Weir & Budd

So far as Labor is concerned the claws of the Blue Eagle are Section 7 (a) of the Recovery Act. Last week Labor got General Johnson to use those claws, not once but twice, on the same day. In each case the result was the same: Labor proclaimed the claws dull, demanded bigger and sharper ones.

Weirton Steel. For the first time NRA took a complaint against a big firm into court. Attorney General Cummings applied to a Federal district court in Delaware to issue an injunction restraining Weirton Steel Co. from violating Section 7 (a). This merely transferred to court the old fight on whether Weirton Steel had violated the steel code in refusing to recognize the A. F. of L. steel union, forming its own company union, and declining to supply a list of its employes for the National Labor Board to hold a poll on union preference. Promptly the leaders of the A. F. of L. steel union marched to the White House and filed a protest with the President: "Even if this proceeding wins it does not force Weir to deal with our union. "We wish to point out, secondly, that this court proceeding may last a year until the NRA is over. . . . "Finally, therefore, we call upon you to get Weir to comply with the NRA within 48 hours or get the Wagner bill passed this week or else stop pretending that any immediate and effective action by the Government is possible. ..." Still trying to get the Government to club Ernest Tener Weir into submission to the A. F. of L., the union then demanded that General Johnson remove Weirton Steel's Blue Eagle. Budd Manufacturing. Second act of NRA was to supervise an election for the employes of Philadelphia's Budd Manufacturing Co.--an election to supersede two previous elections which resulted in the choice of a company union. All of Budd's 6,000 employes and 800 more who struck last autumn and have not been reinstated were invited to vote outside the plant under NRA auspices. First notices were posted in the plant telling employes they did not need to vote; then the A. F. of L. union told its members to boycott the election. Result: only 30 votes were cast and the company union automatically won again.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.