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United Automobile Worker
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United Automobile Worker
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1943-08-01
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Vol. 7 No. 15
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Detroit,
Vol.
7
August
“SD 22
1,
1943
No. 1
The Splintering Deo:
Joint Statement by CIO and AFL Given President Roosevelt In
sists on
Firm and Early Action to Restore Balance Between Wages
and Prices;
Prentiss Brown, head of OPA, Reported Opposed to Rolling Back
Prices
Engel’s Wage Figures
Exposed as Distortions
R. J. Thomas, president of the|
UAW-CIO, declares that Congressman
Albert
J,
Engel’s
(Rep.
Mich.) recently publicized average hourly wage for war workers
is a gross exaggeration. He quoted
official
government
figures
to
prove his contention.
In a letter to the Congressman,
Thomas said that $1.17 an hour is
the
average
in
money
wages
as
compared
with
$1.35,
the
rate
given by Engel as a result of his
“survey” in 47 war plants.
Thomas further pointed out
that wages have not kept pace
with soaring living costs, and
that tue average auto worker is
today
receiving
“about
46%”
less per hour in terms of food,
clothing and shelter, than he received in 1941.
For the decline in purchasing
power
of
the
dollar,
Thomas
blamed Engel and other Congressmen who have refused to support
President
Roosevelt’s
tion program.
anti-infla-
“IT regret very much that in your
recent survey of wage conditions
in some 47 war plants you failed
to consult either responsible union
representatives or offiicial wage
reports of the United States Government.
Public relations officers
of industrial
corporations
have
not, in my experience, been reliable or unbiased sources of wage
rate statistics,” Thomas said.
“Your
reliance
upon
such
sources of information has put you
in a position of publicizing wage
rate figures which are both unreliable and distorted.
“Such
for GM
United States must solve in the in-
terest
tory.”
Women
Negotiation of wages increases
for 2,500 women workers at GM’s
Ternstedt division in Detroit and
7,000
at the
corporation’s
AC
Spark Plug division in Flint are
announced by Walter P. Reuther,
vice-president of the UAW-CIO
and director of its GM
depart-
ment,
The
increases for the Ternstedt
women
workers,
Reuther
said,
range from 11 to 18 cents an hour,
and will total $910,000 a year. The
raises are retroactive to March Ist
of this year. Back pay will total
will not advance
your
political
career,
however
welcome they may be to certain
short-sighted industrialists.
They
will instead make more difficult
the complex problemas which the
people and the Government of the
of our
$2,233,000 In Wage
Won
actions
nation’s
coming
vic-
Raises
Workers
approximately
$375,000.
Increases for the AC Spark Plug
workers range from five to nine
cents an hour, and will total $1,323,000 a year. These increases
will be retroactive to April 5th,
1943. Back pay, the union esti-
mated, will amount to $850,000.
The increases, which were nego-
tiated under the clause in the
UAW-CIO contract with GM calling for equal pay for women doing
similar work
approved
by
Board,
Reuther
as men, has been
the
War
Labor
declared.
fage, Contract Demand
— Page 3
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