The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-02-10
Many Workers Await
 Bigger Pay Checks
New 4S-EIour Week Order to Mean About 30 Per Cent
 Income Boost Weekly

sASeSA w VAAAAV uAAA VAAG-AA0AA R0y AOA hours over 70, 1t will mean about Q 30 per cent boost in weekly income.
 Economic stabilization Director James Byrnes move to stop the re- cent wave of labor demands for higher wage rates to compensate for higher living costs was accom- panied by promise to prevent price increases, except those specifically allowed by law. He added a further promise by revealing that the Office of Price Administration was review ing the entire price structure with Q view to reducing prices wherever exorbitar1t prices exist"
 "There is danger that we may not fully appreciate the terrible stresses and strains upon our accustomed habits of living that we must be prepared to undergo during the coming year." he told the nation. C. Although we shall not have to endure the shame of poverty amid plenty that we did in 1882, we shall in fact have little more goods to use or consume at home than we did at the depth of the depression.
 We must all prepare to adopt 8 spartan standard of living and to take patriotic pride in It."
 He did not confine himself to wages; he denounced the farm bloc by proclaiming his faith in "incen. tive payments" to farners-pay- ments described by farm bloc mem. hers, he conceded, as subsidies" and wholly undesirable.
 His anti-inflation plan spelled rec lection of demands by John l.. Lewis United Mine Workers for $2-a-day raise for bituminous coal miners; for demands by the Rail- road Brotherhoods for 30 per cent raises for rail workers, and for all other wage rate requests beyond the little steel formulas IS per cent ceiling.
 The Byrnes policy statement fell into the pattern drawn this week for the administrators new drive to offset labor demands for higher wages and farm bloc demands for higher prices. On Monday, Price Administrator Prentiss M. Brown let 1t be known that OPA would employ the utmost firmness' to prevent any price rises.
 Yesterday, undersecretarteS Of War Robert P. Patterson and of Navy James v. Forrestal, Jr., de- clared in a seemingly-uninportan joint statement that war manufac- lures as a general policy must be satisfied with a profit margin only one-half of one-third of their nor- nal peace time margin. And yester- day the War Labor Board refused to grant packing house workers any wage rate increase.
 And then came this statement of policy by Byrnes:
 "There must be no further in. creases in wages beyond the little steel formula except in limited and special cases to correct patently gross inequities and to rectify plain. ly suhstandard wages.
 There must be no further price increases unless and to the limited extent required by law to meet clearly established cost increases which cannot generally be absorbed out of profits.
 'There must be no feeling that anybody IS trying to profit from the war an excess profits tax Is no excuse for maintaining eX. orbitant prices or for saddling ex- cessive costs on the government or on consumers"
 Byrnes cited statistics to support his contention that "the American industrial worker and his family today enjoy the highest purchas. ing power that has ever existed in this or any other country" but that this power. must be preserved and protected to make 1t "the basis of an unparalleled prosperity for Arn- ericap workers in the post.war period"
 Pointing out that many workers are receiving time-and-a-half over- time for work in excess of 70 hours a week, he said:
 "The average weekly earnings of all factory workers-that was the amount the worker takes home in his pay envelope-have increased more than 70 percent since January, 1941, and more than 60 per cent since September, 1889.
 'The family requires no more shelter, little more food, and little more clothes, but the income of the family is far in excess of any increase in the cost of living to the family. Taking into account the rise of living costs-which must and shall be halted-the actual weekly purchasing power of the average in- dustrial worker is still 36 per cent more than 1t was in September, 1939."
 But, he warned, if this purchas- ing power is not guarded carefully rising prices will destroy" 1t.