Labor Unity

Rapprochement between AFL and CIOincreasingly manifest during the past 2 years— moved somewhat closer to realization since the CIO's last convention. President Murray expressed the hope that conferences between the two groups, begun in the summer of 1950, could be resumed within a month or two. He cautioned patience and tolerance in trying to work out "the manifold extremely difficult details" of achieving unity among all bona-fide labor groups, AFL, CIO, miners, and railroad brotherhoods. The adopted resolution directed the CIO Unity Committee to continue efforts "looking forward to the attainment of the cherished goal of every union member: the attainment of organic unity of all American labor."

Internal Union Developments

Within the CIO, the outstanding development of the year was the expulsion of a group of 11 Communist-dominated unions. This action, begun at the 1949 Cleveland convention which expelled the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers and the Farm Equipment and Metal Workers, was completed by the CIO's Executive Board during 1950. Each of the 9 remaining accused unions was accorded a separate hearing by a specially appointed trial committee. None of the ousted organizations appeared at the Chicago convention to appeal the executive board's decision which was ratified by the delegates. As a result of this step, the CIO president declared the Communist movement in America had been given the most serious setback in all its history and "is travelling its last mile in our labor movement."

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The unions and the dates of their expulsion

were:

The United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers; November 2, 1949.

The United Farm Equipment Workers; November 2, 1949.

Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers; February 15, 1950. United Office & Professional Workers; February 15, 1950, effective March 1, 1950.

United Public Workers; February 15, 1950, effective March 1, 1950.

Food, Tobacco & Agricultural Workers; February 15, 1950, effective March 1, 1950.

American Communications Association; June 15, 1950.

International Fur & Leather Workers Union; June 15, 1950.

International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union; August 29, 1950.

Marine Cooks & Stewards; August 29, 1950. International Fishermen & Allied Workers; August 29, 1950.

Organizational lines were regrouped as the leftwing unions were dropped. The International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (IUE), chartered by the 1949 convention, waged a full-fledged and generally successful fight to secure the members and contracts formerly held by the UE. By the end of its first year, it reported a membership of approximately a quarter of a million and bargaining representation for better than 300,000 workers. Two organizing committees also were created by the CIO. The Government and Civic Employees Organizing Committee (to replace the ousted United Public Workers) was chartered March 1, 1950. By convention time it had claimed over 35,000 members. The Insurance and Allied Workers Organizing Committee (to cover a portion of the jurisdiction formerly held by the United Office and Professional Workers) was created May 1, 1950. It, too, reported some successes.

The United Steelworkers and the United Automobile Workers, according to the CIO president have "absorbed practically all of the mine, mill, and smelter workers." Reflecting these and other gains, each of these giant unions reported a current membership of 1 million or slightly higher. Part of the jurisdiction formerly covered by the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural workers has been assumed by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union; other portions have been reorganized by the Brewery Workers and the Packinghouse Workers. In the South, the United Transport Service Employees, primarily an organization of railroad "red caps" and dining-car employees, has scored successes in recruiting tobacco, fertilizer, and cannery workers. Elsewhere the Communications Workers of America and the American Radio Association wrested units from the expelled American Communications Association. Fisher

men on the West Coast, as well as locals of other ousted unions, refused in a number of cases to leave the CIO and were granted local industrial union charters.

These widespread efforts by the CIO to recapture blocs of formerly affiliated members, coupled with gains among a number of regular CIO unions, prompted Mr. Murray to inform the delegates at the opening session that the CIO "is numerically stronger than it was 12 months ago."

Philip Murray was reelected president for his eleventh term by acclamation. Also returned to office for another year were Secretary-Treasurer James B. Carey and eight of the CIO's nine vice presidents. John Green, president of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers, who had served as a vice president since 1942 was not a candidate for reelection. His place was filled by Michael Quill of the Transport Workers Union.

1 The Utility Workers Union expressed objection to the breadth of a resolution "Principles of TVA" which their spokesmen construed as a possible

endorsement of the eventual nationalization of the utility industry. After debate, President Fisher of the Utility Workers expressed general concurrence in President Murray's interpretation of the proposed resolution. It was then adopted by a voice vote with several dissents.

The National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards submitted a written request for review by the convention of its expulsion but did not appear in support of its appeal. Despite the fact that the request was received after the deadline specified by the CIO constitution (10 days prior to the opening of the convention) the committee on appeals waived this technicality and after review of the union's claims recommended that the appeal be denied. The convention unanimously adopted this recommendation.

The UAW's average dues-paying membership was 1,118,046 in September 1950.

4 Mr. Murray stated that the explusion of the 11 unions resulted in the removal from membership in the CIO of "a total of about 850,000 to 900,000 members." During the past year, he continued, the CIO had recaptured "approximately 70 percent" of all the members belonging to the expelled unions (Daily Proceedings, November 20, 1950, p. 19). The report of the CIO Organization Department, submitted as a part of the President's Report to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (p. 13), states that the expulsions "resulted in an immediate loss to the CIO of approximately 675,000 members. based upon the representation of these organizations at the Cleveland convention in 1949." In the absence of detailed and consecutive annual reports of the total membership, or per capita payments, of affiliated unions to the CIO it is impossible to analyze accurately the effect of the explusions upon the over-all membership of the CIO which, as in preceding years, was simply expressed in general terms.

-NELSON M. BORTZ

Division of Industrial Relations

Wage Movements

An Analysis of 1939-49 Experience

THE INFLUENCE OF WORLD WAR II and subsequent postwar economic adjustments dominated wage movements in the decade ending in 1949. Wage trends during this period provide background for developments since the beginning of the defense emergency growing out of Korea.

