Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

war,"
Current Events
By Prof. William H. Russell, Ph.D.
GUARANTEED WAGE
The contract settlement between the United Automobile
Workers and the Ford Motor Co. set a new precedent in
industrial relations. The union rejected a company for em
ployee stock ownership, and instead won a modified form of
the guaranteed annual wage for its 140,000 workers who
are paid by the hour. The three-year contract was signed
after eight weeks of intense negotiating, just in time to
avert a strike. The company will contribute five cents an
hour for each employee into a special fund, which will reach
$55 million in three years. When a worker is laid off, the
fund will be used to supplement his unemployment insur
ance payments, in such a way that the worker will receive
65 per cent of his previous take-home pay for the first four
weeks, and 60 per cent for the next twenty-two weeks.
Other benefits in the new contract bring its total value to
about twenty
cents an hour.
EXPANDING GAINS
The Ford plan is a compromise, for the union wanted
100 per cent payments for a full year; but the principle of
the guaranteed wage is established. General Motors, with
nearly three times as many workers as Ford, avoided a
strike by accepting a similar plan. In each case the special
funds will be started immediately, but payments from them
will not begin until June, 1956.
change many
It will be necessary to
state laws so that a worker can receive un
employment compensation and guarantee payments at the
same time. The automakers would like to reduce the sea
sonal fluctuations in their business, but their keen compe
tition, and the custom of introducing new models every fall,
will make this difficult. Unions in other seasonal industries,
such as steel, will also push for some form of guaranteed
wage. Tt will be difficult, however, for any but the largest
companies to meet the cost.
BONN AND MOSCOW
Russia has made a dramatic move in foreign policy by
inviting Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany to
discuss the opening of diplomatic, trade, and cultural rela
tions. This implies recognition of West Germany's sovereign
ty, a major concession by the Reds. The German people
were delighted at the prospect of a warmup in the "cold
and Adenauer had no choice but to accept the invi
tation. However, he promised that he would not desert the
West for a neutral position, and came to Washington for
preliminary
consultations. He also insisted on a neutral
place for the meeting, rather than going to Moscow. Russia
probably hopes to delay German rearmament by reviving
the popular hope for unification. Adenauer and the West
will continue to insist on free elections as the basis for
German unity, and the Communists can hardly
agree to this
without losing all their power in East Germany.
LAND RIGHTS
In 1953, at the height of the Mau Mau killings in Kenya,
Queen Elizabeth appointed a Royal Commission to investi
gate the whole matter of relations between natives and
whites in East Africa. The basic problem is land distribu
tion. Of the eighteen million persons in Uganda, Kenya, and
Tanganyika, only fifty thousand are white, but the whites
control nine-tenths of the best land. Though not actually in
slavery, the Negroes have had to work for the whites in or
der to secure money to pay a "head tax." The Royal Com
mission has finally reported, recommending for Kenya that
part of the five million acres now reserved for whites be
opened to Negroes. Land not now in cultivation would be
leased to anyone regardless of color. This recommendation
will not be popular with the whites, but it seems a simple
matter of justice, as well as the only
tinued violence.
DECISION AVOIDED
alternative to con
Dr. John Peters, who was dismissed from federal em
ployment as a medical consultant in 1953, after an adverse
decision by the Loyalty Review Board, has won a favorable
ruling from the Supreme Court. Peters claimed that the
action against him was illegal because he had no opportun
ity to confront the witnesses who testified to his Communist
leanings. However, the Court refused to rule on this basic
constitutional issue, which is involved in many recent se
curity cases. Instead, the Court threw out the Board's action
because it was made on its own initiative, without appeal
from the government.
It is in accordance with judicial principles that the Su
preme Court will not rule on a constitutional question if a
case can be decided on any other grounds. However, we still
need a decision as to whether security hearings must provide
all the constutional rights guaranteed to persons accused of
crime. Justice Douglas, in a dissenting opinion, strongly
condemned the use of anonymous informers in such hear
ings.
niON IN ABUNDANCE
Taconite, a hard black rock containing about 25 per
cent iron, will soon provide a big new business for northern
Minnesota. For many years, industrialists and defense offi
cials have been worried over the depletion of the Mesabi
range, our chief deposit of high-grade (50 per cent) iron
ore. After many years of research, complex processes have
been developed for mining and processing taconite so that it
can be used commercially. One company has nearly com
pleted a processing plant on the north shore of Lake Su
perior, and a mine fifty miles to the northwest. The plant
will convert the taconite rock into small pellets of con
centrated iron ore, which will then be shipped down the
Great Lakes to the steel mills. Since the reserves of taconite
are enormous, its development assures continued prosperity
for northern Minnesota and greater security for our steel
industry.
COMMUNIST FAMINE
Famine is raging in Red China, according to reports
from Hong Kong and evidence furnished by local news
papers. Last year's disastrous floods were followed by heavy
frosts in the central portions, while the south has had its
worst drought in one hundred years. Over four thousand
peasants were arrested in Canton for the theft of small
amounts of food, and there have been food riots in some
towns when the peasants tried to storm the Communist
granaries. China has always known famine, but the Com
munist regime has made it worse by exporting
as much
food as possible to Russia, in return for industrial goods.
Added to this is corruption, as bad if not worse than under
any previous Chinese government.
June 22, 1955 387