Tanker Trouble

One day last week the Standard Oil tanker Walter Jennings sailed into New York Harbor. Ashore went its crew with a tale which got its Captain Alex Zadros into a barrel of trouble:

Four days after the Walter Jennings cleared Manhattan for Corpus Christi, Texas, last month, C. I. O.'s National Maritime Union called a strike on tankers operated by Standard Oil of New Jersey, Socony-Vacuum, three lesser companies (TIME, May 15). Next day, after word of the strike reached the ship by radio, Capt. Zadros asked the crew to agree to change their articles (contracts), which called only for a coastwise trip, to permit a voyage to France. Ten union members refused, having resolved to strike the tanker at Corpus Christi. Two days later Capt. Zadros ordered all hands to sign on for a trip to Cartagena, Colombia, said that if they refused he would "run the ship coastwise between the West Indies and Canada for a year without touching at a United States port." The ten dissenters perforce consented.

Charged by the union with shanghaiing his own crew at sea, and in danger of losing his license, Capt. Zadros went on trial before a board appointed by the U. S. Bureau of Marine Inspection & Navigation, said he had acted within his rights. In times past, the Bureau might have paid less attention to such charges by a union. Capt. Zadros was unfortunate enough to get home just as the Bureau was undergoing a transformation.

Responsible for this was Secretary of Commerce Harry Lloyd Hopkins, who has jurisdiction over the Bureau. Last week its Acting Director Allan Jones announced the results of an investigation, which Labor-loving Harry Hopkins had ordered. Within two weeks, said Director Jones, the five companies involved in the East Coast tanker strike had been caught in 250 specific violations of a law requiring them to hire a prescribed proportion of experienced seamen. Of $50,000 in fines assessed by the Bureau, Standard Oil and Socony-Vacuum had to pay 85%.

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