Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 1

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40 a did. A) 4 pm 41 9pm 67 2 m. 4 6li 5-No. 40 Seven Cents ligiU Li UuITII 3I0XDAY, JUNE 13, 1955 48 Tages Vol. 12 On Guard for Over a Century Ettablithtd in 83 1 iiWsWssWssWs mKmmmm mmmmjmmmmmaHmm pama MwE9MpWaiaai) i an ii nil ii in in iJ imriiriiJ Lmm, uml fa) IZZJ LrA ID Year act Approved im C) a i IPi 1 1 If1 111 $150, 000, 000 Jobless Fund! Reuther: 'Best Ever r00 work unless the people concerned with it the men and women in our plants, in this case understand it and believe in it," Curtice said.

"The past seven years of peaceful production in our plants under two long-term agreements with "We hold no resentment toward the union or yourself for getting those things for your members that you think they should have," Anderson told Reuther. REPORTERS were called into the negotiation BY IK) BERT PERRIN Free Press Labor Writer General Motors Corp. ami the UAW (CIO) announced agreement Monday morning on an historic, three-year contract, giving a modified giiranteed wage to GM's auto workers. time lost due to labor disputes at the lowest level in our industry, prove that our people understood our Thd agreement was announced jointly by UAW President Walter P. Reuther and GM Vice President room at 3:15 a.m., more than three hours after reports went out that a settlement had been reached.

The holdup was due almost entirely to GM's refusal to go beyond the Ford agreement on skilled workers increased pay. Exact timing of agreement was 3:07 a.m. The crowd was so great even then that the public relations people of both sides checked press cards of all reporters and photographers they didn't know. There wasn't room for all. When in the room, the full committees of both sides were lined up at one end of the bargaining table with the principals seated in a group around one end.

Seated next to each other were Seaton, Anderson, Reuther and Livingston. We draw the curtain and shoiv you the picture. Will h.k..p.r Tlfth Art 1, Sa 5, Ll. 2 S3 Thursday We Said the Picture Was that there would be "no major strike at GM" and that "there will be a settlement by GM-UAW." While others were giving you dead-pan statements and news-loss rumors, we've been telling you right along that "GM will decide it has no choice but to go along on the key 'principle' after Ford gave in." And then, without jumping the gun in panic, we told you "the final package won't be wrapped up until late Sunday, or Sunday night, or even Monday morning." wage formula and our agreement and worked to make it effective," he continued. The International Union of Electrical Workers (CIO), representing 35,000 workers, was expected to swiftly follow with a pact closely paralleling the the UAW pact.

The major provisions of the contract are: 1 Continuation of the cost of living formula. 2 Raising the annual improvement factor from five to six cents an hour or by 2l2 per cent, whichever is higher. 3 An increase of eight cents an hour for skilled trades employes. 4 Improvement of pension program, with pensions at least 28 per cent higher. This includes GM employes already retired and those who will retire in the future.

Pensions are increased from the present minimum of $200.30 to $252.80, when Social Security is liberalized in 1056. Disability pension payment bases are increased from $3 to $1.50 per month of service. 5 An improved group insurance program, with each employe assured of at least $500 increase in group life insurance covrage. 6 An improved medical expense insurance program. 7 Premium for midnight shift workers boosted from 7y2 to 10 per cent.

8 A new category of vacation pay, providing 2l2 weeks for employes with 15 years' service, instead of two weeks, as in the past. 9 A seventh paid holiday, consisting of half-days each on New Years and Christmas Eves. 10 Triple time for holidays worked. General Motors, in the final settlement, dropped the stock-sharing, severance pay and interest-free loan plans it had made in its original offer May 17. WAS reluctant to say that the GM agreement was better than the one signed last week with Ford.

He would merely say that "it compares favorably." Reuther was jubilant over the full union shop provision, the first achieved in the UAW's dealing with GM. In the past, workers who were not union members when the contract was signed did not have to Harry W. Anderson at 3:15 a.m. after more than 37 hours of continuous bargaining sessions that started at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Reuther estimated that the "package" settlement would cost General Motors 600 million dollars over the three-year period. He said it represented more than 20 cents an hour in benefits The announcement came well past the Sunday midnight strike deadline set by the UAW. Picketing and walkouts at GIW plants across the country preceded the formal news of the new pact. Even before Reuther and Anderson, GM vice president in charge of personnel, made their joint statement of settlement, word seeped back to Detroit from several GM plant cities that company officials had been notified by teletype of the agreement. Reuther said there were more improvements in this agrement in these negotiations than in all the negotiations combined since 1941.

THE NEW GM-UAW settlement closely follows the pattern set last week when Ford Motor Co. came to terms with the UAW, incorporating a modified form of the guaranteed wage. Like Ford, GM agreed to supplement State unemployment compensation payments to laid-off workers up to a maximum of 26 weeks. Workers will draw 60 to 65 per cent of take-home pay when laid off. The guaranteed wage reserve fund will amount to 150.

million dollars over the same period. This compares with a 55-million reserve fund at Ford. Skilled trades workers will get a higher wage increase than the UAW settled for at Ford in some categories, but Reuther declined to describe the classes. Like Ford, the GM agreement contains a host of other benefits to hourly wage workers, including improved pensions; broader hospitalization coverage for employes' families; a boost in the annual improvement factor and a more generous cost of George Romney Is Due For a Rude Shock in the American Motors-UAW negotiations starting Tuesday if he thinks Walter Reuther is going to "break the pattern" and let him off the hook on the guaranteed wage idea. That aKo goes for Chrysler, Studebaker-rar kard and Kaiser.

