Employer Willkie

The 21,432 people who worked for him when he was president of Commonwealth & Southern make Wendell Lewis Willkie the biggest employer of labor ever to run for the U. S. presidency. Certain it was that before the 1940 campaign grew very old Employer Willkie's labor record would be thrown up for grabs. Up it went last week.

Drawing heavily on a special Willkie supplement issued by the labor-loving New Republic, Democratic Boss Edward J. Flynn issued a provocative statement on Willkie and Labor. Highlights: that Mr. Willkie's Georgia Power Co. spent $31,000 on labor spies from Pinkerton's; that Mr. Willkie's Central Illinois Light bought tear-gas guns and shells; that no fewer than three of the Willkie companies were clients of the biggest espionage agency devoted solely to industrial work. Mr. Flynn also charged that Consumers Power Co. and Alabama Power Co., both Commonwealth & Southern subsidiaries, were found guilty by NLRB "of interfering with the rights of their employes," that Consumers Power, after signing a contract with C. I. O., launched a "determined antiC. I. O. offensive" which "continued unrelentingly right up to the day the Republicans picked Mr. Willkie, when, by coincidence, the management suddenly began acting with sweet reasonableness."

Wendell Willkie, who was the first utility executive in the U. S. to sign a contract with C. I. O., and whose companies had some 30 contracts with C. I. O. and A. F. of L., did not ignore this challenge. Mr. Flynn's "labor spies," said he, were hired for only one job: to inspect collections on Commonwealth & Southern streetcars when they changed from two-man to one-man operation, see that all the nickels went into the cash box.

His ex-boss's explanation was confirmed by Georgia Power Co.'s President Preston S. Arkwright, who said that though the operators were supplied by "the Pinkerton agency," this had "nothing to do with labor or labor unions." President Ross C. Wallace of Central Illinois Light Co. spoke up about the tear gas and shells: $500 worth were bought for burglary protection and to patrol the company's lines when a neighboring company was on strike. In Springfield, ILL., Eugene Scott, business manager of Local 702 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (A. F. of L.), gave Central Illinois a clean bill of health. "Their labor policy," said he, "has been and is 1,000% satisfactory."

In the Labor World, Labor Writer William J. Way not only lauded Wendell Willkie's labor record, but went on to declare: "It is quite apparent Willkie is the best man to get cooperation from both labor and industry. The defense program will go over without delay if this vigorous man becomes President.

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