Strikes of the Week

Five months ago began the onslaught of insurgent Labor upon Motors and Steel. Corporation by corporation John L. Lewis' organizing drive captured positions in these two great open-shop industries. By last week it had gained about two-thirds of Motors, better than half of Steel. Last week the United Automobile Workers were storming at the gates of Motors' inner citadel, Ford Motor Co. The Steel Work ers Organizing Committee, having cap tured biggest U. S. Steel and most of the small fry, was pounding at the defense of three big steel independents: Republic, Youngstown, Inland. On both fronts there was blood and brutality. On one there was Death.

On the Overpass. Men with queazy stomachs had no place one afternoon last week on the overpass--across the street to street car tracks--at the No. 4 gate of Henry Ford's great River Rouge plant. The union had opened its Ford campaign by hiring two vacant bank buildings near the plant, as headquarters. Next step was to print handbills calling for "Unionism not Fordism," demanding a basic $8 six-hour day for workers, better not only than Ford's present $6 eight-hour day, but better than the terms obtained from any other motor company. Third step was to distribute the handbills to the 9,000 River Rouge workmen.

By announcing the event to the press an ample attendance of newshawks and cameramen as well as a batch of clergymen and investigators of Senator La Toilette's civil liberties committee was insured. At the appointed time, Organizer Richard Truman Frankensteen, head of the U.A.W. Ford drive, accompanied by his lieutenant, Walter Reuther and Organizers Robert Kanter and J. J. Kennedy, appeared. Leader Frankensteen, a husky 30 and a onetime football player (University of Dayton), led his friends up a long flight of stairs to the overpass to supervise the handbills' issuance. He was smiling for photographers as a group of Ford men approached. Someone shouted, "You're on Ford property. Get the hell off here!"

Frankensteen started to obey, was struck from behind, turned around to fight. Four or five men closed in on him. He was knocked down and his coat pulled over his head. He got to his feet and grabbed one of his attackers by the ear. Others slugged him fore & aft. Cameramen snapped these early stages of the battle, then fled before their plates were seized.

Organizer Frankensteen's own account of the battle, as given in detail to the Communist Daily Worker substantially agreed with the accounts of newshawks and clergymen. Excerpts:

"They knocked me down again, turned me over on my side and began to kick me in the stomach. When I would protect my side they would kick my head. One of the attackers would say, 'That is enough let him go.' Then they would pick me up'and stand me on my feet, but I was no sooner on my feet than they would knock me down again. This went on about five times. They let me lie there for a while. . . . Every once in a while someone would grind his heel into me. They pulled my legs apart and kicked me in the scrotum.

"By this time they had me driven to the steps. ... I was bounced on each step. As I went down four or five steps I came to the landing. There were four or five more men who proceeded to administer the blows from that place. This continued until they had me on the cinders by the street car tracks. . . .

"It was the worst licking I've ever taken."

The few Dearborn police in the neighborhood did not interfere. When newshawks picked him up a few minutes later, Frankensteen was a bloody pulp. The men with him got off little easier. Other organizers who had appeared at other gates were driven off; and women organizers who tried to get off street cars were promptly bundled back aboard, some of them claiming to have been kicked.

Personnel director of Ford Motor Co., as well as head Of its company police (known as "servicemen") is Henry H. Bennett. This master of tough men occupies a special place in the esteem of mild Henry Ford, perhaps because he has for years been responsible for protecting the Ford grandchildren from kidnapping of which the senior Ford is mortally afraid. One of Mr. Bennett's privileges is that he, almost alone of Ford lieutenants can speak to the press in his own name. Last week Mr. Bennett declared:

"The affair was deliberately provoked by union officials. . . . They simply wanted to trump up a charge of Ford brutality. ... I know definitely no Ford service man or plant police were involved in any way in the fight. . . . The union men were beaten by regular Ford employes who were on their way to work. The union men called them 'scabs and cursed and taunted them. A Negro who works in the foundry was goaded and cursed so viciously by one organizer that he turned and struck him. That was the first blow struck. . . . "

Unfortunately for Mr. Bennett's account as far as it concerned the beating of Organizer Frankensteen, there were too many _ witnesses. Newshawks reported recognizing Ford "service men" as the attackers reported that these men had asked which were Frankensteen and Reuther. Also the Ford men were not quick enough to seize the plates of photographers. One group of cameramen were chased in a car at 60 m.p.h. and took refuge in the Melvindale police station where they were followed by three men who identified themselves as Ford service men. The pictures showed that Frankensteen & friends were given no amateur beating but a standard job of mauling including wen known gorilla tricks. One of the pictures disclosed a pair of handcuffs in the pocket of an attacker (see cut) and from the photographs it seemed likely that the Ford men would be identified. It looked very much as if that brutal beating might hurt Henry Ford as much as it hurt Richard Frankensteen.

