Toward the Steel Deadline

Ominous news poured out of Pittsburgh all last week. Meeting at the Penn-Sheraton Hotel, the 163-man wage policy committee of the United Steelworkers union voted to strike the steel industry May 1 unless the companies improve their wage proposals. At week's end, the steel companies prepared to bank the fires of the great blast furnaces across the U.S. this week--a precaution designed to protect the expensive equipment against damage from a quick shutdown. There was still time for Lyndon Johnson, watching with growing concern from Washington, to step in and win or force some kind of postponement. Otherwise, the nation was headed for its sixth major steel strike since World War II, one that could seriously dampen the 50-month-long economic expansion.

Even if the strike is postponed--Johnson could invoke Taft-Hartley, as he did to put the dockworkers back to work--there are still enormous negotiating problems to be solved. The union has asked a minimum 3.2% wage increase, the maximum set by President Johnson's wage guidelines; the industry has insisted on a top of 2%. Federal Mediator William E. Simkin has had no success in seeking to negotiate an agreement, but both sides did agree that a new contract could not possibly be worked out by the May 1 deadline. The only possible alternative to Taft-Hartley's cooling-off period: a temporary extension of the contract while negotiations continue. Last week each side set terms for this extension that were unacceptable to the other.

Dash for Diligence. Whether or not there is a strike, the union this week passes a major milestone that is certain to affect its future policies and negotiations. After a recount of last February's ballots, its official tellers were ready to announce the election, by a margin of about 10,000 votes, of a new U.S.W. president: I. W. (for Iorwith Wilbur) Abel, 56, the union secretary-treasurer who challenged and defeated David J. McDonald, 62, the smooth and silvery-haired union president for twelve years. McDonald will contest the decision, but his chances of overturning Abel's election are small.

When Abel takes over from McDonald June 1, the Steelworkers will be trading dash for diligence, the colorful spellbinder for the quiet workhorse. A foundryman at the age of 17, Abel has the rugged, barrel-chested look of a steelworker even after 28 years in union jobs. He is a strong admirer of Walter Reuther and a doctrinaire liberal whose political and social views are much akin to those of the British Labor Party, particularly on such bread-and-butter issues as social, labor and public works legislation. Ever since his days as a district leader in Canton, Ohio, Abel has sought to thrust the Steelworkers into a more forceful role in politics, can be expected to seek more political power for the nation's third largest union (after the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers). Says Abel: "We want to look at the union as something more than an instrument for negotiating wage increases and calling strikes."

The Old Mill Hands. However it is looked at, the Steelworkers union is going to need some tight running to keep it a powerful force. It has 3,200 locals in the U.S. and Canada, negotiates contracts with 1,818 companies that range from aluminum and mining to hardware and canned vegetables. As the result of automation--which has been largely responsible, along with more efficient processes, for the increase in productivity of recent years--union membership has dropped to 976,000 from its peak of 1,104,000 in 1953; fewer than half of that number now work in basic steel, and they are the only ones who would go on strike. Though financially sound, the union still has not completely recovered from the expenses of the 1959 strike, has $23 million in the treasury today compared with $33 million six years ago.

At the bargaining table, Abel has been so overshadowed by McDonald that his abilities as a negotiator are largely unknown. The prospect of having him in charge nonetheless unsettles steel management, which fears that he will be more hard-nosed than McDonald and may try to clutter up the negotiations with local disputes to fulfill his election promises. Says William G. Caples, a vice president of Inland Steel:

"These so-called noneconomic issues--scheduling, crew sizes, parking lots--are the areas where you can bankrupt yourself."

Management's concern is actually directed more at the men around Abel than at Abel himself. During his twelve-year reign, McDonald recruited one of the brightest braintrusts in labor, university-trained and attuned to labor's changing needs. Drawing heavily on his advisers, McDonald won such innovations in U.S. labor as supplemental unemployment benefits, a 13-week vacation for older workers, the first human relations committee with industry--while pushing up the average steelworker's wages to $3.40 an hour. Though Abel may retain many of McDonald's aides, he is expected to rely more on the district leaders, some of whom still regard management in the angry terms of the 1930s.

The three men closest to Abel are old mill hands like himself. Joe Molony, 58, the vice president-elect and at present district director of New York State, is easygoing, quick-tongued and well experienced in negotiating from several years as chief of the Bethlehem Steel bargaining committee. Walter Burke, 53, of Milwaukee, secretary-treasurer-elect, is something of an egghead and an expert at negotiating with steel fabricating companies. Joe Germano, 61, director of the powerful Chicago district and one of Abel's earliest backers, is a roughhewn, gruff unionist who is a major power in Illinois politics. During the current negotiations, the three of them lunch every day with Abel at his Suite 866 in the Penn-Sheraton.

Three Priorities. As he prepares to take charge, Abel has zeroed in on higher wages, increased pensions and local grievances as his priorities. This suits the Steelworkers, whose average pension is only $906 a year and who have not had a negotiated pay increase in more than three years. Though no one seems anxious to strike this time, the steelworkers have not hesitated to do so in the past. They struck for 26 days in 1946, 45 days in 1949, 59 days in 1952, 36 days in 1956, and 116 days in 1959, a strike that, according to some economists, helped flip the U.S. into a recession. And they will strike again if asked to.

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