Differential Double Talk

Same day that the President issued his decree fixing wages and farm prices, the War Labor Board discovered a new formula under which to allow Chrysler wages (which Chrysler calls the highest in the auto industry) to be upped 4-c- an hour.

Last month the Board gave General Motors labor a 4-c--an-hour raise on the grounds that G.M. pay was lower than Ford's. Since Chrysler wage rates were higher than either, the next question was whether Ford and G.M. would both have to be upped to equal Chrysler? Apparently not, for WLB seems to have figured out that a difference is different from a differential and is not necessarily an inequality. Said WLB last week:

"It should be pointed out that differences in rates are not necessarily inequalities in rates. On the contrary, the wages paid in American industry are normally characterized by all sorts of differentials created for many different reasons. Under any sound program for stabilizing wages in this time of war it must be presumed that well-established differences in wages are not inequalities.

"One must not interpret the above-stated presumption, however, as an indication that established differences in wages can never become inequalities. They may be subject to adjustment if they become inequalities which must be rectified in the interests of full production of war goods. The point is, however, that a showing of an inequality in wages requires much more than a showing of differences."

When better formulas are needed WLB can be trusted to work them out.

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