Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1949-08-26
Steel Mon Dies;
His Home Dies, Too

OSAAA~ ~N~A-
wears after his funeral, and the odds are
ten to one you can't find his family.
1t has disintegrated and its members
are scattered. Their father hadn't left
enough cash to hold them together, and
there are no other resources for them in
the steel town where he had used up his
life.
The girl he left behind him isn't girl
any more. More often than not, she's over
45. And she's an unlikely prospect for re-
marriage, because, the sober statisticians
hired by his CIO union report, "she hasn't
much to offer economically.
For a variety of reasons, not all of
them age, the Steelworker's widow can't
often find job. In a surprising number
of cases, these middle-aged women have
minor children.
And the incidence of disability among
them is as high as you might expect after
20 years of housework and the final or
deal of nursing a husband through long
illness.
That final illness is itself major eco
nomic catastrophe for the SteelWorker's
survivors In many cases, the family has
no way to meet the doctors bills, except
by cashing in their insurance; as result,
the average Steelworker dies with only
Is per cent as much non-group insurance
as is left by the average American family
head.
Philip Murrays experts spent two
months tracing the survivors of the 1000
Steelworkers who have died since June,
1947. They were able TO locate only 406
widows; the rest had disappeared.
And so per cent of those who could be
found, were living only by means of out
side help Some were getting aid from rel
stives, others had sold property or cashed
their insurance, or gone into debt or taken
In boarders. Only one quarter of the total
had Jobs; another quarter was looking; the
rest were unemployable.
About three out of eight of the widows
were drawing an average $44.43 month
under the survivors section of the social
security law
But employment was so Spotty in the
mills before the war; that, even after ten
years of social security, fully quarter of
the dead Steelworkers hadn't been able
to put in enough time in the mill to make
their survivors eligible for its benefits
All these are the statistics of the Pot
ter's Field. The grim, gray story they tell
of life after death in a steel town Is Philip
Murray's case for pension, insurance and
hospital plan for his Steelworkers.
On and on the story goes, measured
and matter-of-fact spelled out in the chill
atmosphere of the Federal courtroom in
Foley Square.
The mouting power of that case doesn't
1ia in ite Enr f,,y
ray Latimer former chairman of the gov
ernment's Railway Retirement Board and
now private expert on workers security
plans, has put it with charts and statistics
before the three-man board appointed by
President Truman.
Latimer is not dramatic figure. He Is
a stocky man with gray mustache and a
delivery that is careful, filled with stately
pauseS, and mildly reminiscent of the ac-
cent of the Mississippi Delta.
But it is his dry chronicle of pauperi-
zation that the steel companies must rebut
If they are to get out of this hearing with
report that is not much closer to the 30
cents-an-hour package which Murray is
demanding than anyone expected when
this hearing began.
Murray wants the steel companies to
finance flat 1850 insurance policy for
every Steelworker payable at death; sick
benefits of $3l $50 week, hospital insur-
ance covering 20 days of illness, and up to
$500 In surgical fees.
Latimer has spent two days describing
state of things where the Steelworkers
pay for whatever security they get and
aren't able to buy medical insurance
plan which pays them more than ten per
cent of the wages they lose in any long
illness.
And he has described what the mod
ern operation does to any limited budget
when an appendix costs S100 TO take out
when the surgeons fee in childbirth aver
ages $62, and even tonsillectomy runs
$26.
So far he's made an impressive case
for them. More than that, the story which
Latimer has told this week is a lesson to
all of us in how far the unions still have
to go before their members can die with
any peace of mind.