in Review

ON JULY 1, a deferred wage increase provided in last year's 3-year contract in the steel industry went into effect and the ninth consecutive monthly rise in the Consumer Price Index added 4 cents an hour to steel workers' rates under a semiannual escalator clause. Steel producers, led by the United States Steel Corp., raised base prices an average of $6 a ton. Although some employers said the price increase was inadequate, Steelworkers' President David J. McDonald claimed it was unjustified. These events stimulated the already growing public discussion of wage-costprice-profit-productivity relationships in the economy. The New York Times called deferred-wage contracts "economic time-bombs." Scheduling an investigation into administered-price industries, the Antitrust Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee placed the steel price increase at the top of its agenda. And President Eisenhower again called on business and labor leaders for "statesmanlike" action to help prevent infla

tion.

DEBATE on the need for and scope of legislation requiring public registration and reporting of employee welfare funds continued in Congressional hearings during June after Secretary of Labor James P. Mitchell presented administration proposals on May 27. He advocated a law covering plans unilaterally administered by labor or management as well as those jointly managed, to provide "remedial action in those cases where abuses may now exist as well as a preventive measure against possible future irregularities in the majority of plans which are now well managed."

AFL-CIO President George Meany supported such legislation. However, spokesmen for the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claimed that management-run funds need not be regulated, and recommended that any action in this field be left to State governments. John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers, opposed a fund disclosure law of any type as an "encroachment of the state

citizens" and called for more effective enforcement of present laws against corrupt practices.

Another development in the wake of recent revelations of some unions' untidy bookkeeping was revision of the financial report unions must file annually with the U. S. Department of Labor if they wish to use the services of the National Labor Relations Board. The new form requires detailed information on various types of transactions, including loans, gifts to union officers, and real estate dealings.

Meanwhile, the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field continued its investigations, probing into the affairs of the Bakery Workers. The committee's attention was engaged by President James G. Cross' explanation that a convicted prostitute identified by an earlier witness as Cross' "friend" had been placed on the union payroll to aid in an "unorthodox" organizing campaign. Cross denied that he halted a threatened strike and sanctioned a "substandard" contract at an Illinois bakery as a result of having received a personal loan from the bakery manager's father.

As an aftermath of earlier Senate hearings, two Teamster union vice presidents were enmeshed in legal proceedings. Frank W. Brewster was convicted June 26 of contempt of the Senate for refusing to answer questions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He announced he would appeal the decision. The trial of James R. Hoffa for conspiracy and bribery of a Senate Select Committee staff member began June 24.

Despite this trial and another on charges of wiretrapping, Hoffa has indicated that he will be a candidate to succeed Dave Beck as Teamster president "if a sufficient number of local unions request me to run." Others whose hats have been more unequivocally placed in the ring are vice presidents John T. O'Brien and Joseph Diviny, and Thomas L. Hickey, secretary-treasurer of a large New York City local.

Before a Senate group investigating irregularities in highway right-of-way sales in Indiana by State officials and others, Carpenter President Maurice A. Hutcheson, a vice president of the AFL-CIO, invoked the Fifth Amendment on grounds of possible self-incrimination when questioned about his part in the transactions. President George Meany said he would bring the matter