National Affairs: Rump Week

Solidarity Forever is the theme song but far from the theme of the United Automobile Workers. C. I. O.’s third largest union* and most obstreperous problem child. Last week Solidarity Forever boomed from the throats of 1,000 U. A. W. men convoked in rump convention at Toledo by the supporters of the five U. A. W. officials who were ousted two months ago as “Communists” by Union President Homer Martin (TIME, June 20). This rump meeting enthusiastically passed a resolution asking John Llewellyn Lewis to appoint a receiver of their riven union with full powers to patch it up—presumably by kicking out President Martin. Cried Wyndham Mortimer, chief spokesman for the rump officials: “We need a C. I. 0. director with power to pull us out. We are a very sick union!”

This meeting was the final flash of a highly electric U. A. W. week. When President Martin heard it had been called, he promptly called two rival meetings of his own, one the same day in Detroit for the heads of U. A. W.’s Michigan locals, another next day in Cleveland for Ohio locals—in order to make union men choose which side they would meet with. But having announced his intention to keep his Detroit meeting going until midnight if necessary to put deserters on the spot, he adjourned it early, mournfully watched a line of cars pull out for Toledo. The Toledo meeting claimed 702 delegates from 70 locals, representing more than half U. A. W.’s 400,000 membership. (The Mortimer faction last week told C. I. O. Boss Lewis that its dues collections were 30% of U. A. WVs peak.) An anti-Martinite but no extremist, Walter Reuther, head of Detroit’s huge West Side local, hedged by attending the Detroit meeting himself, sending his brother Victor to the other meeting. Next day in Cleveland, Homer Martin ridiculed the rumpsters’ figures, claimed his union was stronger than ever, boasted: ”Ford will sign up … during the 1939 production season.”

Last week’s rumpus made it more doubtful than ever that, if & when Motorman Ford does sign a U. A. W. contract, the signature next to his will be Homer Martin’s. For the split between Laborman Martin and his former colleagues had become an engagement of major importance in auto labor’s bitter civil war.

To John L. Lewis this was all a very serious matter, for U. A. W. has every sign of being C. I. O.’s soundest long-term asset. Unlike mining, steel, oil, textiles, the motor industry has still a big enough margin of profit to make auto unions as well as auto manufacturers economically powerful. If U. A. W. can expand into aviation, glass, rubber, as John Lewis hopes, it will add still further to its power. Given leadership, U. A. W. might gain a dominance like that of the railroad brotherhoods in Labor’s last generation.

—Larger: United Mine Workers of America, Steel Workers Organizing Committee.