Motor Peace

The fitting time to settle a bitter strike is not on a fine fresh morning, nor on a sultry afternoon. It is after the shades of night have fallen, when fatigue and strain have weakened the obstinacy of men, and peace, like sleep, comes to knit up the raveled sleeve of contention. In all respects but one the settlement of the Chrysler automobile strike was thus fitting. After 9 o'clock the evening of the eleventh day of negotiation, Governor Frank Murphy emerged from a smoke-filled office at Lansing to announce that agreement had been reached. Shortly before midnight Governor Murphy sat down at a table with John L. Lewis at one hand and Walter P. Chrysler at the other, to sign the completed articles. The one thing lacking was a proper air of exhaustion among the negotiators. Mr. Lewis looked no grimmer than usual and Mr. Chrysler was fresh as a daisy while Governor Murphy read off the terms.

Terms. There was reason for Mr. Chrysler's smile. As the Governor read it became evident that the motormaker had stood pat and won on his original declaration that he would not grant the United Automobile Workers exclusive bargaining rights for all Chrysler workers. "The corporation agrees to bargain with the union as the collective bargaining agency for such of its employees as are members of the union." There was no qualification, as that in the General Motors agreement, that the company would not bargain with any other group for six months. Chrysler did promise not to deny the right of employes to join the union, not to discriminate against union members, not to promote or finance rival unions, not to make an agreement with any other for the purpose of undermining the union. These things, however, were not in controversy. All that the union gained was that these things were put in writing. The union on its part promised not to coerce employes to join, not to permit its members to take part in "any sit-down or stayin strike or other stoppage" in any Chrysler plant for the period of the agreement (one year). Lesser matters were left to further negotiation.

Quasi-Peace. Day after this peace, Governor Murphy succeeded in settling the Reo strike, next day the Hudson Motors strike, both on the basis of the Chrysler terms. Once more quasi-peace reigned in the motor industry. But in General Motors plants, where peace was made two months ago, a sort of guerrilla labor war went on in the form of brief, "spontaneous" sit-downs. The workers' willingness to strike at the drop of a hat was best illustrated at the Oldsmobile plant. There one afternoon the day shift finished work ten minutes early. Members of the night shift found them idle, and practical jokers announced they had "sat down." Result: a real sit-down by the night shift.

Lewis Cautions. With this temper among men, it was natural that many should grumble that the Chrysler settlement was a defeat for labor. It was a defeat, however, not so much for Leader Lewis as for an ill-advised strike spirit in the plants which had forced his hand. Night after the settlement he addressed a crowd of 25,000 unionists jamming Detroit's State Fair Coliseum and made it plain that it was time for hotheads to give up blundering into strikes for which their responsible leaders were not ready. First, however, his aides warmed up the crowd by telling them that the Chrysler settlement amounted to sole recognition of the union. Leader Lewis himself, although he made no such claim, also beat the victory drum: "You changed your minds, and so the great Alfred Sloan changed his mind also. And then Myron Taylor, of U. S. Steel, changed his mind. And, lo and behold, it came to pass that finally our good friend Walter Chrysler also changed his mind. He had never changed his mind before, and it took a month this time. But he finally did it, and I know it, because I was there and saw him put his John Hancock on it."

Then he went on to give them a sober warning: "Your union has given its pledge that during the life of this agreement there will be no stoppage of production.

That means sit-downs, stand-ups, walkouts, or stay-ins. It means that ways and means are provided for adjudication of disputes and to settle any controversy. Upon this record you make in your first collective bargaining experiment in the auto industry will undoubtedly depend the future of your union and of collective bargaining in the industry.

"It is unwise for foolish, impulsive men to commit acts trespassing on the agreement. Let me warn you also, there may be men among you who have wormed their way into positions of responsibility, who may advise us to take some wrongful action because they know that that action will bring trouble and confusion upon the union. "I ask you all to work in co-operation with your officers and shop stewards so that the obligations of your union may be liquidated in fullest degree."

Ford. "Those who seize property not their own are in the same category as housebreakers. The politicians who were elected as our public servants are policemen in a sense and should protect our rights. [The workers] are being organized and their freedom taken away. They'll pay money to the unions and get nothing in return. *. . . We'll never recognize the United Automobile Workers' Union or any other union."

Such were the words of Henry Ford, wintering in Georgia, uttered only a few hours before John L. Lewis' labor meeting in Detroit. Every speaker at the meeting derided them and the crowd booed Ford's name. Before the week was out it looked as if shrewd Mr. Ford were launching a planned counterattack on C. I. O. He allowed himself to be photographed repeatedly in all sorts of homely poses, talking to children, showing them how a steam engine works, confabbing with a one-legged Negro (see cut). He continued giving interviews picturing himself in the same homely light:

"There shouldn't be any bargaining or dealing necessary between employers and employes. Our company pays the best wages it can and always has. We keep a surplus on hand so as to be independent of financiers, but our surplus has not increased. We can pay more when we increase the quantity of our production. We're all workers together, the men and I."

Nearest he came to outlining a definite plan of campaign was when he said: "We have been holding down production so as not to take advantage of strike-beset competitors. But when this strike mess is entirely over, we'll demonstrate some real competition in quantity production such as never seen before with new methods that will call for more skill, higher wages and a larger number of employes."

The rustling tongue of rumor interpreted this to mean a $10 day minimum wage (in place of the present $6), possibly a six-hour day with four shifts so that Ford machinery should never be idle. With a $10 minimum wage, astute Henry Ford might manage for quite a time to make a job in a Ford plant more attractive to the average worker than a job in a unionized plant.

