Brock May Urge Sub-Minimum Teen-Age Wage

Labor Secretary William E. Brock III indicated today that the Reagan Administration may try to revive a sub-minimum wage for teen-agers if congressional Democrats and labor unions insist on raising the $3.35-an-hour minimum wage in effect since 1981.

Brock, meeting with reporters after addressing the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting here, repeated that the White House has taken no formal position yet on the minimum wage issue.

But he said indexing future yearly increases to inflation or overall wage gains in the society, as the labor federation is advocating, “will be difficult to sell.”

The labor secretary said the discussion on increasing the minimum wage at some point will have to look at a “break point at age 21.”

‘To Get Some Skills’

“That will allow young people who don’t have skills . . . to get some skills without being precluded from that first job by a minimum wage that is beyond their talents,” he said.

The AFL-CIO’s ruling 35-member council is holding its annual winter meeting at this seaside resort this week.

Its top priority in Congress this year is new import restrictions, and the labor federation is making that its primary litmus test for judging presidential candidates in 1988.

While the 12.8-million-member labor federation is not scheduled to formally unveil its revamped endorsement procedure until Wednesday, its leaders made clear that candidates will have to back organized labor’s view on trade to win its support.

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland said union voters in 1986 helped return the Senate to Democratic control after six years of Republican domination on the basis of what the record $170-billion U.S. trade deficit last year was doing to their jobs and the economy.