"Medieval, Shocking"

When James H. Rand Jr., president of Remington Rand, Inc., ''world's leading manufacturers of office equipment and typewriters," refused to bargain with his unionized employes, they went on strike last May in six of his plants. Soon rugged Mr. Rand was gleefully having described in a bulletin of the National Association of Manufacturers his "Mohawk Valley formula" for breaking strikes. Prime ingredient of the formula was demoralization of strikers and winning of public sympathy by back-to-work movements "operated by a puppet association of so-called 'loyal employes' secretly organized by the employer." Other features included branding of strike leaders as "agitators," constant propaganda in news and advertisements, threats to close or move plants, plentiful use of strikebreakers including '"missionaries" who would visit strikers' homes under false names. The unsavory details of these tactics were revealed when the National Labor Relations Board called Remington Rand on the carpet on charges of coercion and discrimination (TIME, Dec. 7).

The Rand formula worked so well that last week his plants were operating at 100% capacity, despite the fact that some 4,000 idle employes still considered themselves on strike. Egged on by the A. F. of L., Secretary of Labor Perkins had for some weeks been trying to get in touch with Mr. Rand, whose associates professed themselves completely in the dark as to his whereabouts. Last week she took the extraordinary step of publishing an open letter in the press requesting him to come to Washington to discuss his labor troubles with her. A Rand vice president promptly telegraphed that Mr. Rand would be glad to oblige. Meantime this week the National Labor Relations Board concluded its Rand investigation with a blistering 50,000-word report. Flaying Mr. Rand for "cold, deliberate ruthless-ness" and "wholesale violations" of the Wagner Labor Relations Act, it ordered him to reinstate 4,000 striking employes, bargain exclusively with their union in the six struck plants.

"Through its president, James H. Rand Jr.," barked the Board, "the company has exhibited a callous imperturbable disregard of the rights of its employes that is medieval in its assumption of power over the lives of the men and shocking in its concept of the status of the modern industrial worker." Switching their imperturbable disregard to NLRB, Remington Rand spokesmen declared the company would not comply with the Board's reinstatement order but would fight it in the courts.

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