Last week in Massachusetts the Ford Motor Co. filed its balance sheet as required by State law, providing the annual glimpse which the public gets of Ford finances. It did not show, of course, what dividends had been paid but it showed an increase of $19,689,000 in profit & loss account, of $6,737,000 in reserves indicating that the company has salted away $26,-427,000 during 1936, over seven times as much as in 1935-With a total surplus of $600,000,000 Ford Motor Co. is well prepared for a costly strike now or later.

Before the Gates, While the steel-masters of the U. S. were assembling for a meeting of the American Iron & Steel Institute in Manhattan (see p. 66) the Steel Workers Organizing Committee last week signed labor contracts with a few more companies including Crucible Steel and American Steel Foundries. Just before the Institute began its deliberations, S.W.O.C. took a more drastic step. It was not yet ready to call strikes against big Bethlehem and National Steel, but it issued a strike call in the plants of three other big independents: Republic, Youngstown Sheet & Tube, and Inland. Promptly 27 steel plants, most of them in Ohio and Illinois, were shut down, some 75,000 men quit work, and 15% of the Steel industry shut up shop in the midst of its busiest season in years, an ideal strike season from Labor's viewpoint.

Cause of the strike was the refusal of the three companies to make written agreements with S. W. O. C. Said Republic in a statement to employes:

"Republic practices collective bargaining. It pays high wages.

"Why, then, has Republic opposed the contract?

"Because we are convinced this contract would be merely the first step toward a later demand for the closed shop and the checkoff.

"These are the real issues in the present controversy.

" Said Youngstown: "The signed agreement demanded of us could not be enforced by us because it would be a one-sided instrument whereunder the employer alone would possess legal responsibility. ... The wage rates requested have been and are in effect. The company's vacation plan is more liberal to the employes than the one proposed by the C. I. 0. The hours of work requested have been and are in effect. The company has been, now is and will continue to be willing to meet and negotiate with representatives chosen by its employes for all purposes of collective bargaining upon grievances, wages, hours of labor and conditions of work."

Six Republic Steel plants remained in partial operation. These as well as Youngstown plants which were held by company maintenance men, were soon virtually in a state of siege. The size and isolation of the plants, which made sit-down strikes virtually impossible because of the difficulty of provisioning strikers (TIME, March 1), made equally difficult the job of feeding company men in the plants. Soon Republie had airplanes shuttling back and forth, landing in the yard of one plant, dropping food on others where landing was not possible. Airplanes of the strikers performed fancy aerobatics trying to drive off the company planes. Soon feeling on both sides was bitter. The strikers swore that no food should be taken into the plants until all company men were withdrawn. They in turn were charged with firing from the ground on planes bearing food.

Greatest bitterness was reserved for the .struggle at Republic's plant in South Chicago. There on two days crowds of strikers marched on the plant to seize and close it. Police with nightsticks formed a barrier, drove them back with broken heads on both sides. On the third day a crowd of some 1,500 strikers tried again, were stopped by 150 police. First it was clubs and tear-gas versus clubs and numbers. The mob began hurling rocks and steel bolts, using slingshots with severe accuracy. The police faltered (see cut), then drew their guns and charged, firing first into the air, then at human targets. When the smoke and gas cleared they were in possession of the field on which lay five strikers dead or dying. No less than 100 others, including 23 policemen, were hospitalized for bullet wounds or broken bones.

Said Van A. Bittner, S. W. O. C. leader, to a meeting of strikers:

"I pledge to you, I pledge to my union, I pledge to my country and my God, that the men who committed those murders will be treated as murderers should be treated."

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