Titters for Jitters

Swamped with work a few weeks ago, a private secretary named Thelma Goldman in the Detroit headquarters of the United Automobile Workers asked for help, was promptly provided with a trim young blonde fresh from a secretarial school. Put to work on routine typing, the new stenographer tended strictly to business. After a fortnight she went to Thelma Goldman, said: "Maybe you'll think I'm dumb, Thelma, but I still don't know what you people manufacture."-

This query left Miss Goldman speechless but when related to U. A. W. Vice President Edward Hall, that gruff labor-man laughed: "Why didn't you tell her we manufacture trouble?"

Last week Detroit was chuckling over a new U. A. W. story. Of the 250 Detroit members of the United Office and Professional Workers of America, a three-month-old C. I. O. affiliate, about 50 are employed in the Hofmann Building offices of United Automobile Workers of America. Led by Bookkeeper Muriel Jenkins the U. A. W.'s office workers last week presented formal demands to the U. A. W. management. Like the good unionists they are, the office workers wanted such things as the closed shop, vacations with pay, a 35-hr, week, time & one-half for overtime, seniority rights, better lighting equipment, clean restrooms, a $25-per-week minimum wage and a signed contract.

For once Detroit's motormen tittered instead of jittered at news emanating from troublemaking U. A. W. By week's end the Press had given U. A. W. such a needling about its ''anti-union" tactics that the more serious-minded unionists around U. A. W. headquarters were in a high huff. Loudly--and correctly--they pointed out that U. A. W. was already living up to most of the U. O. P. W. A. demands except on minor points like seniority, lighting, restrooms. As for lighting and restrooms, that was up to the Hofmann Building management, not the U. A. W. management. Speedy negotiations leading to a formal contract signed by U. A. W. President Homer Martin were predicted.

*Once during Detroit's sit-down epidemic last winter, Thelma Goldman went to a nearby beauty shop, found the two attending operators eager to join a union. Explaining that U. A. W. was for automobile workers, not beauticians, Miss Goldman obligingly telephoned the local A. F. of L. headquarters to send up an organizer. Quite willing, the A. F. of L. man only wanted to know one thing: who owned the beauty shop. Proudly the beauticians told Miss Goldman: "We do."

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