At Detroit, John Lewis said to his followers:

"I have no doubt that Henry Ford will change his mind about recognizing the union.

... I want Ford workers to organize, but tell them to wait until they are organized before they try to engage in conversation with Henry."*

This precept was promptly ignored when the Supreme Court upheld the Wagner Labor Act. Cocky Homer Martin exclaimed as soon as he heard the news: "The Supreme Court has spoken. Now the United Automobile Workers will act. . . . Mr. Ford will recognize and deal. with the United Automobile Workers even at the price of changing his mind--as others, including the Supreme Court, did."

Oshawa. Used to complacent U. S. politicians, C. I. O. leaders had a shock last week as they extended their field of operations across the border into Canada. Thirty-five miles north of Toronto lies the town of Oshawa, home of about 25,000 people and of General Motors of Canada, Ltd. where Chevrolets, Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, McLaughlin-Buicks are turned out for the Canadian, British, Australian and South African trade. Two months ago organization of the Oshawa plant was started by the United Auto Workers, who sent Organizer Hugh Thompson from Detroit. By last week demands had been served on Canadian G. M. and negotiations were in progress. They broke off, and the great majority of the plant's 3,700 workers struck when company officials refused to recognize the union if it was connected with C. I. O.

Before the day was out, Premier Mitchell Hepburn of the Province of Ontario was in the forefront of the fray. "Mitch" Hepburn, a rough diamond by the standards of Canadian politics, which are not those of the U. S., is an outspoken man of 40 whose private occupation is raising onions and cattle. Having bedeviled the Province's public utilities, he has been called by his enemies another Huey Long. His reputation is anything but conservative, but he promptly issued a statement:

"This is the first open attempt on the part of Lewis and his C. I. O. to assume the position of dominating and dictating to Canadian industry. . . . We believe the time for a show-down is at the start, and in this regard we ask the sympathetic co-operation and support of all law-abiding citizens of Ontario.

"After reviewing the activities of these foreign agitators and the chaos created by them in the United States, I am satisfied that the policy as dictated by them will be one of ever-increasing and impossible demands, culminating in the course of time in the entire loss of the tremendous and ever-increasing export trade now being enjoyed by the automobile industry in Ontario. . . .

"There will be no illegal sit-down strike or illegal picketing, and all persons desiring to resume their duties will be given adequate protection. . . . "Should this strike continue for an indefinite period, the Cabinet, at a special meeting today, decided that no relief will be granted in any form whatsoever."

Following this blast the union put its grievances before the public: no sit-down strike had been called; Hugh Thompson was not a U. S. but a British subject;*Harry Carmichael, general manager of Canadian G. M., Ltd. is a U. S. citizen; the workers work 12 to 16 hours a day for as little as 30-c- an hour. These last two statements were contested by the company which claims a ten-hour day (without overtime pay, but nothing like 16 hours), a minimum wage of from 45-c- to 80-c- an hour for unskilled workers, many skilled workers getting up to $1 an hour and averaging $1,500 a year for most employes.

But all other issues were swiftly eclipsed by the question of whether the C. I. O. should be allowed to gain a foothold in Canada. Premier Hepburn flatly refused to confer with Organizer Thompson as a representative of the strikers. Said he: "I am taking this attitude because I will have nothing in common with a paid foreign agitator who is a member of an organization whose acts in the U. S. have been entirely illegal. They have brought that country to the greatest state of unrest in many years. From this point I will not budge."

Over the week-end Homer Martin, president of the United Automobile Workers, flew to Canada, addressed the strikers. Riding into Oshawa in a car draped with a Union jack, he cried: "I bring you greetings from 400,000 United Auto Workers over in America--or the United States. We now are making our first step in Canada, making a great brotherhood of auto workers throughout the American continent." . . . He threatened to call a strike in G. M.'s U. S. plants unless the Canadian affiliate came to terms, and rounded out his stand by referring to "this prehistoric premier . . . Herr Hepburn . . . that General Motors puppet."

The Premier responded: "I'm not going to attempt to reply to all the abuses which Mr. Martin at Oshawa heaped upon the head of the Government here. Suffice to say that they were in poor taste. "What would the people of the country from which he comes think and say if one of our labor leaders went over there and openly attacked the Governor of a State or, for that matter, the President? They'd be apt to take him for a ride on a rail. "Mr. Martin is riding about in a private plane while the people he claims to represent are walking the streets. That shows what kind of a man he is." Meanwhile at Oshawa matters proceeded with Anglican decorum. In Toronto the Premier assembled provincial police and "Mounties" to be sent to the scene, but Oshawa's police chief maintained order, even without calling on his 17 men, by taking 50 strikers as unofficial deputies to enforce observance of the laws for peaceful picketing. When some 77 office workers and other non-union employes including a dozen girls went into the plant and operated the parts & service department, shipping out truckloads of spare parts to dealers, the incensed strikers screamed "Bums!" "Scabs!" but did no violence.

*According to the usually reliable New York Times, while Henry Ford was denouncing labor unions in Georgia, the Chauffeurs' Union of Quito, Ecuador, elected him their president.

*A somewhat dubious commentary on public feeling were minor elections held in Michigan last week. In Flint a union-supported city ticket was merely an also-ran, and Flint's county (Genesee), which previously voted New Deal, went Republican, as did five of eight industrial counties, but not Detroit (Wayne County). Of nine State officers elected (on unofficial returns), six were Democrats.

*An Irishman, Mr. Thompson had taken out only his first U. S. naturalization papers.

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