National Affairs: Crisis Revisited

New York City, which last month weathered a ten-day tie-up by striking tugboat operators, now faced the threat of a far more serious strike: on all city-owned subway, elevated, streetcar and bus lines.

Michael J. Quill, belligerent, Communist-line boss of the disaffected, 110,000-member Transport Workers’ Union, C.I.O., boomed his demands for a $2-a-day raise and exclusive bargaining rights for all the city’s 32,000 transit workers. One point he made very clear: his civic responsibilities (as City Councilman from The Bronx) would not soften his determination to win. Another point that frightened New York City even more: Mike Quill insisted on his answer by Tuesday midnight of this week. It was an ultimatum.

Mayor William O’Dwyer, who had backpedaled before a Quill strike threat only a month before (over a proposed sale of the city’s subway power plants to Consolidated Edison) seemed helpless to move anywhere this time. The city’s counsel, John J. Bennett Jr. had issued a ruling: “It is clear that no one group of civil-service employes can be granted sole and exclusive bargaining rights as against a governmental body such as the [New York City] Board of Transportation.”

If the strike came, the life of a city of 7,500,000 would just about stop cold. In desperation, the Disaster Control Board alerted police, combed other city departments for amateurs who could run the trains if ruthless Mike Quill should say “strike.”