Washington and the Nation
BELL, DANIEL
Washington and the Nation LABOR ROUND-UP UAW Convention to Debate No-Strike Pledge; Four Caucuses Emerge By DANIEL BELL THE annual conventions of the United Auto Workers, CIO, are usually loud,...
...The OWI's figures were from a six weeks' review made by the Production Executive Committer of the War Production Board...
...However, Reuther also knows that labor cannot afford to sanction strikes at this moment...
...In announcing its petition, UAW officials said, "Though the UAW-CIO bought time over station WHKC and paid the full rates charged others, we were forbidden to seek new members over the air...
...Chief feature of the order is a measure designed to force workers from less essential to more essential industries...
...Last year, Richard T. Leonard, the director of tt» Ford division, was allied with' Reuther and ran ¦gainst Addes...
...Four Caucuses Emerge By DANIEL BELL THE annual conventions of the United Auto Workers, CIO, are usually loud, raucous, slambang affairs: tha convention scheduled to open September It «t Grand Rapids, Michigan, promises more than the usual amount of fireworks...
...A Jhlrd vice-presidency, with Leonard leaning to Addes, might weaken Reuther, and he may fight it...
...If the action of the companies, especially Ford, in sabotaging grievance procedures, ignoring wage classifications, locking out stewards were not sufficient indication, the "planting" anti-labor stories .appearing in the press would be a red-light signal...
...Workers who refuse to .accept new jobs in Industries defined as more essential and to which they are referred may be dismissed from their old Jobs...
...To tl)e application of the union for a general wage increase the panel replied that any additional increase would go beyond the Little Steel Formula...
...of Street, Electric and Motor Coach Employees, voted to accept Negroes as union members...
...The matter of public relations and public goodwill loom large, especially when labor decisions are today factors Jn the political arena...
...The solution might be to create a third vice-presidency, but a restless convention might reject this solution...
...tely they have been talking "unity" backing the Thomas-Leonard position...
...Here, however, the top leadership of the union will be united against a rank-and-file group which wants more militant action...
...Keuther has pointed nut that if (>M loses $10,000,000, the government would remit $110,000,000 from previously collected excess profits...
...We were forbidden to discuss race, religion or politics...
...Simultaneously, anti-labor agitators like Fulton Lewis, Jr., and Boake Carter were permitted to pour forth their venom daily immune from the censorship and gag-rules with which Station WHKC sought to hamstring the UAW...
...whether against Reuther or Frankensteen, or both, is still undecided...
...War Mobilization Director Byrnes pi ii< in ally turned the WPB over to the War Manpower Commission, giving the latter complete veto power over new civilian production...
...WALTER REUTHER has long been identified as the leading progressive in CIO...
...Previously, Thomas announced that employment ean l>e expected to drop 1,650,000 in four industries alone l>efore the end of 1944...
...no one group has been able to dominate the union and present a comprehensible program...
...The UAW is one of the most militant and democratic sjdifin p America, The reasons are many and varied: the auto industry has been strongly hostile to the unions sad although every, major company is unionized, a considerable kmount of "needling" goes on...
...The four groups at the convention will be the Reuther ¦roup, the Addes group, the Thomas-I«onard group, and a looser fourth group, led by Paul Silvers and William Jenkins, leader of a wildcat Chrysler strike, which includes some members of the Reuther and Addes group...
...Addes is no Communist, but lends his name to occasional CP fronts •S.a matter of expediency...
...No leas than 1»7 of the 447 had sute/ed production cutbacks resulting in sharp decreases in employment," said Thomas...
...Many white workers have threatened to strike in protest, but the company is starting a 20-day training period for Ne«r»es...
...R. J. Thomas, with no organized following of his own, holds the balance of power because the Reuther and Addes groups have been deadlocked...
...A third factor is that the union has been rent by factionalism from the start...
...At the same time...
...the expanding industry drew its workers from Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and nearb) areas...
...Because of his Personal popularity, Thomas has been accepted by both Smups...
...After three meetings, the union, the AFL Amslgamated Assn...
...The corporation has established a $150,-000,000 contingency fund to rehabilitate its machine equipment...
