End of an Institution

Picketing of Automats, which had become almost as much of an institution in Manhattan as the Automat itself, came to a sudden end last week after five uproarious months. The strike was called last August by two unions, Bakery Workers and Cafeteria Employes, after they lost a collective bargaining election. Less than 500 of the 5,600 employes of the Horn & Hardart nickel-in-the-slot restaurant chain walked out, but what they lacked in numbers was more than made up in zeal. For the dispute soon boiled down to old-fashioned police-baiting. Immediate issue was the right of the police to limit the number of pickets. Total arrests ran above 1,000.

Favorite baiting spot was the Times Square Automat, which was handy to union headquarters and a good place to attract a crowd. Once the pickets egged on the police by lying down on the sidewalk in droves. Last month they tried marching in a column of 100 at the height of dinner-hour traffic, a move which ended, as it was supposed to, in a pitched battle. Eight policemen were hurt and scores of pickets arrested, including a girl who was held for assault for kicking a cop in the shins. Only contribution to the tactics of industrial warfare was the part played by pickets already in patrol wagons. Systematically as a newcomer stepped in he would be pushed out on the heads of the police. Exasperated by this kind of picketing-- 10% of New York City's entire police force are now kept on strike duty--Magistrate Anthony F. Burke sentenced 73 Automat pickets to jail for as much as 90 days.

The settlement, arranged last week by Arthur S. Meyer of the State Mediation Board, simply threw the pickets out of a job. The company agreed to take back all but about 100 of the strikers over the next six months, at the same pay but with loss of all seniority rights.

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