However, if Lewis example
forces other unions not to wait for
OPA, or if OPA's efforts should fail
because of lack of funds for sub
sides and ceiling enforcement, the
entire line of wage rates may we'll
be broken.
That would complicate the al
ready complex price-cost problem
facing the OPA and the Office of
Civilian Requirements in many pro-
duction lines-a problem that the
new Office of War Mobilization may
yet have to resolve.
On the one hand price ceilings
are making capacity operations un-
profitable in some cases. Some pro-
ducers, as in textiles, cannot afford
the so per cent wage premium for
overtime, while others, as in can
ming, cannot pay the higher wages
needed to attract new land less eff
cienD workers into the labor
market.
On the other hand, insufficient
price and production control is per-
mittirg some manufacturers to con-
centrate on relatively high price
and high-profit- margin output. In
a war economy, which puts en-
phasls on increasing quantities of
standard and simplifed products,
such upgrading works to the detri-
ment of civilian supply.
No Turn in Tide Seen.
AS matter of fact. despite WPBs
recent moves to expand manufacture
of such items as iceboxes, alarm
clocks, pressure cookers and radio
tubes, and the increasing attention
being paid to the need for upping
quotas on other hardware and house
nold equipment, the aggregate supply
of goods for civilians is still declin-
ing. Even the turn in trend is not
yet in sight.
In the first place. WLB's total
ALLEGATIONS for consumer hard
goods" were reduced in the third
quarter from the second-quarter
level. Even where total new durable
production increased, market sup
plies would still be lower than for
merly; distributors until new have
been able TO drain their large in
ventories of refrigerators, hardware.
repair parts, etc. but cannot do so
any longer. Further, the civilians
share of the more important group
Of soft goods food, textiles, ap-
parel, fuel, beverages, etc.-is still
dropping.