Pattern bargaining i starting to break up, but not in this. By the end of this year, you can look to see the private payment of extra unemployment benefits firmly rooted in the entire industry, and maybe in some supplier firms as well. It' even possible that the part of the package earmarked for the "guaranteed wage" by some of the "Little Three" nay be bigger than the 5 cents an hour in the ord contract. Their employment is much less stable. Jobless benefits are therefore much more vital to a Nash-Hudson worker than to an employe of the Big Three.

And nickel an hour might miss by a mile in building any kind of adequate reserve fund. American Motors has been insisting for weeks that its collective bargaining this 3-ear must break the pattern; that it must he based on the economic facts of American Motors and not of Ford or GM. Ed Cushman, Romney's industrial relations chief, was taking a leaf from Reuther's book on this announce your objective early, and keep hammering home the reasons you must have it. Romney's grim testimony in Washington last Friday about his fight for survival was the follow-up. join the union.

From now on thy will have to. GM President Harlow H. Curtice said the contract contains all but one of the economic points first offered the union on May 17. The contract may not be reopened by either party during the three-year period. "The security employment plan which the UAW (CIO) has been granted is exceedingly complex and will take some time to appraise fully," Curtice said.

"We still hold earnestly to the belief that responsibility for such matters as the amount and duration of unemployment compensation benefits rests with the legislatures of the various state," Curtice continued. "These guarantees are paid for entirely by employers. Neither general tax receipts nor contributions of employees go toward payment of these unemployment benefits," he added. "No formula, no matter how well conceived, will WORD OF THE reported settlement seeped jback from GM plant cities throughout the country jas a crowd of 150 newsmen, photographers and spectators jammed the fifth floor corridor of the A Welcome SIic Sheds Skirl GM Building outside the conference room. G.M and union executives, bustling in and out of the conference room where the marathon session continued, kept repeating "It won't be Jong!" as the hours dragged on.

living escalator clause. Fit for a To Fight Fire King BISHOP Calif. OT) The United States Forest Service an unidentified woman helped control a forest fire by her skirt. i She and her husband found Other benefits included triple time for holidays worked, the addition of a seventh paid holiday (half days each on Christmas and New Years' Eves) and longer vacations for seniority employes. REUTHER SAID wages for GM employes will be increased from six to 18 cents, and that 90,000 i Coffee and sandwiches were brought in to the weary negotiators.

At one point, UAW President Walter P. R.euther personally went to the press room to get a jar of cheese. Every time a union or company negotiator left the conference room, he was pounced upon by newsmen. APPARENT STl MRLLNG block to a formal announcement of settlement appeared to be the wage scale for skilled workers. 'of GM's 350,000 employes will get more than six the blaze in Rock Creek Canyon, a Forest Service spokesman said.

The husband used the skirt as a bucket to carry water from the creek and check the fire until Rangers arrived. Here's How the Prospect Loo is to Us FIRST, THAT THE LITTLE THREE will have to accept the "limited guaranteed wage." There may have to be variations from the Ford plan. If not, it may be worthless to the older seniority workers. SECOND, these firms may kae their only real chance In years to get contracts that make them competitive on labor costs to the Big Three. They may count themselves lucky if they get contracts as good as the Big Three, with a few concessions to make them more competitive.

Their predicament is widely misunderstood. Most people assume they get off a little easier, that their costs are not as high. Actually, the UAW has been rougher on the little guys than on GM, Ford or Chrysler. They're sitting ducks. By the sheer force of raw power the union can bully them into paying whatever the big fellows pay and more on top in countless little ways.

Because they can't resist. A long tnke means they're bankrupt. BRUSSELS ru.P) More than 250.000 cheering Belgians welcomed King Baudouin back from a tour of the Congo Sunday with a demonstration that smashed the official reviewing1 stand to splinters and knocked the young monarch's hat askew. Police gave up trying to control the crowd. They tossed their helmets into the air in the general enthusiasm.

The king's hat was almost knoc ked off as spectators reached into his car to slap him on the back. The reviewing stand was reduced to matchwood and the press box coUaps-ed. Officials missed the king, who was completely lost in the crowd. cents an hour. Harry W.

Anderson, GM vice president in charge of personnel, congratulated Reuther for getting the guaranteed wage from someone else first. Anderson hailed the new pact as bringing three more years of industrial peace. Reuther said he would order GM workers, who walked off the job and set up picket lines around the country when the midnight 'strike deadline passed, back to work. Anderson noted that the company and the union had "a lot of disagreements about the guaranteed wage plan." You9 1 1 Find: Amusements 37 Astrology IS Billy Graham 10 Bridge 3 Day in Michigan 4 Drew Pearson 23 Kditorials Industrial 34-33 Movies 40 Radio and Tele ision 45 Sports 33-35 Town Crier 10 Want Ads 41-41 Weather Map Women's I'ages 27-30 Reuther reportedly was driving hard for a better deal than he got in the Ford settlement one week ago. It was the skilled craftsmen issue that ignited a series of wildcat walkouts at Ford plants after the Ford-UAW agreement was signed last week.

GM's skilled workers, expressing dissatis-Turn to Page 20, Column 1 Fun for All MARION The Marion gammer recreation program will begin Monday, with Waliy Dietze as director. DON'T BLAME THIS ALL ON' THE UNION'S. The Little Three, for example, have some other disadvantages of cost Turn to Tage 16, Column 1 i.