The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1949-10-06
Hopes For Early
Steel Settlement
Dim, 500,00 Out

Pitts burgh h (LPA)-As the
strike of the United Steelworkers
against, the baronies of steel swept
through it's first week, hopes for
an early settlement were dim.
Key negotiations here between a
union committee headed by Philip
Murray, president of the Steel
workers and the giant United
States Steel Corp. remained dead
locked on the central union de-
mand that pensions for the 500,-
coo men involved be 100 per cent
financed by the companies.
US Steel's refusal to bulge from
its insistence that the workers cut
their take-home pay to finance
part of their pensions precipitated
the strike at 1901 a. m. on Oct. L.
The last ditch efforts of Cyrus S.
Ching, chief of the Federal Con-
ciliation Service, to avert the walk
out went for naught as the fires
were banked in more than 300
mills across the country during the
last hours before the strike dead
line.
The unions pre-strike position
was based on the recommendations
of a fact-finding board appointed
by President Truman in mid-July.
At that time, the union postponed
a strike two months until the fact
finders could issue report.
Last month the three-man fact
finding panel made it's recommen-
dations. 1t held that the union
should drop its demand for wage
increase but reinstate it later if
steel prices failed to drop.
But it also recommended that
the steel industry pay all the costs
of a welfare plan and a pension
plan to bring steel workers retire
ment income from federal social
security to $100 a month. The
panel recommended that the indus
try pay 10 cents an hour per man
to support the entire program.
The union accepted the recon-
mendations in their entirety even
to dropping it's original wage de-
mand. The companies led by US
Steel rejected them, but finally
agreed to pay the 10 cents provid-
ed the employees would top it with
a further contribution.
The union turned this PROPOSE
ton down coldly. President Murray
pointed out that if the union agreed
TO it the steel workers would in
effect be accepting pay cut. The
strike, delayed n days beyond its
original July Is starting date,
then became inevitable when US
Steel stood pat while the Ford
Motor Co. settled with the United
Auto Workers for 117,000 workers
on the basis of the steel fact-find-
ers' report.
How long the strike would last
was matter of pure speculation.
Lowest estimates were about two
weeks, but other guesses were
longer, much longer. 1t was up to
US Steel whose executives stub
bornly refused to pay the mon
contributory" pensions. 1t was a
matter of principle, thev said.
Ironically enough, the same ex-
ecutives stand to draw pensions on
retirement to which they never
contributed a nickel. Some of these
executive pensions will be upward
of $4,000 a year, the union dis
closed.
At a press conference here on
Oct. 1, Mr.. Murray said that the
union offered US Steel three pro-
positions on which the dispute
could be settled. But he said the
corporation had declined all three.
The proposals were:
IA contract based on accept
ance of the finders report.
"A contract based on the above
plus a 1212-cent an hour pay in
crease.
3-A contract based on the
unions original demand that the
company pay an extra 80 cents an
hour to be distributed among
wages, a welfare plan and pen
sion fund.