THE ADMINISTRATION: The Pipe Fitter Disconnects

When Martin Patrick Durkin resigned last week as Secretary of Labor, an old union colleague remarked: “Like any old steam fitter, he knew when the pressure got too high.” The pressure had been building up for a long time in several boilers—including Martin Durkin’s.

Eisenhower had promised labor some revision of the Taft-Hartley law, and his appointment of Durkin was a concrete example of his intention to keep that promise. Besides, Ike had come to like burly, earnest Martin Durkin. Sitting in on a White House discussion of Taft-Hartley, Ike had said: “I want you for your heart and brain, Martin, not for your political influence.” But Taft-Hartley revision was not solely a matter of intentions, heart and brain. It was a matter of relative pressures working for specific changes in the law. The story of the pressures:

JANUARY TO JUNE. Pro-labor and promanagement forces inside the Administration negotiated on a list of changes to be made in the law. It was understood that the Administration would have to press hard to get any pro-labor amendments through Congress. While the Government people were failing to agree, a group of non-Government lawyers—some labor, some management—hammered out a list of 16 changes, finishing their job about June 1.

JUNE 16. Durkin indicated that he approved the list with one very small exception (on how explicitly the law should say that the closed shop would be permissible in the building trades).

JUNE 17. George Meany, president of the A.F.L., studied the 16-point list and raised two objections: he repeated Durkin’s point and also balked at a provision to replace the NLRB with a “Labor Court.” These were small points, and it looked as if the A.F.L.’s (and therefore Durkin’s) approval could easily be obtained. But Department of Commerce General Counsel Stephen F. Dunn, representing the management viewpoint, objected to omissions from the list.

LATE JUNE. Several White House meetings were held, with Commerce objecting, Durkin still giving the impression that he would go along with the 16 points. Senator Taft, about to go to the hospital for the last time, was delighted with the progress being made and the reasonableness of both sides. Durkin passed around copies of the 16-point list to top union leaders.

EARLY JULY. Meany, then in Europe, got word that many labor leaders did not like the list he had approved and were putting pressure on his office. Durkin heard that rivals in the plumbers’ union were using the list against him, accusing him of selling out. Meanwhile, Commerce Department negotiators gave in under heavy White House pressure, approved the list. About the time that they did so, Durkin began to back away.

WEEK OF JULY 20. Durkin, worried about complaints from union leaders, raised a new objection (to the secondary boycott provisions). He announced that he 1) regarded the whole deal as “a package,” 2) would not accept the other 15 points. Having so delivered himself, he refused to budge from his new position.

LATE JULY. Durkin’s Labor Department lawyers drafted a new, 19-point program, much more favorable to labor, and began negotiating with White House Assistant Bernard Shanley. Commerce was left out of these discussions. Durkin got Shanley’s personal agreement to the new list, and immediately leaked the fact to the press on July 30.

JULY 31. At a Cabinet meeting, Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks was hopping mad that the agreement between Durkin and the White House had been made behind his back. Vice President Nixon joined the anti-Durkin lineup. Somebody gave the Wall Street Journal the text of Durkin’s 19 points. This increased management pressure.

AUG. 19. Durkin talked to the President in New York, failed to get his agreement on the 19-point program.

AUG. 31. Durkin threw his Sunday punch, a letter of resignation.

SEPT. 8. .Durkin spent most of the day at the White House. Sherman Adams told him that Ike would not sign a letter to congressional leaders which Durkin had drafted on the basis of the 19 points. Durkin wanted the letter to take to next week’s A.F.L. convention.

SEPT. 10. Durkin again talked to the President, who wanted him to stay but gave no assurance on the 19-point revision. That day, his resignation was accepted. Martin Durkin went back to the A.F.L. plumbers’ and pipe fitters’ union.

Durkin said that he left because the Administration “had taken no position” on Taft-Hartley amendments “about which we agreed.” If the “we” meant White House Assistant Shanley, Durkin was correct. If it meant Eisenhower or Weeks, he was not. And Durkin himself had previously retreated from a settlement to which he had given 99% agreement.

At week’s end, a new Secretary of Labor was being sought. He would not have to be a pipe fitter, but he had better know about pressures and leaks.