Except for 1939-40, high level employment was sustained throughout the period. Consumer prices advanced steadily from 1941 until August 1948; the subsequent decline to the end of 1949 amounted to about 4 percent. During most of the period and in most industries, business profits were exceptionally high, especially when measured as a percentage of net worth. National money income advanced from $72.5 billion in 1939 to $223.5 billion in 1948 and dropped to $216.8 billion in 1949.1 Trade-union membership increased sharply, and union influence was consolidated in a number of basic industries.

Under these circumstances, beginning roughly in the spring of 1941, wages were propelled upward. This upward movement was markedly restrained by the wartime economic stabilization program; with the collapse of wartime controls, however, large increases in money rates occurred. In addition, gains occurred in supplementary wage practices which required additional money outlay by employers.

It is necessary to differentiate between the more important measures of "wages." Wage rates (or straight-time hourly earnings of incentive workers) represent the price of labor per unit of time. (e. g. hour or week). Average rates in an industry or group of industries may be influenced by changes in the occupational composition of the labor force or in its distribution among plants or

! Periods selected include October of each year since 1941 because data on urban wage rates are available for this month. (September was substituted for October in 1949 because the latter month reflects the temporary influence on earnings of the steel work stoppage.) The following special dates were selected for specific reasons: January 1941 represents the base period of the "Little Steel" formula; in October 1942 the Wage Stabilization Act became effective; January 1945 represented the wartime peak in hours and earnings; April 1945 was the period closest to VE-day for which urban wage rate data are available; February 1946 was the date of Executive Order 9697 under which the wage-price policy was modified, permitting greater flexibility in increases; September 1948 was chosen to show changes over the last year in the period. December 1949 data are presented to provide a picture of wages at the end of 1949.

2 The data for periods prior to 1947 represent changes in occupational wage rates for time workers and in straight-time hourly earnings for incentive workers; from April 1947 to April 1948 the series measures these certain elements plus the effect on earnings of changes in the occupational structure of the individual establishments. Data from 1939 to April 1943 and April 1948 to September 1949 are estimated.

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tion is available. The advance in real termsthat is, money rates or earnings adjusted for changes in consumers' prices-was much less striking. For example, real weekly earnings in manufacturing were about two-fifths higher at the end than at the beginning of the period.

The earnings movement varied appreciably from time to time within the 1939-49 period, and experience in the entire interval illustrates vividly the effect of divergent trends in different measures and components of earnings and other factors in workers' welfare that may occur with varying conditions.

World War II. During the war, weekly and gross hourly earnings rose much more rapidly than the rise in hourly earnings exclusive of overtime premium pay; in turn this latter increase of hourly earnings increased more rapidly than hourly rates. The lengthening of the workweek resulted in larger weekly pay envelopes and

gross hourly earnings were increased by premium payments for overtime. Aside from these effects of the lengthening of the workweek, hourly earnings were influenced by wartime shifts of workers to higher paying jobs and industries and by the larger proportion of workers employed on night shifts and receiving shift premium pay; therefore, hourly earnings, excluding overtime pay, also rose rapidly.

Wage rates increased at a slower pace. Whereas only about a third of the total rise in hourly rates in manufacturing industries that took place between 1939 and 1949 occurred during the war, about three-fourths of the entire increase in weekly earnings and half the change in gross hourly earnings came before the war ended (actually before VE-day).

Real wages (weekly earnings adjusted by the Bureau's consumers' price index) lagged behind weekly earnings measured in dollar terms but were higher at the start of 1945 than at any

subsequent time." Annual money earnings, influenced not only by all of the factors affecting weekly earnings but by steadier employment throughout the year, rose even more than weekly earnings.

The postwar period. The very late war period and the postwar years saw the reverse situation with respect to relative changes in various earnings measures. During this period (beginning about VE-day) wage rates in manufacturing rose more than straight-time hourly earnings which were held down somewhat by shifts to lower wage occupations and industries. These earnings in turn rose more than gross hourly and weekly earnings which were pulled down by a reduction. in hours worked and a decline in pay for late shift work at premium rates. In addition the rise in annual earnings was presumably held down somewhat by a decline in the number of workweeks during which the average worker was employed.

With the marked reduction in hours immediately after VE-day, both weekly and gross hourly earnings declined; these earnings continued to fall until after February 1946, when a combination of relatively stable hours and a rise in hourly rates of pay resulted in a resumption of the upward movements in earnings. The decrease in weekly earnings amounted to 13.9 percent between April 1945 and February 1946. During the rest of the postwar period covered, both gross weekly and hourly earnings rose about as much as hourly rates.

Hourly earnings excluding premium pay for overtime also declined somewhat for a few months late in 1945 because of some shifts in employment away from the higher wage industries and perhaps because of some decline in the proportion of workers in the higher paid occupations. However, this drop was of very short duration.

Real wages declined, first with the reduction in money earnings after VE-day and later with the rapid rise in prices following June 1946. This decline was halted late in 1946 when the rise in weekly earnings began to exceed the increase in the consumers' price index, but in 1949 real wages were well below their VE-day level." The changes in the period from VE-day and from VJ-day to September 1949 can be summarized as follows.?

The year 1949. Wage movements in 1949 contrasted sharply with those in the immediately preceding years. Money earnings were more stable than in any year since 1940. Real wages rose more than other earnings measures. Some rise (roughly 2% percent) also occurred in wage rates, but hourly and weekly earnings were comparatively stationary. Gross weekly and hourly earnings were kept down by a slight reduction in hours worked and straight-time hourly earnings increased less than hourly rates of pay because of shifts in employment from higher to lower wage industries. (This interindustry shift explains the fact that earnings in all manufacturing rose less than those for durable and nondurable goods separately).

Changes in various measures of earnings from September 1948 to September 1949 follow: 8