UAW QUIETLY MAPS CRITICAL FORD BATTLE, DROPS THIRD PARTY
Kempton, Murray
UAW Quietly Maps Critical Ford Battle, Drops Third Party By Murray Kempton lieto York Post Home News Labor Columnist MILWAUKEE, Wit. , ^ MKKVm S0U1>ML-*J»^ fTAHHYEYED UNITED AUTO WOajtEBf...
...No one listened to them, and what they said was so far from reality that no one could get close enough to the frame of reference to rebut it...
...called the Free Guild caucus, is Sam B. Eubanks, executive vice president since 1941...
...Detroit, Pro-Guild stronghold in the anti-Red days, is in the new opposition group, along with most of the Cleveland delegates, also antiRed...
...THE POLITICAL FIGHT Is off to a strange start...
...What was left of Comujunist power here was a rabble without dialectical arms...
...At the moment Martin Gerber of New York and Leonard Woodcock of Muskegon are the only two executive board members whose political actions bear any relation to their union's socialist past...
...their convention was just acrobatics opening the program...
...The convention's political aotloa' resolution gave lip service to the idea of a third party la the loaf futue...
...Unless Ford or a depression breaks li by next winter...
...Every time you see the Communists these days, you realize again that it's high time liberals stopped •worrying about'them and started being proud of their own solid achievements...
...their failures sat upon them like so many carbuncles...
...Recently organized are the Toronto Star, the Baltimore Sunpapers, and the Associated Press, which voted Guild 1,166 to 212 in an NLRB election...
...When it's aver, Gull...
...his own...
...No major issues have been raised as yet...
...Politicos suspected the commies were entering a well-tagged nag in an effort to see what their strength was—a candidate unflavored by other issues or candidates who would pull the full vote of the faithful...
...It will be a hot campaign...
...3) The UAW ts as militant as It ever was...
...NEW YORK LOCAL LEADER...
...By a 300 to 4 vote, delegates refused to delete commendation for progress in organizing from a convention report...
...Richard Gosser of Toledo, the usual symbol of the center in the auto union, has always been left politically...
...The different opposition leaders have had their fur rubbed wrong on different scores...
...members again will be scrapping . . with publishers...
...in 30 months' orgaatiing...
...2) The auto union it on the offensive...
...Davy is head of the Free Guild group...
...This includes clerks and typists, as well as journeymen in the editorial rooms...
...The difference in out'ay measures the comparative importance of this convention and the closed Detroit negotiations with Ford that went on throughout it...
...Wisconsin's two Republican Senators come up for re-election in quick succession—Alexander Wiley in 1950 and Joseph McCarthy in 1932...
...The UAW does more every day to fight for Negro rights than any union in America...
...At the convention in Columbus, Ohio, early this month, Pro-Guild forces won in various tests of strength, including rollcall votes where New York cast its powerful 72 votes under unit rule...
...Wetter Reuther's tsaaarsalp oa satfai haaat without ajitastlam...
...In an industry where jobs are decreasing due to mergers and suspensions, the Guild is holding its own — and is making progress...
...At long last the Guild has no communist problem, the Reds having been gradually pushed down since an anti-communist administration swept into office nationally in 1941, and having lost their last local foothold in the vote for delegates in the New York local a month back...
...district is one of the UAW's most militant and tightly*— organized...
...No raise was secured in the wage reopening at the Herald-Tribune last December...
...their motions were for the record...
...5) The UAW Is tighter than It am was, but its extraordinary fatta ia democratic proosdaiai ia Sfltalteraa...
...Estimated payroll increases for about half the membership for the year just closed totaled an estimated $3,866,800, averaging $5.26 per week...
...Thp Mirror and Journal American are i> negotiations on a wage reopening, an the Times is now up again...
...MKKVm S0U1>ML-*J»^ fTAHHYEYED UNITED AUTO WOajtEBf Afljwkji J-\ moved last week from the sham battles of its 12th convention into the rfiost Important external crisis it has faced in three years — its snarled and bitter negotiations with the Ford Motor Car Company...
...It was a performance about as fearsome as a high school chorus re hear ting the Mikado...
...it has gained nearly 200,000 recruit...
...And none seemed as solid as the UAW did — even in crisis — last week...
...and the largest service station in La Grosse, Wis...
