STEEL STRIKE IN U.S.

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25924, 3 October 1949, Page 7

STEEL STRIKE IN U.S.

About 528,000 Men May Stop Work DISPUTE OVER PENSION (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, Oct. 1. A nation-wide steel strike began at 12.1 a.m. to-day. when the United Steel Workers’ Union of the Congress of Industrial Organisations ordered about 528.000 members to stop work. The strike was declared after the union’s negotiators had ended a fruitless conference with Federal mediators over an insurance and pension dispute with the companies. President Truman had arranged truces in the dispute three times. Yesterday the Government mediators sought a basis of last-minute agreement, but their hopes faded when it was announced that Mr Truman would not intervene again. The strike is the first national stoppage in steel since a “walk out" lasting 30 days that paralysed the industry early in 1940. The calling of the strike to-day means an automatic reinstatement of the unions' full original demands for a fourth increase of 12| cents an hour and pension fund benefits that would bring the total increase paid by steel companies to 30 cents an hour. In the negotiations the union dropped its wage demand on condition that the industry complied with the Presidential Fact Finding Board's recommendations that the companies I provided 10 cents an hour for pensions and social insurance, with no contribution by the employees. The com- ! panics offered to contribute 10 cents i an hour -provided employees also conj tributed an amount to be negotiated.