PERFECT CIRCLE STRIKE, in which eight employees were wounded last month at New Castle, Ind., has lost members for the U.A.W.C.I.O. In an NLRB election at Perfect Circle's three plants in Richmond and Hagerstown, Ind., the majority of employees voted against the union. The U.A.W. still represents strikers at one Perfect Circle plant.

GUARANTEED ANNUAL WAGE suffered its first major setback in Ohio, where voters turned down a referendum to allow workers to collect unemployment pay simultaneously from the state and private industry. If Ohio does not approve dual unemployment compensation by the June 1, 1957 deadline, Ford and G.M. employees in Ohio will take advantage of a substitute contract provision under which they would alternate between state payments and company benefits calculated to help make up the difference.

OIL MERGER will give Gulf Oil Corp., second U.S. international oil producer (first: Jersey Standard), control of Tulsa's Warren Petroleum Corp., one of the biggest U.S. producers and marketers of natural-gas products (total assets: $141.5 million). Warren stockholders will get eight shares of Gulf for ten Warren shares.

NEW STUDEBAKERS are the highest-powered cars (up to 210 h.p.) in the low-priced field. To meet competition and-win more than its present 1 % of the market, Studebaker has thrown out its "sporty" styling, redesigned most models along roomy Big Three lines. The sports-car look will be retained only in a new "Hawk" line.

FREDERIC C. DUMAINE JR. and associates have given up hope of winning back control of the New Haven railroad, have sold their 131,000 shares of New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad preferred stock to a group friendly to Patrick B.

McGinnis, who ousted Dumaine as president. Union Securities Corp., a Manhattan investment house, bought the Dumaine shares, comprising 27 % of all New Haven preferred, for some $60 a share, giving Dumaine & Co. a $35 per share profit on the stock.

HOUSING FOR AGED will be pushed by the Housing and Home Finance Agency, which plans to ask Congress for permission to guarantee up to 90% of 40-year, 4 1/4% loans by private banks for low-cost apartments, sponsored by unions and fraternal groups, for those over 60.

AIR LINE PILOTS Association may be expelled from the A.F.L. because pilots have been crossing picket lines during the International Association of Flight Engineers' strike against United Airlines. The A.F.L.'s National Executive Council has suspended the Pilots Association and will recommend its expulsion at the next A.F.L. convention.

JOB-GRADED LUMBER will help do-it-yourself carpenters select the grades they need. Western lumber mills (which produce about one-third of all U.S. soft wood) plan to abandon the old, complicated system of grading by numbers, will use names instead: construction, standard, utility or economy.

U.S. PROSPECTORS will soon start looking for oil and minerals in Yemen, one of the last undeveloped Middle East nations. A new Washington company, headed by Walter S. Gabler, foreign-investment specialist, and Presidential Crony George E. Allen, has obtained exclusive exploration rights for six years.

GERMAN AUTO BOOM is slowing down as a result of new tariff regulations by other European nations, e.g., Belgium and Sweden. Two big German automakers, Borgward and Goliath, are laying off workers. Giant Volkswagen will cut to a five-day work week early next year.

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