National Affairs: Duress in the Sun

As the chill statistics on unemployment rose in Detroit, the United Auto Workers’ Boss Walter P. Reuther, 51, shivered at the thought of being seen or photographed at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Executive Council’s traditional week-long session in a palm-fringed winter resort. But the 29 elders of the U.S. labor movement, more than half of them on the ripe side of 60, voted nonetheless to accept Puerto Rico’s invitation to the glossy Caribe Hilton Hotel in San Juan. Still protesting, Reuther and his wife flew down tourist class; up forward in the first-class section of the same DC-7B, United Electrical Workers’ Boss

Jim Carey enjoyed the comforts, laughingly offered to send the Reuthers some leftover champagne. Moaned Reuther in sunny San Juan last week: “I’m here under duress.”

When press photographers were in range, Reuther dodged palm tree backgrounds, wore a business suit and kept his bulging briefcase prominently at hand as a businesslike prop. He refused to go near the water, scheduled a breakfast-to-dinner round of indoor conferences with his underlings. But his battle against pleasure made little headway with the majority of some 200 labor chiefs, relatives and staffers, who refreshed themselves on the beach with a mammoth rum drink called the “Tropical Itch,” went sun-scorched to San Juan’s casinos and nightclubs.

“Sons of Habitués.” Starting each pleasant day, David Dubinsky, grizzled chief of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, went down to the hotel pool in a flowing bathrobe, red and black sandals. Afternoons—to rest from the brief morning business sessions—he spent swimming in the surf with his 13-year-old granddaughter. Spade-bearded Jacob Potofsky of Amalgamated Clothing Workers strolled poolward in a natty blue-and-white beach jacket and Hollywoodish sunglasses. Sparking the livelier set, the Electrical Workers’ Carey demonstrated fancy dives from handstands on the high board. A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany appeared in beach regalia featuring sun hat and cigar. But taking his cue from Reuther, Meany, growling, fled from the beach when photographers swarmed around.

Militant Reuther, by talking up the need for an “unemployment march” on Washington to dramatize the unemployment problem, swung the news spotlight on the Puerto Rico meeting. Asked in press conference what he would think about such a march, President Eisenhower countered with a rare gibe: “I don’t see any good to come out of any such demonstration. I believe that news item came out of Puerto Rico. There people must be on the sunny beaches; I don’t know whether they are going to march from there over to this foggy Washington or not.”

“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” shot back Reuther. He was ready even on a tropical isle with a press release: “Mr. President, I have spent no time on the sunny beaches of Puerto Rico, nor have I been with you and your big business friends on the golf course, the duck blinds or the quail hunts.” George Meany, not the thin-skinned sort, tossed off a variation on an old pun: “I haven’t seen any of the habitués of the sunny beaches, or the sons of habitues.”

Ex-Crusaders. Reuther, Carey and Potofsky found one comfortable place in the sun—at a nearby strike of Puerto Ricans belonging to Carey’s union. While 40 regular pickets yelled “Viva!”, Reuther grabbed a Spanish-inscribed poster (“We are fighting discrimination against Local 494”), marched around for 15 minutes singing the labor hymn Solidarity Forever. His appetite picking up. he ate beans and sausage off a paper plate (“better than we get at the Caribe Hilton”), stood on the table to rouse the boys in a language they could not understand. “You will win your struggle,” he shouted, “as others before you have won their struggles—on the picket line.”

Meany prudently canceled his weekend golfing date with Ed Dudley, the professional who played with Eisenhower at Augusta for years. Then the council gave Reuther and other unionists a chill to take back to the cold, cold world. Against warnings from Reuther and Carey, the members voted not to suspend Maurice Hutcheson, A.F.L.-C.I.O. vice president and president of the Carpenters Union, who is under indictment in Indiana for taking part in a land swindle. One strong reason: the powerful building trades had served notice that they might well secede from A.F.L.-C.I.O. if Hutcheson were kicked out.