FEDERAL AFFAIRS
By LOUIS AGNELLO, Bureau Head Washington News Bureau
Free trade debate threatens to cloud real issues The Kennedy round trade agreement literally is awash on a rising tide of protectionist sentiment within Congress. That is not to say that it seems to be in any imminent danger of being swept under by the currents and countercurrents of the "protectionist tide," as Administration spokesmen would have us believe. The real danger—particularly to the domestic chemical industry—is that the fate of the treaty may not be decided on economic considerations but ,on emotional and nebulous political ones. At this writing, the Senate Finance Committee is considering a proposal by Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen to tack an omnibus import quota rider to the House-approved Social Security bill. The proposed amendment would pull together a spate of separate measures to impose import quotas on a long list of products. On the House side, as well, support is running high for similar measures aimed at cushioning domestic industry from the impact of the expected flood of imports resulting from U.S. tariff concessions under the new treaty. Backers of such proposals are equally influential and well placed. For example, Rep. Wilbur B. Mills (D.-Ark.), chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, personally is sponsoring two such import quota measures (for textiles and meat). These efforts are not limited to just trying to curb imports of certain specific products. For example, the Dent bill (H.R. 478), which the House approved late last month by the overwhelming margin of 340-29, would give the President authority to restrict imports of any product produced under labor standards below those of this country. Twenty senators are cosponsoring a bill to establish mandatory quotas if imports contribute to the economic problems of domestic producers. The same number already has endorsed another bill that would force the President to increase tariffs or impose quotas in cases that would not comply with the present criteria for escape clause action. Finally, 40 senators are sponsoring a bill aimed at increasing the number of cases in which the U.S. applies antidumping duties. Administration spokesmen warn that this protectionist movement threatens to undo all that was accomplished by the Kennedy round. If enacted, they say, these bills would force other major world trading powers to retaliate by throwing up new barriers to U.S. exports. EEC member nations and other principals to the trade agreement already have said as much in protests to the State Department, they point out. President Johnson, already neck-deep in domestic and foreign policy problems, is trying desperately to avoid a knockdown drag-out battle with Congress on trade policy at this time. For example, he recently ordered the Tariff Commission to make an exhaustive study of the impact of imports on domestic textile and apparel industries, a move calculated to forestall Congressional action. The President likely will be able to fend off the present assault .on the Geneva treaty. Under White House pressure, a number of key Senate Democrats are having second thoughts about the political wisdom of the Social Security rider scheme. As a separate package, few if any of the import quota proposals—with the possible exception of the textile bill—appear to have enough backing to override a Presidential veto. However, a real showdown looms when the President sends his trade bill to the Hill probably early next year. The bill will call for the repeal of the American Selling Price system of assessing duties on imports of benzenoid chemicals. The domestic benzenoid chemical industry has prepared a telling case for the retention of ASP—a case based on hard economic fact. Unfortunately, it may not receive the consideration it merits if the Administration succeeds in using the bill to provide a national forum for a theoretical and emotion-laden debate on the relative merits of free trade vs. protectionism. 30 C&EN OCT. 30, 1967
SPACE set to promote professional unions SPACE, the council of AFL-CIO unions for Scientific, Professional, and Cultural Employees, has hired a fulltime executive secretary, set up a Washington office, and is starting to "make some noise" about why professionals should organize into unions. Jack Golodner, a lawyer who has been working in governmental relations for Actors' Equity Association, is the full-time executive secretary. He will make his headquarters in SPACE'S office in the new, plush Watergate complex (at 2600 Virginia Ave., N.W. ) next door to the now abuilding John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Mr. Golodner told a "backgrounder" meeting with the press that SPACE will cosponsor, with Cornell University, a one-day seminar on the professional as an employee Dec. 15. The seminar, to be held on the Cornell campus, is intended for professionals in the New York-New Jersey area. (He promised that the program and other details would be available soon. ) Also on hand for the backgrounder was SPACE president Herman D. Kenin. Mr. Kenin is the 66-year-old lawyer who heads the American Federation of Musicians. As head of the musicians union, violinist Kenin succeeded James C. Petrillo, the trumpeter who turned on (and sometimes off) the musicians union during the forties. Mr. Kenin explains that SPACE's purpose is to create a climate for organizing professionals into unions. He says there is a feeling in the council, composed of nearly 20 AFL-CIO unions (C&EN, April 10, page 26), that professionals are beginning to look upon collective negotiation as a tool to assert themselves. Asked whether the recent strikes of school teachers would tend to help or hinder SPACE'S efforts, Mr. Kenin says he thinks other professionals can take heart from the strikes in that they show professionals can withdraw their services if they feel that remuneration or other terms of employment is inadequate. Mr. Kenin and Mr. Golodner also look upon union organization as a way for professionals to assert themselves in their professional societies as well as their work places. Too often, they say, it's the employer who's setting the standards for a profession. Mr. Kenin estimates that close to 1 million professional people are already members of AFL-CIO unions. The member unions of SPACE claim 350,000 professional members in all, the largest number being members of the American Federation of Teachers.
