February 14, 1982

''NO BACKWARD STEP!'' The battle cry, coined by John L. Lewis in the 1920's to rally his coal-smudged army of union miners against pay cuts, epitomizes the adversarial spirit that has characterized the approach of both labor and management at most bargaining tables since then. Now, under the impact of the recession, foreign competition and signs of rigor mortis in some key industries, many unions are taking a less belligerent tack and finding their employers ready to join in accommodations that entail significant surrender of prerogatives on both sides. It is far too early to forecast that the more conciliatory mood will be either widespread or permanent, but it already embraces unions and companies that have been traditional pattern setters in industrial relations. ''We've all become Japanese in recognizing that we can no longer afford the luxury of business as usual,'' Ray Marshall, Secretary of Labor in the Carter Administration, said. In return for wage freezes, deferral of benefits and relaxation of restrictive work rules, management has given unions in distressed industries guarantees against plant closings, consultative rights on capital outlays and other investment plans, access to confidential data on costs and competition and expanded employee participation in decision-maki ng on plant and production prob lems.

Federal programs specially intended for poor people would sustain proportionally deeper cuts than other Government benefit programs under President Reagan's budget for the coming year. The budget would not only reduce the rate of growt h but would also cut the absol ute level of Federal spending on the three biggest social welfar e programs: food stamps, Medicaid and Aid to Families with Dependen t Children. Federal outlays for the three programs, expected to r each $36.5 billion in the current fiscal year, would be cut back to $ 32 billion in the next year, a reduction of 12.3 percent, acco rding to data in the budget. Rise for Social Security The President sought much deeper cuts in subsidized housing, job training and education programs that mainly benefit low-income people.

SIR FREDDIE LAKER makes sparks. He made sparks in igniting air-fare wars over the North Atlantic and he made sparks in declaring bankruptcy. The ques tion of the moment is whe ther Laker Airways' collapse, provoked this month when its banker s cut off its lifeline, will prove as trend-setting as did Sir Freddi e's fare cutting. Some other airline officers fear that things are j ust that ominous. ''What's going to happen,'' said Howard D. Putnam, the new chief executive of the Braniff International Corporation, ''is that you will have fewer airlines flying. And the airlines probably won't make that decision as much as the lenders will. If, by this summer, we don't generate traffic, we won't be able to continue. It happened to Laker.'' ''There's too much competition,'' added Roy M. Rawls, senior vice president for finance at Continental Airlines. ''You've got overcapacity, discounting and all the problems associated with deregulation.''

In 1976, in the midst of a real-estate recession, a home builder named Gary Minchew of Valdosta, Ga., went to a seminar on how to save money in construction. He says he has never been the same since. He had already poured the concrete and ordered the lumber for a house he was building. By the time he finished framing that house, using the new techniques he had learned at the seminar, he was able to return a third of the lumber. When the construction was finished, his total savings on the thousand-square-foot house were $1,406.15. Besides the savings on materials, he cut labor costs by 35 cents a square foot because the studs, which provide the vertical structural frame, were placed 24 inches apart instead of 16 inches. He also saved $276 by eliminating asphalt sheathing between studs and siding, $2.30 on each corner by eliminating one board, and $86.60 by eliminating a board known as a double-top plate between the frame and the roof.

IN circumstances that are unusual for a new shopping center, the Stamford Town Center, a huge urban renewal complex, is to open Thursday with its two anchor stores but minus its connecting mall and the 132 small stores and service establishments expected within it. The complete six-level, atrium-style mall is to have a delayed opening on April 22. For the anchor stores, Macy's and J.C. Penney, the mall area that is centered on a grand court may seem like a ghost town for two months. And for the Taubman Company of Troy, Mich., one of the nation's largest shopping-center developers and a co-developer in the Stamford Town Center with the F.D. Rich Company, the opening of a mall-less center is a first.