Holes in the Ceiling

WAGES & SALARIES The Wage Stabilization Board, which violated its own 10% limit on raises by approving bigger boosts for railroad and meat-packing workers (TIME, May 28), last week punched a gaping hole in the ceiling for 1,000,000 U.S. autoworkers. It okayed a 4-c--an-hour boost, for "increased productivity," in most C.I.O.-U.A.W. autoworkers' contracts. Coupled with the 3-c--an-hour cost-of-living raise last month, average auto wages were now up to $1.93 an hour, 12% above WSB's January 1950 base period. WSB also ruled that the productivity increase could not be used by automakers as a wedge for higher auto prices. In Detroit, however, some automakers, e.g., Ford, Packard, were still totting up new cost figures to bolster their case for a price boost before Price Boss Michael V. Di Salle.

Hardly had the autoworkers gotten theirs when the wage board pierced its ceiling again: it approved a 15% increase for more than 20,000 East Coast shipyard workers. At week's end, WSB seemed to be getting ready to junk the whole idea of a 10% raise limit, approve any existing escalator clauses, and instead control wages on a cost-of-living basis.

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