National Affairs: Repairs

Two of C. I. O.’s best mechanics, Vice Chairmen Philip Murray & Sidney Hillman, last week finished the first of several repair jobs on the United Automobile Workers of America. When President Homer Martin recently lost control of U. A. W. and tried to fix up his machine by throwing out four of its most important cogs—Messrs Richard Frankensteen, Wyndham Mortimer, Ed Hall, George Addes—John L. Lewis sent Mechanics Murray and Hillman to Detroit to interfere. There they persuaded Mr. Martin to let them get up on the driver’s seat, one on each side of him, to watch his driving (TIME, Sept. 26). Last week, having steered U. A. W. into a garage, in privacy behind closed doors they effected the repair most needed to make it run again: put back the four vital parts Mr. Martin had thrown out.

Meantime, U. A. W.’s self-starter began to turn the engine over, putting pressure on motor makers for a 32-hour week to spread-the-work. Result: a strike of 6,000 workers, shutting down Chrysler Corp.’s Plymouth factory in Detroit, and throwing out of work 9,000 Briggs Body Co. workers.