soon to be a major lp record: The White House recordings, with Richard Nixon on Side One, and Franklin Delano “Bugsy” Roosevelt on Side Two. Liner notes by Victor Lasky and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. It should be out in time for the FDR centennial activities and the anniversary of RN’s resignation.
Something important has happened in American industrial relations, through a free negotiation among interested parties. For decades, theoreticians have been demanding a “voice” for industrial workers in management decisions. In reality, both sides have pursued their own interests. Productivity and sales figures tell their own story, however; and American union leaders have now reassessed the situation. Both the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters are negotiating new terms. The UAW and General Motors are linking a cut in wages to lower car prices: “Let’s beat Toyota.” In their negotiations with the trucking industry, the Teamsters have decided that to remain competitive the union scales will have to take account of non-union truckers. Note the entirely non-political character of this American activity. Think, in contrast, of the ideological atmosphere of the British and continental unions. The socialists call it American Exceptionalism. We say that American labor can add and subtract.
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