Evening star., 1945-12-30
Fact-Finders End
|GMProbe, Delay
In Report Likely
Corporation and Union
Denounce Euch Other
On Wage Question
(TeTts OF General Motors and
union statements on Page A-2J
BY JAMES Y. NEWTON.

union statements on Page A-2.J
BY JAMES Y. NEWTON.
President Truman's fact-find-
ing board concluded hearings
late yesterday in the 40-day-old
General Motors Corp. strike,
while both the company and the
CIO United Auto Workers
bitterly denounced each other,
with no indication they would
reach early agreement in their
wage dispute.
In Detroit, C. E. Wilson, GIN
and Alfred P. Sloan, jr.,
board chairman, in a statement at
tackled both the union and the Gov
ernment for deciding that an en-
ployer's ability to pay higher wages
was pertinent to the settlement of
wage disputes.
In Washington, Walter P. Reu-
ther. UAW vice president, lost
no time in answering the GIN state
ment. He said that unless GIN
changed its ways to consider eco
nomic facts in negotiating wage
demands, GIN workers and the
American people will be in for "a
winter of industrial war that may
spread to all American industry"
Will Speed Accommodations.
On conclusion of the fact-finding
boards hearing, in which GIN took
no part, Lloyd K. Garrison, board
chairman, announced the panel
would make its recommendations
for settlement of the dispute as
soon as humanity possible" but he
doubted that the report would be
forthcoming as early as the jan
uary deadline set by Mr.. Truman.
The UAW through Mr.. Reuther
and Donald Montgomery, UAW
consumer counsel, spent most Of
yesterday giving the board figures
on GIN profits and costs of its prod
ucts. The last bit of evidence sub
mitted to the board came from the
Commerce Department in the form
Of a survey indicating that the auto
mobile industry would be in posi-
ton to raise wages Is per cent in
the first year of production and
about Is per cent after running full
tilt for two years.
In their statement Mr.. Wilson
and Mr.. Sloan summed up the issue
of ability to pay that was before the
act-f1nding board in these words:
rs American business to continue
to be based on free enterprise or is
it to become socialized with all ac-
tivities controlled and regimented?"
Express Fears for Future.
The statement said that the issue
at stake in the question of con-
sideration of company profits and
prices in establishing wage rates
"transcends the interests of Gen.
eral Motors"
rs American business in the fu-
ture, as in the past, to be con-
Quoted as competitive system?"
the GIN officials asked. "Or is the
determination of the essential eco
nomic factors such as costs, prices,
profits, upon which business success
and progress depend, to be made po-
litically by some governmental
agency instead of by the manage
ment appointed by the owners of
the business for that purpose?"
America is at the crossroads. 1t
must preserve the freedom of each
unit of American business to de-
termine its own destiny. Or it must
transfer to some governmental
bureaucracy or agency, or to union,
the responsibility of management
that has been the very keystone Of
American business. Shall this re-
sponsibility be surrendered? That
is the decision the American people
face..
The Sloan-Wilson statement said
G. M. had made its choice and that
1T refuses to subscribe to what 1t
believes will ultimately become,
through the process of evolution, the
ueatil oi GIle American system or
competitive enterprise"
All incentive ito do a more eff
cient job" the statement continued,
would be destroyed if wages were
geared to profits. In that way the
more efficient enterprises would be
penalized for their good work by
having to pay more for materials,
transportation and wages, they said.
The GIN officials said the COM
pany lis not contending that it has
or has not the ability to pay" but
declared that the company withdrew
from the fact-finding investigation
in the sincere belief that this action
is in the long-term interest of en-
ployes, consumers, investors and of
1