...They add up to the conclusion that the features which have long made the UAW the country's most exciting union are still there — its enormous girth, it militancy, its unpredictable democracy, its faith in dozens of dreams that many old-fashioned labor outfits merely scoff at...
...But acrobatics are an exercise in muscle tension and a sign of condition This then is a report on the state ol the auto union as it lumbered into action against Ford...
...tMdly enough, Lincoln, who is a Vice-president of Americans for Democratic Action, has heretofore been a registered Republican...
...Meantime as Guild political lines are being drawn, there are rumblings about a candidate from New York for a top post in the national Guild, although major gains have been hammered out, not in New York, but in the rest of the country...
...But the big auto union is ready to raise up to $10 million to back up its push for $150-a-month pensions and a fourth-round of wage increases from Ford and the other car manufacturers...
...Th Guild writes minimums, not scales That's the last wage gain on majo sheets in Manhattan...
...Dissatisfaction with Eubanks' leadership depends on who is talking...
...It does more too, to teach European workers the facts about American labor...
...Guild can tests always are...
...spelled better working conditions an more pay...
...It's tight becauae Bf par aaat af sat delegates present aassfOai...
...But the tipoff oa the UAW's Imiuodlate goals was a speech in which Becretary-Treasurap Emil Maaey, hitherto the spokesman of lit direct actioniat loft, told the eonvoatiaa that, conditions arsn'i ready far a aev party now...
...4) But most of Walter Reutaer's dreams are for the immediate future of his auto workers...
...Smaller papers, too, were organized and placed under contract, despite the crippling effects of Taft-Hartley...
...An arbi trator rejected any pay boost at th Workf-Teleoram, and at the Brookly Eaole the local waived a pay boost i return for a promise of no firings for . year...
...He's postponed his goal of a labor-farmer third party < to fight for realignment of the old parties into clear-cut liberal Democrats and encrusted Republicans...
...Like every union convention these days, the UAW meeting added one more page to the degradation of the Communist party...
...The Guild has made progress...
...Baird O'Connor la iha pseudonym of a Newspaper Guild official...
...Ford is the payoff for the auto workers...
...last year the UAW sponsored guided tours of Detroit factories for labor Visitors from England, Sweden, Germany, France and Italy...
...The proof that Reuther is still very much a democrat came when he chose to give ground rather than risk the bitterness that would have accompanied a showdown...
...Even his friends don't deny the — and A. J. Rahm of St...
...And he won't back down on any token palters tats week...
...and there clusters around his headquarters a flock of social services as extensive as any in this sociallyconscious union...
...Until he won this office, Deegan had been an organizer with the local when it was accused of still being under Red domination...
...Eubanks is bullheaded," say oppon - ents...
...It will move Into a speeded-up organising drive aimed at recrultiag thousands of now members both from among the unorganised and from the loft-wing United Electrical Workers, upon whom the UAW will open up Immediately after the October CIO convention...
...Re-elected without opposition were President Harry Martin (Memphis) and Secretary-Treasurer Ralph Novak (Detroit), both Pro-Guilders, who also called for re-election of Eubanks as part of the team...
...The chief sign of the UAW's maturity is the gradual drift towards a political dead center...
...Eubanks-Deegan Fight Rocks Newspaper Guild By Baird O'Connor THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER GUILD (CIO), a lusty, young union of 25,000, is taking time out from battling with newspaper publishers to embark on a Donnybrook of its own, limited to members only...
...the auto companies could afford wage increases up to 70 cents an hour...
...Friends point to the ultra-demo cratic provisions of the constitutloi which put control in the hands of thi' membership, with an added checkrein from the executive board...
...The Guild has been on its own, winning its gains with its own muscle...
...Eubanks is a dictator," say oppon ents...
...Louis, In set onding Eubanks at the convention thi month conceded he is, but loved hii for it, pointing to gains in organizinr, and collective bargaining...
...50 Senate Race: Biemiller, Lincoln v. McCarthy, Taft By Jonathan Stout SELECTION OF WISCONSIN'S Representative Andrew J. Biemiller to introduce in the House a companion measure to the Economic Expansion Bill proposed in the Senate last week, highlights speculation that Biemiller is being groomed for one of Wisconsin's Senate seats...
...the largest department store in Eau Claire, Wisconsin...
...But in the coming weeks Guild mem bers expect to get a full dose of cam paigning...
