LABOR: Strikes & Settlements

Akron rubber workers began staging sit-downs in 1934, when John L. Lewis was only the hard-boiled boss of the hard-boiled Miners’ Union. Akron was then known as the toughest anti-union town in the U. S. outside of Detroit. United Rubber Workers of America, later to join C. I. O., moved in in 1935. By the time this year’s Sit-Down epidemic struck, both Akron’s workers and Akron’s businessmen were past the primary grades, thoroughly accustomed to the idea and practice of unionism. When Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. and its U. R. W. employes came to an impasse over exclusive bargaining recognition early last March, both sides behaved calmly. Instead of sitting down, the unionists peacefully walked out. Instead of hiring strikebreakers, grizzled Harvey Firestone quietly shut down his plants. Akron remained a rock in the seething Labor sea during the eight weeks of negotiations which followed. There was no violence by 11,000 idle workers, no alarmist shouting by employers or press.

Last week company and union came to terms, signing U. R. W.’s first contract with a major rubber concern. Firestone agreed to bargain with the union, to stop financing its company union. U. R. W. agreed not to “cause or tolerate” Sit-Downs and other strikes, not to coerce prospective members. Included in the contract (to run for one year) was provision for the first standard 36-hour week ever adopted in a major U. S. industry, with a promise that before layoffs are made hours will be cut to 24 per week for eight weeks.

While Akron was giving the country an object lesson in Labor maturity, New Jersey last week displayed a rampant example of freshman unionism. On petition of some 500 non-union employes, its officials decided to reopen the Thermoid Rubber Co. plant near Trenton, closed since April 8 by a strike of United Rubber Workers. Returning workers were hooted and stoned by picketers, and when they sent out the first truckload of their products, the strikers tossed more rocks to stop it. Returning tear-gas bombs, police charged into battle. The scuffle stopped when the truck retreated into the plant. The strikers jeered the sheriff when he appeared to read the Riot Act. For safety’s sake, the non-union workers decided to stay inside.

In Trenton, muscular Governor Harold Giles Hoffman, who had sworn to resist the Sit-Down with “the full resources of the State,” leaped to the rescue of Thermoid’s involuntary sitters, had State troopers convoy a truckload of food and bedding to them. When the sheriff declared himself unable to enforce a court decree ordering the strikers to stop interfering with the company’s operations, Governor Hoffman dispatched 30 blue-clad State troopers to stand guard.

¶ In a poll supervised by NLRB, Packard’s 14,780 employes voted 4-to-1 to make U. A. W. their sole bargaining representative. Thus forced to become the first major motorman to grant U. A. W. such a privilege, Packard’s President Alvan Macauley sagely observed: “We are pleased that the matter has been determined peacefully and with apparent good will all around.”

¶ Publisher William F. Hofmann of the Long Island Press (circ.: 71,341) in Jamaica thought his strike troubles were over when he signed an agreement with the American Newspaper Guild early last week. But when he discharged 27 returned strikers for “reasons of economy,” the rest walked out again. An editorial picket line scuffled with pressmen, kept most of them out of the building. At week’s end Publisher Hofmann announced that the Press was involuntarily suspending publication, first time in its 118 years.

¶In Longmont, Colo., planted in a rocker on her father-in-law’s front lawn, Mrs. Genevieve Johnson, 26, went into the second week of her Sit-Down to force her estranged husband to pay the $6.70-per-week separate maintenance awarded her by a court.

¶ Led by 3,500 members of clerks’, cooks’, waiters’, waitresses’, bartenders’ and miscellaneous workers’ unions, employes of San Francisco’s 15 biggest hotels struck last week to win preferential hiring and a five-day week for clerks, left 6,000 guests stranded without food or heat, room, telephone or elevator service. At the Palace, Cinemactor Jean Hersholt lugged his bags down eight flights to the lobby, where he was met by the manager with a handtruck. Best prepared for the emergency was the Metropolitan Opera’s Tenor Nino Martini. Gallantly manning an elevator, he explained that he had learned how during New York City’s elevator strike last year.

More serious labor trouble confronted film actors and producers in Hollywood. Strongest labor group there is the International Alliance of Theatrical & Stage Employes, a virtual company union whose leaders work hand in glove with producers under a five-year contract forbidding strikes. Independent unions, affiliated with American Federation of Labor, have long struggled vainly for-recognition. Last week when their demands for recognition and all-union shops were turned down for the fifth successive year, 3,000 members of A. F. of L. painters’, scenic artists’ and make-up men’s unions walked out on strike. Picket lines paced before major studios, but production of 38 cinemas currentlyafilming went on about as usual, non-union workers filling the places of strikers. Meantime strike leaders were organizing their unions and 15 other independents into the Federated Motion Picture Crafts. Hollywood seemed headed for real trouble when, at week’s end, stationary engineers, molders, plumbers, costumers, cooks, studio utility workers, machinists and boilermakers joined the strike. All sides waited anxiously to see what the actors would do.

Robert Montgomery, who startled admirers of his customary flip performances last week by appearing as a pathological murderer in Night Must Fall (see p. 67). promptly stepped into the news in still another role—as president of Hollywood’s Screen Actors’ Guild, Inc. Rumors of stirring social consciousness among cinema stars, notably pert little Jimmy Cagney, have been emerging from Hollywood more & more frequently of late. Prime outward evidence is the 5,600-strong Guild, to which virtually all film actors and actresses belong. Last week’s strike faced the Guild with its first big test of Labor solidarity. President Montgomery swiftly summoned his executive board, including First Vice President Cagney, Second Vice President Joan Crawford and Assistant Secretary Boris Karloff, who decided to postpone decision on a sympathetic strike until a mass meeting could be held, meantime left the question of passing through picket lines to individual decision. At the mass meeting, some 4,000 solemn-faced cinemactors voted to wait another week before deciding whether to exert their social consciousness to the full.