Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1951-05-27
Labor Bosses Blamed
For Rising Prices
Writer Sees Unions Hurting
Whole Nation by Demands
By Fronk R. Kent

Any idea that recent administration
concessions to the labor bosses, as re-
flected in the new Wage Sterilization
Board and in other ways, have swung
them into full cooperation with the
administration program for combating
imitation and mobilizing for defense
should be abandoned 1t not only is not
SO. but the prospects that additional
concessions will make it so are not good.
That is simple statement of fact.
The labor bosses have no notion Of
balancing concessions with sacrifices.
On the contrary, their efforts are being
and will be-concentrated on obtain
ing negotiated pay boosts for hundreds
of thousands Of workers all over the
country.
The excuse for this latest wage-raise
drive is that the cost Of living. as esti-
mated by the Bureau Of Labor Statistics,
has risen again. Some existing wage
scales are hooked on to the price index
Of this bureau and, under agreement
with management, automatically go up
with it. For the others, it offers an
argument which the administration &C
cepts. The net Of this is that within a
very short while there will be another
general increase for a vast number Of
union men. 1t is conceded by all except
the labor and Government economists
of the Leon Keyserling school that this
will promote imitation and further slim
ulate rise in prices. In the end the
union workers who get the raise will be
no better off than before, but the
country as whole will be worse off.
Also, it is believed that the new Wage
Board is scheduled to revamp upward
the ten per cent ceiling which the Old
year. The labor bosses, headed by Walter
Reuther, are determined to lift this
ceiling-if not remove it altogether. All
wage and price controls expire on June
80 anyhow, and the President has asked
for two-year extension and tighten
ing of the controls. He will not get
what he asks
For this distressing state of affairs
there are three reasons: first, the un-
scrupulous determination of the labor
bosses not to submit to restraint but to
force acceptance of their various
demands; second, the feebleness with
which the Truman administration has
fought for controls and the OBVIOUS
political reasons behind it's yielding to
1abor-boss pressure; third, the failure OF
people generally to grasp the peril in
herent in all this and the discouraging
combination of inertia and politics in
Congress by which it becomes possible.
Since the labor bosses bolted the first
Wage Sterilization Board some months
ago they have gained In strength here
in several directions.
When you add to all this the fact
that William Boyle, chairman Of the
Democratic National Committee and
the close personal and political friend Of
Mr.. Truman is an ardent partisan Of
the labor bosSes-particularly those Of
the CIO-when you add him in you can
appreciate why in this great national
crisis these labor bosses are doing better
for themselves than any one else is
doing. It is difficult not to feel, how
ever. that what they are gaining for
themselves is at the expense of the
country and would not be concurred in
or connived in by any administration Of
character and courage.