The midland journal., 1946-12-20
News ~
Behind, c. g., 60
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n.nOAIn MAIlON T
10 WANTS RAISES OUT
By Paul MALLON
Released by Western Newspaper Union.
or NEXT YEARS ePROFITl

CAO WANTS hAASES OUT
OF NEXT YEARS PROFITS
WASHINGTON. - CIO Pres. Phil
Murray calculated publicly that next
years business profits will be nine
and half billion dollars. His statis-
ticians who told him this are pre-
sunably the same statisticians who
have been wrong on everything else
so far, including the expectation Of
widespread unemployment after the
war. This is the highest profit in all
history, says Murray, so CIO will
demand a general wage increase
without inflationary price increases.
He forgets that everyone heard that
before this very year, when wage
increases to CIO resulted in stren-
uous price increases to the pub
lie. So Murray's CIO laid down
wage boost program to get a gen.
eral minimum increase of 20 cents
an hour (it will be more, he says,
if prices do not go DOWN and two
and half billion dollars more for
its six million members.
The CIO thus announces its
plans for plainly unwise action.
Its leadership publicly proposed
getting the country into some
very bad economic trouble, ON
the basis of reasoning which
would hardly fool a 1O-year-Old
child, much less a working CIO
adult.
AS they might say down on the
farm, Murray has figured out
the profit of a calf yet unborn,
what it will be sold for year
from now, at time when the
mother has been weakening un-
der stress. He is preparing to
demand a share he fixes for
himself in fabulous unreasOn-
ableness, in advance.
The seriousness of advancing such
a weak proposition into the ma
tional economic picture can be dem
onstrated by plain, observable in
disputable facts, to wit:
The stock market, in which man
now must use his own cash money
and win or lose what he has on his
good or bad judgment, takes an
entirely different view of expected
profits. The stock market has been
going down for, some months, large
ly in fear of what Murray and the
CIO may do to profits.
STRIKES CAUSE LOSSES
A profit is something you have
earned, not something you may
or may not get. Murray sensa-
tionally avoided any mention Of
what profits are now - with
Ford estimating loss, before
tax rebates, for the first nine
months of 81 million dollars and
General Motors increasing car
prices another S10O because it
cannot operate at current costs.
If he had mentioned them he
would have disclosed economic
ground for q wage reduction.
These losses are due in large
part to the 120-day CIO strike
in the motor industry, and to
the materials shortages (fOr
which other strikes are partly
responsibility.
Anyone can see this, and all prof
it's economists have. If the CIO goes
on another 120-day strike next year
to get minimum 20-cent-an-hour
wage boost, there may not be
any profits again. How is General
Motors going to sell cars on the
promise of years delivery, when
tine CIO lays out program which
looks as if it would cause strike
and force maybe two years deliv-
cry or more? The strikers now are
striking against themselves, and the
economics they lay down propose to
work against their own best inter-
ests. If they cannot sell cars before
money runs low, they cannot even
make as much wage as at present,
and their program prevents them
from selling. This is just plain stupid
union leadership, against which the
union man, now working part time
because of other strikes and short
ages, has no chance because he
must do what the union leaders
say or lose his job entirely.
RIDICULOUS PROPOSAL
That kind of economics is just
plain asinine. Murray cannot pos
sibly know how much anyone will
make next year, the employer or
his own CIO worker. To imagine a
stupendous figure for the future, and
then plan a wage-boosting cam
paign on that basis, is so ridiculous
he will have a hard time fooling
his most ardent supporters and
actually will prevent realization -ci
his imaginations. Such foolishness
should be stopped in an economic
crisis, and Murray should be the
first to stop it, because he has more
to lose Cor his workers have) from
thus killing a calf before it is born
A constructive CLIO economic pro
gram, based on realities, would
have helped accomplish his goal
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