Unionization & Strikes

On the strength of magic words embedded in the National Recovery Act, U. S. Labor set out last month to unionize U. S. Industry. For the American Federation of Labor it was a golden opportunity, for big manufacturers a real crisis. First objective was Steel, that "open shop" fortress against which union labor had repeatedly smashed itself to bloody bits. Last week an A. F. of L. local was started in mighty U. S. Steel Corp.'s Gary plant with more to follow elsewhere.

The steel industry had forearmed itself against such an emergency. In its pending trade code it had refused to dally with its labor policy and had carefully detailed plans for company unions. Employes might bargain collectively--but only by electing their own representatives "on the premises of the employer." In case of a deadlock with the management the head of the company was to render "a final decision that shall be just and fair." These labor provisions drew the A. F. of L.'s angry protest for, if approved, they would balk its unionization campaign at the outset. Last week Steel and Labor were preparing for a red-hot battle at hearings before the National Recovery Administration.

The National Recovery Act also speckled the U. S. with strikes as workers sought to unionize and anticipate its benefits, as employers held out for the last penny of profit under the old system. From bridge builders in New Orleans to shoemakers in Lynn, from Buffalo dock-hands to Hollywood sound technicians, employes left their employers in the lurch.

All these labor disturbances paled beside the strikes which last week pock-marked Eastern Pennsylvania. Of the 25,000 workers on strike throughout the U. S., 18,000 were in Pennsylvania. The trouble centred mostly in the hosiery industry as a result of attempts by the American Federation of Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers to complete unionization of the mills. A. F. F. F. H. W. is an alert, enlightened union under smart leadership. During the Depression its members voluntarily took cuts in wages to help "closed shop" employers meet "open shop" competition (FORTUNE, January 1932). But now it was up against one of the most stubborn groups of "open shop" employers in a stubbornly "open shop" State. At Reading thousands of hosiery strikers peacefully closed half the city's mills. In Philadelphia 2,000 strikers stormed the Walburton Hosiery plant. Near Bristol the Blue Moon Silk Hosiery Co. was having similar labor troubles. In the face of these demonstrations a majority of the mill operators offered their employes a 25% wage increase but flatly refused to adopt a "closed shop" policy.

At Lansdale where the strike began in late June three hosiery plants shut down. Last week one, the Dexdale, tried to reopen. Strikers and their friends gathered outside to block "scabs." Fifty local police turned out to drive off picketers, guard the plant from a mob of 1,000.

A deadline was set. A curly-headed girl stepped defiantly over it and jeered. Thwack went a police club. Roaring like a monster in pain the crowd surged forward. Mounted police charged. Women and children were trampled. Rocks, bricks and bottles flew. Above panicky cries a whistle shrilled a signal for police to release a tear gas attack. The crowd wavered and broke but a few forehanded strikers snapped on gas masks and tossed the smoking bombs back among the police.

The crowd came on a second time, this time in angry earnest. "Let 'em have it!" somebody called. Firing opened from the roof of the Dexdale mill where a local chief of police pumped away with a rifle. Two young men dropped to the pavement. Both were wounded in the leg. Neither was a striker. Union leaders called off the attack after scores had been hurt, scores arrested.

That night Governor Gifford Pinchot in his blue Rolls-Royce sped from his Milford home to Harrisburg. There he called a midnight conference with labor leaders and patched up a truce for Lansdale. The strikers were to limit their picket lines at the mills. Local police were to be replaced by a detachment of grey-clad State troopers to maintain order.

Also at that midnight conference beside her husband was Cornelia Bryce Pinchot, Pennsylvania's energetic, good-looking First Lady whom all strikers in the State have come to look upon as their friend at court. Last May Mrs. Pinchot conspicuously joined a strikers' picket line in the Allentown garment district, explained that she was there as a matter of noblesse oblige (TIME, May 15). Her critics flayed her as a Red. accused her of fomenting fresh labor disturbances. Nevertheless she was out on a picket line again last week at Lebanon. The spectacle of a liberal Governor's liberal wife openly encouraging strikes created a public impression that Mrs. Pinchot was on Labor's side heart & soul.

Mrs. Pinchot and Labor had another good friend at the Harrisburg conference that night in the person of Miss Charlotte Carr, 43 and sensitive about her heft. Miss Carr had been an assistant in the State Department of Labor & Industry. The male head of that department accused her of stirring up industrial strife, of trying to rivet a minimum wage law upon Pennsylvania. Fortnight ago Governor Pinchot ousted him and appointed Miss Carr as his Secretary of Labor & Industry. A Vassar graduate (1915). Secretary Carr began her social work in an Ohio orphan asylum where she spent her $18 per month pay to buy toothbrushes for the children. During the War she was a night policewoman (No. 720) in the tough vicinity of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Her job was to steer home "good" girls looking for sailors, before they got into trouble. Later she worked as an industrial employment manager before taking a job under Miss Frances Perkins in the New York State Department of Labor. She and Mrs. Pinchot were largely responsible for pending Federal charges under the Mann Act against a Northampton shirt factory owner who allegedly made his prettier girl workers go with him on parties in New Jersey.

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