The Evening Star (January 30, 1946)
ON THE RECORD —
Loss to the nation in strikes is fabulous
By Dorothy Thompson
Mr. Fairless of United States Steel went to the root of the issues in the strikes, and accepted both labor’s and government’s formulation of it: How great a rise in wages can the American economy stand while maintaining the present level of prices? That is the “fact finding” for which the president has appointed a commission.
But to assess the facts more is needed than access to the books of individual companies, and when the facts are in hand they must be generalized with a view to establishing some rules. Mr. Fairless has proposed that the president call a conference of leading executives; if he should wish to add to the conference leading economists, Mr. Fairless could hardly object. If the strikes are not immediately settled the president should accept his proposition.
To the public at large the strikes appear as a struggle for power, and the dominant attitude seems to be “a plague on both your houses.” The unions present the strikes as though they were lockouts for the purpose of breaking the unions. But the employers cannot break the unions, and know it; the union leaders do not want to overthrow the American system, for if they did they would overthrow themselves along with it. The problem of inflation affects everybody, but it affects the masses of the people more than it does stockholders and great industries.
The strikes are terribly costly to the strikers. GM workers, who have been out over 10 weeks, have lost income which they will not recover for years even were their present demands fully met. The loss to American production and thus to the nation is fabulous. Since the issue can be formulated, and since every one, U.S. Steel, labor and government, are agreed that this is the issue, it is preposterous if a settlement cannot be made on the basis of reason instead of on who can resist until unconditional surrender.
That labor has based its claim on productivity, and is taking into consideration the maintenance of a stable price level, is a step forward. It shows proper consideration for the whole economy. It is unwise to assume that this attitude is insincere, though it is bound, in the nature of things, to have a bias. So, for that matter, have the employers a bias. But they should remember that for masses private enterprise is no longer a sacred cow. Everyone is now aware that other sorts of economies exist, and that our sort, in the world as a whole, is not winning many new friends or influencing many new people.
Private enterprise is a misnomer for the system we have. Corporations, some of which employ more men than the inhabitants of a large city, and have stockholders approximating half a million, are not private.
Nine-tenths oi the people of the United States are not capitalists. They may own stocks in corporations, but they have no control over the industries in which the stocks are invested, and the Income from them is of secondary importance. They are a manner of accumulating savings, but for few are they a substitute for earned income. Small stockholders are more concerned about the fate of their jobs, the prices they must pay for food, shelter and clothes, and the taxes which are subtracted from their earnings, than in the annual dividend reports from the bank.
The American strikes are not a purely American affair, either. The world is starving for food and goods. The planet has been devastated by war. Homes, industrial plants and communications have been destroyed; consumer’s goods of the most primitive and essential sort are lacking over areas inhabited by millions.
All the world looks to the United States and its fantastic capacities. Commitments have been given, and on our fulfillment of them depends the success of our political policies – for instance, in Latin America. On the success of our political policies depends peace – both international peace and the quenching of Incipient civil wars. Want, hunger, misery are not the hand maidens of peace, but derangers of minds and emotions and the servants of demagogues.
We have so much for which to be thankful … The survival of most of our sons; a country without a single city or countryside devastated; a production machine geared to produce much more than we need or can consume and capable of replacing every obsolescent home, building, machine and plant; a reconstruction Job for ourselves and for large parts of mankind. It is a prospect to thrill the imagination and release the energies – and meanwhile struggles over a few cents an hour are costing us hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of real things and benefiting only the speculators and black-market profiteers.
The struggle should end. We should accept, as a people, the theory that workers’ income should be geared to productivity and get going on a greater and more exciting task than that of war.
We still weigh high in the balances of nations, but woe if the most fortunate of peoples should be weighed and found wanting.