LABOR: All Together

Two extraordinary examples of cooperation between Management & Labor got into the news last week.

Reo’s Hack. Feuding executives, shrinking sales and rising costs recently carried hoary (1904), respected Reo Motor Car Co. down to a point where it had to undergo a major operation or liquidate.

Last fortnight Reo Machinist Guy Hack convinced U. S. District Judge Arthur F. Lederle in Detroit that the 1,500 Reo employes at Lansing should have a hand in saving the company and their jobs, wangled a place on the reorganized board for a director to be elected by the workers. Last week Reo’s workers elected Guy Hack, who is also president of their C. I. O. local. To objections that he could not be Union President Hack and Company Director Hack at the same time, Guy Hack answered that he cannot hire and fire, therefore still retains his standing as a worker.

Pabco School. Paraffine Companies, Inc., of San Francisco and points as far east as Philadelphia, as far west as Australia, does a hefty business in roofing, wall board, paints, termite preventives, etc. etc. Its able President William Herman Lowe was astounded two years ago by the news that “Pabco” workers long used to high pay, sick benefits, annual vacations and the like, nevertheless wanted to join “outside” unions. Instead of fighting the trend, he forthwith dissolved Pabco’s “company union,” required his 1,500 employes in San Francisco and Oakland to join one of the 15 A. F. of L. and three C. I. O. unions now under contract. He also decided that Pabco had failed miserably to sell its policies, processes and products to its own people.

Part of an elaborate program instituted to remedy that fault was a school set up by the corporation, but run by and for the unions. Last week 24 students of labor history, economics, business administration, the Wagner Act, other subjects of joint concern to worker & boss graduated from Pabco’s school, bade fair to make labor-relations history.

C. I. O.’s Pacific Coast Director Harry Bridges liked the school so well that one of his lieutenants arranged for San Francisco trades union officials to enroll. Two University of California instructors did the teaching (at the joint expense of the State and the U. S. Department of the Interior, under an arrangement available to but seldom used by other industrialists). Says Pabco’s Lowe: “. . . We’re willing to hand it to the unions. . . [they] not only increased efficiency in our plant, but they are helping to sell our products. That’s what we got out of playing ball with them.”