...EMIL MAZEY, who was elected to the UAW board as the spokesman of the anti-Communist left, has mellowed more than anyone else...
...at the moment, he is simply the well-tailored, highlyefficient manager of the UAW's administrative apparatus...
...Walter Reuthef told the convention's 2,100 delegates thai on the basis of their profits for the first quarter of 1M0...
...But Mike Lapine of Cleveland, member of the Guild executive board, is Pro-Guild caucus chairman...
...So, with no Reds to fight, the rightwing element controlling the national Guild has separated into two camps on the matter of electing the union's thirteen national officers...
...So far no charges have been filed...
...In 1946 no Guild contract had a $100 minimum wage for reporters...
...This in a local until a few years ago pretty much dominated by the Communists...
...Over 80 per cent, th - highest number in history, are now it good standing...
...Foes of Eubanks and th Pro-Guild Blate will wheel up thei big guns...
...But the UAW right-wingers aren't the common breed of labor conservatives...
...The occasion is the biennial eelection of officers...
...have been unable to chalk up any wage gains in contracts with major dailies in Manhattan in the past year...
...The strange-bedfellow adage again proved true: Lined up in the new caucus were such Guild leaders as William Davy, Cleveland executive secretary and long-time commie fighter, and G. K. Williams of Los Angeles, who has worked both sides of the street...
...Guild members play politics for keeps...
...There is no single organisation in Amelias of comparable sise which dees mere for fhtf democratic faith than does the auto union...
...As soon as picket lines come back into fashion around the auto union, he may reassert his ancient vigor...
...Upon the issue of that gght will depend the UAW's ability ie continue tft program...
...Here's the record, and Deegan, willingly or no, will have to face it in the campaign: The New York Timss got a 10 pf cent boost a year ago, bringing the to minimum for reporters to $110...
...In New York Bernard Burton of the Daily Worker ran alone as an "independent," with two slates in the field...
...The unruly combination of carnival and sober business that is a UAW convention cortf close to half-a-million dollars...
...Backing Eubanks and its own ticket is the old Pro-Guild caucus, which elected an entire anti-commie slate in 1941...
...The challenger is John E. Deegan, for a year and a half secretary-treasurer of the New York local...
...1) The UAW J* now conasdadly the worlde l*wa^U"*o*V Ep,.-H atfXtt la ft* la*i y*n* It sift #•* Wptta - duM to the CIO on mar* than a million members...
...On both these issues Wal^r Reuther had a mechanical majority which he might have enforced by snapping the whip of a roll call...
...But Burton got only 352 votes, the winning administration slate some 2,700 votes, and an opposition ticket 1,000...
...Tliese little details of the UAW's mental, moral and physical condition wouldn't be important if the auto union were not the country's greatest in terms more important than size...
...Another test Is not the tott members but the number who ar paying dues...
...The nomination has already been offered to Lincoln, who is currently asking his insurance company's board of directors for permission to make the race...
...That Is why liberals have sueh an enormous •Mire BM the coming wage and pension batfe with Ford...
...Regarded as one of labor's outstanding spokesmen in the House, Biemiller commands solid AFL and CIO backing...
...Their speeches were hollow rhetoric...
...TARGET OF THE MEW CAUCUS...
...During the war Gosser fought the no-strike pledge...
...Until early September, when rankand-fllers mark their ballots, the Guild will experience a slam-bang political campaign...
...BUT THE VAW DEteOATEf, who are sticklers for the forma of selfgovernment, turned their leaders dowa on such minar administrative refonraj as a straight dues increase and extension of the interval between conventions to two years...
...aaaatatitej waa every paritten an ska aaataiiva board...
...today there are 20 with $100 or more, and these contracts cover 55 per cent of the membership in 13 cities and involve 37 daily papers...
...No holds are barred in these contests, and there is no sign this will be an exception...
...The last convention ar proved reports that chartered progre.in organizing and in contracts th...
...Murray Lincoln, head of the Cooperative League of the United States, and of the Ohio Farm Bureau Company, may be Taft's Democratic opponent for the Ohio Senator's seat in 1950...
...THE UAW CONVENTION thus heard reports of the steady progress of a cooperative program which has so far built six co-op warehouses in Michigan...
...But publishers can reafj» pleaeur - (rom tills one...
...At the News ne gotiations have been on for a year, at the Post since January...
Vol. 32 • July 1949 • No. 30
