TIME CLOCK

A RED-DOMINATED LABOR union has been barred from using services of the National Labor Relations Board for the first time. The NLRB banned the independent International Fur and Leather Workers Union because its president, Ben Gold, was convicted of falsely signing non-Communist affidavits, required under Taft-Hartley.

BRITISH TURBOPROP transports may soon be flying on U.S. airways. President J. H. Carmichael of Capital Airlines, which now flies 48 Douglas DC-3s and DC-4s, is in London negotiating a deal with Vickers-Arm-strongs to replace the obsolete U.S. planes with a fleet of Vickers Viscounts. The four-engine turboprops (i.e., jet engines with turbine-driven propellers) can carry 48 passengers up to 1,000 miles at 300 m.p.h.

U.S. STEEL will soon get into the plastics field with production of plastic pipe at its National Tube Division's Gary (Ind.) Works. The plant will turn out polyethylene and polyvinyl pipe from 1/2 in. to 6 in. in diameter for irrigating farms, piping chemicals, etc.

WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC is getting out of the heavy railroad equipment business both as investor and producer. The company has not only sold its block of 515,000 shares of stock (about 11%) in enginemaker Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corp. back to the company for $4,635,000 but will also discontinue its own line of electric locomotives and parts for diesel-electric engines.

FRENCH PERFUME prices may soon be chopped drastically. The Justice Department has charged the makers of Lentheric, Lanvin, Corday and Guerlain with a conspiracy to restrain trade, thus keeping prices as much as 400% above those in Paris. Empro Corp., maker of Lentheric, has already signed a consent decree.

COFFEE PRICES may go down late this year. The U.S. Foreign Agriculture Service predicts that frost damage to this year's supply crop in Brazil will be offset by bumper crops in Colombia, Africa, and other areas. Prospects for a good supply next year may cause coffee producers to sell reserves this fall, thus force prices down.

AEROSOL BOMBS, which have rapidly grown into a $200 million industry with liquid sprays and foams (DDT, shaving cream, etc.), will soon be used to dispense dry powder. Laboratory tests by Du Pont have been so successful that consumer drug and cosmetics makers will soon bring out a line of antibiotics and body powders that can be sprayed instead of dusted on.

SCHLITZ BREWING CO., second biggest U.S. brewer, is making a bid for the TV-watching, stay-at-home market with a new 16-oz. can (v. the present 12-oz. size). New can is being test-marketed in 26 states.

F-86 SABRE JET, North American's famed MIG-killer (14 to 1) of the Korean war, has finally gone out of production at the Los Angeles plant after 25 months on the lines. North American will now expand production of its newer and deadlier F-100 Super-Sabre, the first operational U.S. fighter to exceed the speed of sound in level flight.

GENERAL ELECTRIC has fired as security risks seven employees who invoked the Fifth Amendment in refusing to testify at the McCarthy hearings in Schenectady three months ago (TIME, March 15). The seven workers had been suspended with pay for 90 days, during which time they could have either answered questions put to them or asked for a full Government security check and clearance. None did.

NIGHTCLUB ATTENDANCE has slumped with the end of the excess-profits tax and fewer big expense-account spenders. High-priced clubs in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles report only fair business for May, usually a big month.

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