The Week

At first, American Motors had said that the cost-of-living clause must go if the United Auto Workers wanted to enjoy the benefits of AMC’s revolutionary profit-sharing plan. But the preliminary agreement reached last week included the cost-of-living clause (not only retained, but entrenched: three-quarters of the current cost-of-living increment has been added to the basic wage rate) and a stunning variety of new, increased and extended benefits, and the original profit-sharing plan, augmented (at Walter Reuther’s insistence) by a 50 per cent increase payable in common stock. AMC’s servile capitulation can be explained only as a piece of corporate Realpolitik. If it could not institute its original plan, which would have cost little in an interim period of declining profits, it would do the next best thing: hobble the opposition. Reuther has already said he’ll beat the Big Three over the head with his AMC contract, and the Big Three have already said they’d rather die than adopt a profit-sharing plan. So— there’s a chance that AMC will be producing at full steam during the crucial months of the new model year while the Big Three, one by one, shut down for a spell. Which leaves AMC, over the short term, striding onward and upward. But which leaves the auto industry, over the long term, doing what comes natcherly: jes’ Rambling down the Road to Reuther-dom. No wonder Reuther calls the AMC deal “the most significant and historic collective bargaining agreement ever written in the United States.” Buy your new cars now, friends: you’ll never see these prices again.

Last year Jimmy Hoffa began negotiations with Harry Bridges and his International Longshoremen and Warehouse Workers union. These have led to united front arrangements in various waterfront cities. Two weeks ago Hoffa put out feelers toward the union of Mine, Mill and Smelter workers. These recipients of Hoffa’s affectionate advances have two traits in common: both, like the Teamsters, have been booted out of the AFL-CIO; both, unlike the Teamsters, are run by men who have given many years’ proof of devotion to the interests of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. Jimmy Hoffa, in pursuit of his vendetta against the AFL-CIO leadership and his dream of a rival federation of his own, thus woos even Moscow’s whores. This flirtation between tough guy and Red is not without precedent in the labor movement. John L. Lewis, when he broke with the AFL in the early ’30’s, thought he could “use” the Communists to help build the CIO. They, of course, used Lewis, and got thereby their first mass base in the American labor movement. Labor and the nation have been paying bitterly ever since. In duplicating Lewis’ short-sighted infidelity, Hoffa proves that he is as stupid as he is irresponsible.

Featured Tags

William F. Buckley Jr.

At first, American Motors had said that the cost-of-living clause must go if the United Auto Workers wanted to enjoy the benefits of AMC’s revolutionary profit-sharing plan. But the preliminary agreement reached last week included the cost-of-living clause (not only retained, but entrenched: three-quarters of the current cost-of-living increment has been added to the basic wage rate) and a stunning variety of new, increased and extended benefits, and the original profit-sharing plan, augmented (at Walter Reuther’s insistence) by a 50 per cent increase payable in common stock. AMC’s servile capitulation can be explained only as a piece of corporate Realpolitik. If it could not institute its original plan, which would have cost little in an interim period of declining profits, it would do the next best thing: hobble the opposition. Reuther has already said he’ll beat the Big Three over the head with his AMC contract, and the Big Three have already said they’d rather die than adopt a profit-sharing plan. So— there’s a chance that AMC will be producing at full steam during the crucial months of the new model year while the Big Three, one by one, shut down for a spell. Which leaves AMC, over the short term, striding onward and upward. But which leaves the auto industry, over the long term, doing what comes natcherly: jes’ Rambling down the Road to Reuther-dom. No wonder Reuther calls the AMC deal “the most significant and historic collective bargaining agreement ever written in the United States.” Buy your new cars now, friends: you’ll never see these prices again.

Last year Jimmy Hoffa began negotiations with Harry Bridges and his International Longshoremen and Warehouse Workers union. These have led to united front arrangements in various waterfront cities. Two weeks ago Hoffa put out feelers toward the union of Mine, Mill and Smelter workers. These recipients of Hoffa’s affectionate advances have two traits in common: both, like the Teamsters, have been booted out of the AFL-CIO; both, unlike the Teamsters, are run by men who have given many years’ proof of devotion to the interests of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. Jimmy Hoffa, in pursuit of his vendetta against the AFL-CIO leadership and his dream of a rival federation of his own, thus woos even Moscow’s whores. This flirtation between tough guy and Red is not without precedent in the labor movement. John L. Lewis, when he broke with the AFL in the early ’30’s, thought he could “use” the Communists to help build the CIO. They, of course, used Lewis, and got thereby their first mass base in the American labor movement. Labor and the nation have been paying bitterly ever since. In duplicating Lewis’ short-sighted infidelity, Hoffa proves that he is as stupid as he is irresponsible.