The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1945-12-21
"BIG STICK" BARGAINING
Rv IL. r.. Jones

ty percent, or else?
This is the ultimatum on which
leaders of the United Automobile
nationwide strike against General
Motors, the nations largest produc-
err of passenger cars and trucks.
The JAW hue and cry was 81
hours pay for 40 hours work, or a
Gripping strike, even before recon-
version was completed that is now
costing General Motors wage earners
nearly S2,OOO,0OO daily and affecting
indirectly every phase of the nations
economy.
Widespread strikes such as tkis cut
purchasing power, hurt the butcher,
the baker the little storekeeper and
the big storekeeper, the farmer-all
of us, all over the country.
Why do we have strike at time
when the country needs full produc-
ton and peacetime jobs? Only be-
cause General Motors, which always
has paid high wages, would not get
in step under the JAWS big Stick"
In it's negotiations with the UAW
committee GIN offered a 10 per cent
raise, plus whatever additional might
be necessary to balance cost-of-living
increases since January /, 1871.
Here's what this means: During the
war a GIN worker whose hourly rate
was $1.15 earned $55.49 working an
average 455 hours weekly. At the
increase rates proposed by GIN and
with time and half for overtime,
this same worker would earn just as
much as this, in postwar take home
pay, in three hours less time.
Tkis offer-more weekly take
home pay than GIN workers receiv-
ed during war-was fatty rejected
by union leaders who, from the be-
ginning, were bound and determined
to have strike. General Motors
plants in many parts of the country
were closed down and JAW pickets
illegally turned back $4,000 office
workers at the gates.
Here we have an example of a |
large company whose employees are
among the highest paid in all indus
try forced down overnight because it
would not agree to give SO hours
pay for 40 hours work. Imagine the
chaos if employees of every
factory, every department store ev-
cry business enterprise across the
country, demanded 80 per cent and,
failing to get it, walked out on
strike? What the country needs is
torrents of production to check the
threat of imitation, meet the needs
of eager-to-buy consumers not
strikes and stoppages.
But the JAW thinks only OF it.
self-30 per cent, or else? "Big
Stick bargaining, or strike in
which everyone loses.
Farmers Hold Up Their End
When one stops to analyze differ
ent elements of our population en-
gagged in industry, agriculture and
.abor, it is impossible to escape the
conviction that whenever these great
groups close their ranks and move
ahead in orderdly ways that they are
all bound to strengthen their country
and improve their own individual
conditions. Right now a good part of
our country and its affairs seems to
be suffering from dizziness. However,
there is no question as to the direc-
lion agriculture wants to go. The |
farmers main aim in life is to pro-
luce as abundatnly as he knows how.
it has been part of farm thinking in
The earth in terms of bumper har
vests, livestock fattened for market,
and well-laden dinner tables.
While industry was adding mil
lions of workers to its payroll, and |
engaged in near civil warfare with |
strikers, agriculture was unable to |
get enough new machinery and often |
aot enough repair parts for its needs.
While industry built thousands of |
new plants, agriculture had to be |
content with merely making better |
Use of its acres, animals, and equip |
ment.
But you have got to take off your |
hats to the farmers, who have held |
up their heads and fought nobly to
the end that they have never failed |
to hold up their end.
Crime Wave Sweeps the Nation
Edgar j. Hoover, director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, re-
minds his fellow countrymen that |
after every great war or period of
national emergency there has been a |
recession of moral fortitude." In
more common terms there is whole
sale increase of crimes, multiplica- |
lion of crooks. Mr.. Hoover is number
AL authority. And, sad to note, he
points finger of shame on juvenile de-
Ainquents.
He pointed out that the arrests of |
girls under Is have increased 1881