Trouble Over

After 54 days of industrial warfare, peace came last week to Detroit. All that time Chrysler Corp. had been closed and 56 glass and rubber plants as well as many other supply factories throughout the U. S. were also closed. Automobiles which people wanted to buy were not being made. Perhaps 150,000 workers who needed work and wages got neither. Best name for this standstill was what the Irish called their six-year civil war: the Trouble.

Why War? Said Chrysler's President Kaufman Thuma Keller, gravely and truly: "The settlement should have been made without the loss of a single day's pay on the part of our employes, or the loss of a single automobile sale on the part of our dealers." Then why this costly shutdown? No strike, no lockout, it was a cessation of work which followed when the contract between Chrysler and its C. I. O.-unionized workers (who commanded absolute majorities--and sole bargaining rights--in eleven of Chrysler's 14 plants) expired Sept. 30. While the two sides haggled over terms of a new contract, the union gave Chrysler an excuse to close first its great Dodge plant, then others in Detroit, Indiana and California, by slowing down on the job just as new models were coming out. Chrysler unionists voted, 25,402 to 2,030, to make it a formal strike when & if their leaders wished. But only at the Dodge plant, in the seventh week, was a formal strike called. Why Peace? The bad news from Detroit had been like powder smoke to U. S. Attorney General Frank Murphy, who was Michigan's "sitdown Governor." With Franklin Roosevelt, he talked over the enormous monetary and social losses, the discredit cast on Labor's political friends. C. I. O.'s Vice Presidents Philip Murray and Sidney Hillman got telephone calls from Mr. Murphy. To Detroit went wise, placid Phil Murray, and into private conference with Chrysler's Keller. Meantime, the Attorney General telephoned to none other than Son Elliott Roosevelt. After broadcasting inaccurate noises about the issues in "the Chrysler strike," Son Roosevelt was on his way to explosive Detroit to address a back-to-work meeting. After two argumentative conversations with Mr. Murphy, Elliott Roosevelt meekly returned to his radio station in Fort Worth.*

One midnight last week in Detroit, in a little room of Chrysler's Institute of Engineering, Messrs. Keller, Murray and U. S. Conciliator Jim Dewey had a final private chat. Outside were the union's President Roland Jay Thomas and Richard Frankensteen (whose tactless tactics helped prolong the strife). Jim Dewey excitedly emerged, announced: "I am happy to announce an agreement."

Main terms of the settlement: A board of two corporation executives, two national union officers will handle appeals from the shops, by unwritten understanding may call in a fifth arbiter when necessary. The corporation won a continued open shop, Chrysler will continue to set production speeds without consulting the union--but gripes about speeds may be appealed to the grievance board. The union succeeded in throwing out the old, ineffective ban against any & all strikes, gave an absolute pledge not to sitdown, stayin, slowdown. On wages, the union asked a general 10-c--per-hour boost for Chrysler's 58,000 workers, dropped to 5-c-, got 3-c- (plus additional raises for 5,000 in special classifications). Total annual wage increase: about $5,000,000.

"A good contract for the company . . . a good contract for a responsible union," said Mr. Keller. Contentedly, he sat down to play solitaire (see cut). Said Frank Murphy: "The public interest was thwarted. ... By whom? By all of us--government, industry and labor. . . . We can no longer go on with these conflicts and the loss inflicted on the general public."

*No sooner was Elliott home than he had an automobile collision. He broke two teeth, his wife was cut & bruised.

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