...FCC Opens Hearing on Censorship 1 HE Federal Communications Commission opened hearings this week at which the CIO United Auto Workers opposed renewal of the license of Radio Station WHKC of Columbus, Ohio, for alleged discrimination against labor The UAW charged that station WHKC censored its scripts snd applied censorship only upon those with whose viewpoint the management disagreed...
...The proposal initiated by Walter Reuther for s GM postwar unemployment fund was denied and a corporation proposal to drop maintenance of membership in union contracts was denied...
...Reuther, the union's General Motors director, has demonstrated that under the 1942 Revenue Act, the company is protected if its profits fall below a certain minimum...
...We were forbidden to discuss any controversial issues...
...With Addes, is Richard Frankensteen, the second vice-president...
...these men may not have a strong Union tradition behind them, but they are militant in the elementary sense of caring little for the formalities of getting higher wages and better working condition's...
...Last year he espoused their proposals of incentive pay and was defeated on this issue...
...The UAW, like the rest of CIO, cannot afford at this time to take this action...
...Cutbacks Serious for Workers But Not for WPB From the UAW Consumer* Burtmu Washington, d. a—The office of war information told the nation on August 7 that production cut-backs "are not now a significant problem," The next day President R. J. Thomas, of the United Auto Workers (CIO), announced that a union survey showed that 447 auto and aircraft plants were operating with I no ooo fewer employees, a 16 per cent decrease from the wartime peak...
...But the OWI reported that cutbacks "are not now a significant problem...
...Unfortunately, he is caught in a dilemma which has trapped the entire labor movement and which can only be solved at the end of the War...
...Assuming a profit of $130,000,000, there would be a gift of $4»,-000,000 from the government...
...in several cases i*JMl'li<il have sought to provoke strikes...
...His sympathies lie with the militant elements, but he is also aware of the public responsibilities of the union...
...WLi Tares Down Union la General Motors Cose A SWEEPING decision of the fact-finding panel of the War Labor Board denied all claims put forth by the UAW and by the Company...
...Reuther knows that the auto industry is preparing a drive on labor...
...There should be a similar fund, Reuther contends, for the "rehabilitation" of the corporation's workers if they are thrown out of work...
...The Addes group is a strange conglomeration of machine politicians, ex-radicals, Communists, and other rag-tag-and-bobtail elements of union life...
...On a programmatic basis, only one real issue will come to the convention floor, the question of abandoning the no-strike pledge...
...Subsequent issues of The New Leader will discuss the other issues at the UAW convention...
...This year Leonard has come out independently, and with Thomas's blessing announced that he will run for vice-president...
...The UAW membership itself is heterogeneous...
...If (,M broke even, there would be an outright gift of $102,000,000 from the government...
...While cutbacks continued throughout the country, the battle in Washington over civilian production and manpower requirements raged on...
...They are excluded from the Reuther caucus, and are about 15 .per cent of the Addes caucus...
...It is unlikely that this last coalition will present a slate of officers...
...Fear Phllly Race Issues in Los 4nge/et A RECENT order by the FEPC to the Los Angeles Railway Company to halt discrimination against Negroes may be used by racist elements in Los Angeles to promote trouble...
...The six weeks' review did not include Brewster Aircraft, Long Island City, N. Y., where more than 12,000 lost their jobs, and dozens of other plants where cutbacks dismissed many other thousands from their jobs...
...The actual issue at this convention, as in the past, is a fight for power between the various groups...
...it is more interested in acting as a balanee-of-power in forcing the major factions into militant action on the no-strike issue...
...Another analysis by the AFL predicted 4,000,000 unemployed by the end of the year if the Kilgore Bill is not passed...
...A bitter personal feud exists between Reuther and Addes, and at the Buffalo convention lest year Reuther sought to oust Addes, but failed...
...The Communists' strength in the UAW has been declining steadily...
...War Department officials opposed release of the report because presumably it might intensify demands for increased civilian production by plants fully or partially freed of war contracts...
...Labor leaders and the press generally agreed that the Byrnes order represents the most severe manpower controls since the war began...
...Two top WPB officials submitted their resignations over suppression of a report which showed that the Army had surpluses of crucial military goods...
Vol. 27 • September 1944 • No. 36
