The CIO news. (Cumberland, Md.) 1942-????, 1943-02-15

pdy-udy-SScly
tossed about by dozen national issues before II
ever gets to your pocket
Once upon time your wages might be fixed by
local negotiations and national issues could be left
TO the delegates to national conventions.
But nowadays nearly every wage demand heads
right for Washington. What you get depends on
national issues like Presidential executive orders,
War Labor Board policies, the Little Steel formula,
etc.
Before you can draw your pay or spend it, the
national Congress sticks its fingers into your pay
envelope. The taxes it votes tell you how much or
how little of your wages you can keep
But even after you've subtracted taxes from
wages you still don't know where you're at, With
out consulting several more national issues.
How much your wages will buy depends on the
national issue of price control And before you
90 to the store and know what you'll get you're
slap up against the national issue of rationing.
So the national issues dealt with by the CLIO ma
tional executive board are not two or three times
removed from your local union your own dinner
table.
There's direct hookup now between every one
of us and Washington. And all of the immediate,
practical bread and-butter problems of every MEM
ber every local and every international are merged
into big national problems.
So let's look at some of the national issues ham
died by the last CLIO executive board meeting as our
own personal problems-for that's what they are
these days.
Legislation. The federal Congress can be pretty
darned personal nowadays. 1t can say how many
hours you'll work and whether or not you draw
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regulates agencies like the War Labor Board.
Then Congress decides what taxes you'll pay
and that amt hay. 1t says how much you'll pay
for social security and how much you'll get. And
it has plenty to do with what you can buy at the
store through its powers the executive agen-
cies that apply price control and rationng.
Congress can also vote life or death for your
labor union. It can uphold collective bargaining,
or it can regulate and hamstring your union out Of
all useful existence The Clio board heard reports
on busting bills presented to this Congress
that would curl your hair.
It voted for the setting up Of legislative commit
tees in every city and every local union and to stir
UP the whole membership to realize everything de-
ponds on how much every one of us can influence
Congress in the right direction.
Wage Policy BY now we all know wages don't
mean much by themselves. What we get depends
as much on price CONTROL rationing and taxation
1t does wage rates.
So, to show its vocabulary, the board said, 1.-THE
wage policy of the nation must be an integral part
of the entire economic sterilization program" and
then paused for breath.
In other words the most important thing is to
keep wages and prices on speaking terms, SO they
don't chase each other to crazy n1ation-and to get
universal rationng, effective price control and q
fair tax program, everyone get enough to eat
and so the war be financed without making war
workers anemic.
Because all this hasn't been done yet living
costs have run away from wages. So the CLIO board
called for wage adjustments to establish the proper
relationship between the two, and for the immedi-
ate sterilization of all economic factors &C well m