Declining productivity is one of the spokes in the economic wheel that needs attention in America’s fight against inflation. The .S. Labor Department announcement says productivity slipped a disappointing 0.9 percent during 1979 – only the second tinie since 1947 that measure of the economy’s efficiency has declined over a full year. The last such skid took place during the 1974 recession and measured 3 percent. . Special concentration apparently is due in the nonfarm business sector which showed a decline of 1,2 percent last year. Manufacturing had an increase of 1.8 percent. Productivity already has become an issue in justopened contract talks between the nation’s nine largest steelmakers and the steelworkers union. The companies have served notice they will not agree on any new pact that won’t enable them to improve the productivity rate, l Industry representatives X say the steelworkers are , the highest paid industrial y workers in the country but i the domestic steel industry is shrinking in the face of world-wide competition not a good situation. J. Bruce Johnston, a vice president of U.S. Steel Corp. and chief industry negotiator, has been quoted by “union sources” as saying labor costs far have outstripped productivity under the present relationship, says Wall Street Journal. Industry repeatedly has said profits haven’t been sufficient to provide needed plant modemization and replacement improvements which by themselves would make increased productivity possible. This is a question with broad implications in keeping the domestic steel industry strong. Economists usually interpret a decline in productivity (the nation’s output of goods and services per hour of work) as a rise in inflation. In 1979 people worked more hours but their output didn’t increase correspondingly, the Labor Department noted. To translate this in terms of inflation, when wages are rising but workers do not produce goods and services more efficiently, prices rise. This happens because employers try to recover what they have paid in higher wages by raising their prices. On the other hand, if productivity increases, rising wages can be absorbed in stepped-up output. Increasing productivity is a major challenge for M0. Big steel is getting an early start in attacking the Emblem. Others in the usiness-industry sector should examine their own needs and act accordingly.