Business & Finance: Rand Reshuffle

Much in the news last week was James Henry Rand Jr., bulky president of Remington-Rand Inc., world’s biggest maker of office equipment. He became Samuel Insull’s first big radio customer, putting on a news program over the new Affiliated Broadcast Co. network (TIME, Feb. 24). He reported a $3,000,000 profit for his fiscal year through March, a whopping increase over the $1,750,000 earned the year before. And he settled to his satisfaction one of the most curious strikes in the history of U. S. Labor.

Called last month, the strike involved 6,500 workers in six Remington-Rand plants—Ilion, Tonawanda and Syracuse, N. Y., Marietta and Norwood, Ohio and Middletown, Conn. By last week the strike had got down to scabs, scuffles, professional strikebreakers and pitched battles with police. Though President Rand considered it largely the work of Communists, the affair apparently originated last year when the company bought a factory in Elmira, N. Y.

The Elmira deal worried the 1,700 workers in the Syracuse factory, which makes Remington portable typewriters. Rumors flew that the company planned to close down in Syracuse, move the portable division to Elmira. Union leaders wrote to President Rand, got no answer for a month. Then Mr. Rand’s secretary answered that no plans had been made for Elmira.

Early last month the suspicion that they might lose their jobs without warning had grown so strong among Syracuse unionites that they called a meeting, agreed it would be worth a strike to get the air cleared. Locals in the other plants voted to go along with them. After a fortnight’s silence, the company suddenly passed out ballots at all six plants with a warning reference to the Guffey decision (TIME, May 25). “The Supreme Court,” read the ballots, “decided that one group of employees cannot dictate to any other workers. . . . Do you wish to strike or do you wish to work?” At Syracuse the ballots also said: “The results of this ballot will determine continued operation of the Syracuse plant.” Meantime Remington-Rand instituted one-week annual vacations with pay.

Balloting in Syracuse was blocked by the indignant union before it began. Promptly the plant manager posted notice of a two-week shutdown, fired 17 union leaders “for acting like Communists,” announced that the portable division would be moved, not to Elmira but to Ilion, leaving 800 Syracusans jobless. This looked remarkably like a lockout.

Sincerely alarmed, Syracuse’s Mayor Rolland B. Marvin telephoned Mr. Rand, got his assurance that the Syracuse plant would be reopened, that at least part of its $2,100,000 annual payroll would remain in Syracuse permanently if the workers knuckled down on the discharge of union leaders. Braving a booing, Mayor Marvin put Mr. Rand’s terms before the workers. They booed. The Mayor then went to New York to see Mr. Rand, returned to try another ballot. On the strength of some 400 votes the company declared the plant open a week after the closing. Less than a half-dozen workers got through a double file of 900 pickets. Meanwhile machinery was being shipped out of Syracuse to Elmira and Ilion.

Another city threatened by Mr. Rand was Middletown, Conn., where 900 struck sympathetically. There, plant officials also got machinery ready for shipment. Middletown’s Mayor Leo Santangelo received a telegram from President Rand’s assistant: “Because you have failed to give protection to honest workers . . . and have allowed radicals to coerce and intimidate them . . . the company has decided that Middletown is not a suitable community in which to carry on operations. . . .”

Snapped Mayor Santangelo: “There were more policemen outside than there were men wanting to come in.”

Last week Mr. Rand descended upon Tonawanda, N. Y., appearing before his striking employes one morning just after police had used nightsticks to break up a scuffle between 100 scabs and 500 pickets. Tonawanda machinery was being crated for Marietta, Ohio, where workers had already capitulated to a $15 bonus offer.

“Well,” said he, “I am here and will meet with any of you. I have never refused to meet union representatives. I have always believed in collective bargaining.” Nevertheless, Mr. Rand refused to meet the discharged union heads until ”hell froze over.”

Leaving a $15 bonus offer for the Tonawanda strikers to think about Mr. Rand went to Ilion, where a committee of citizens from both Ilion and neighboring cities were under the distinct impression that the company had threatened to close their plant, too. Mr. Rand soon had the citizens’ committee fighting pickets, and some 1,300 in Ilion went back to work. However, as soon as Ilion went back Tonawanda followed suit.

Mr. Rand did not go to Syracuse but Syracuse went to him in Ilion in the form of a businessmen’s committee. The committee understood that if workers returned to work, they could have what jobs were left in the Syracuse plant, held out hopes of a big increase in the Syracuse payroll by autumn. Great was the Syracusans’ surprise, therefore, when Remington-Rand issued a statement which explained a great deal about the strike:

”Heretofore the company has manufactured in the U. S. and Canada in 18 separate and distinct manufacturing plants. . . . When the unification of manufacturing facilities has been completed the company will have 15 manufacturing units. . . . The dismantling of the Syracuse, Middletown, Conn., and Norwood, Ohio, plants, already well under way, is expected to be completed in about three weeks. . . . The company will be able to greatly increase its manufacturing efficiency by this consolidating of plants. The company announces the policy of moving desirable experienced employes at the company’s expense to new locations to which their work has been transferred. . . . The completion of this program completely puts a very definite end to the strike.”