Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1946-02-22
Washington.
LaborReport
BY Bradford V. Carter

For weeks washington was
a hothouse rumor factory.
Bowles was in; Bowles was
out. Price control is lost; no
it's won. Steel price are to
be raised So a ton; no, it's 81
a ton; hold it; it's $5 ton.
Well, one day last week, as
practically everybody should
know, the lights burned later
than usual in the White House
offices on Pennsylvania Ave.
When the lights were turned
out, the world had been told
that Chester B owl les, the
knight who fought the dragon
of initiation, was to be made
director of the Office of Eco
omic Sterilization. Paul
Porter, of the Federal Com
munications Commission, was
to succeed him as Price Admin
istrator, and Judge Collett, the
former Economic Stabilizer,
was to go back to his Federal
judgeship.
NEW POLICY
More than a job Shuffling
was achieved. How much
more, it is difficult to make
out; but a new wage-price
policy was unveiled and it
looks as if steel will get a $5-
atom increase. Look for the
details of the new policy else
where, but what it sizes up to
is a policy of controlled wage
increases and price increases
which is supposed to be half
way in between a freeze pol
icy and a "Sky's the limit"
policy.
One large thing can be said
in its favor. 1t will probably
mark the ending of most of
the strikes. More than that
don't dare to say.
Most of the things that can
be said against it arise out
of the shotgun" environment
in which the policy was for
mulated. One didn't need to
be a high-powered economist
to predict that, with the end
of wartime full production,
there would result a reduc-
tion in take-home pay. And
that the unions would not
placidly sit by while the
wages of their members were
being drastically cut
Yet it took a series of para
Lying strikes to bring that
simple fact to the eyes of the
Administration. The heat of
conflict is hardly ever con-
ducive to the formulation of
workable policy, but the Ad-
ministration is always making
important policy that way.
OFF AND ON
Limitations on construction
were revoked with unseemly
haste, only to be restored as
a housing crisis brought the
problem to the front pages.
The Office af Economic Stabi-
lization was abolished when
Will Davis talked out of turn,
only to be revived last week.
The Natl. War Labor Board
was abolished, only to have
its former functions reSusci-
tated and assigned to the new
Wage Sterilization Board. In
between this monotonous pat
tern of off-again-on-again, the
Stsffs of the agencies have
been reduced and recruitment
will have to begin anew.
In all fairness, it should be
said that 1t is doubtful if any
government policy, no matter
how intelligent, could have
averted the main force of the
strike wave, in view of man.
agement stubbornesS. But an
unintelligent policy plus a
lynch spirit in Congress has
made it worse than it needed
to be.
Just to show that there was
no superhuman insight involv-
ed in appraising the shape of
things to come, may we be inn
modest enough to quote from
the Washington Labor Report
(this co nm, remember)
written after We Day; 'In the
opinion of economists here, a
more positive policy will be
required which will fill the
gap in total purchasing power
caused by reduction in hours
of work and contraction of
employment. This positive
policy must be directed at the
maintenance of ia k e-hOme
pay"
1t is conceivable, in other
words, that it would have
been possible long before VI
Day came, to have developed
a maintenance of take-home
nav noIicv which would have