Work Stalled

Government officials were about ready to give up last week and admit that the Allis-Chalmers strike, worst labor snarl since the defense program got under way, had them stumped. Still shut tight at week's end, after 52 days of wrangling, was the Allis-Chalmers plant in Milwaukee. Gathering dust were $45,000,000 worth of orders for machinery to equip warships, machinery and machine tools needed in shipbuilding, turbogenerators needed for the new smokeless powder plant at Radford, Va. (see p. 21). Like traffic jammed in a narrow street, work was piling up behind the stalled work at Allis-Chalmers. Government officials helplessly beat their breasts.

Overworked John R. Steelman, chief of the U. S. Conciliation Service, returned to Washington at week's end, red-eyed and haggard after a trip to Milwaukee. He poured a tale of woe into the ear of his boss, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. What he said was private.

One idea current in Washington, however, was that neither side at Allis-Chalmers--union or management--cared passionately about settling the dispute. President of the C. I. O.'s United Automobile Workers local which called the walkout is tall, lantern-jawed Harold Christoffel, who has been labeled a Communist fellow traveler. The Socialist Party recommended his expulsion from its ranks in 1938, on that suspicion. Before he had to face the charge (which he denied), Christoffel resigned. He and his supporters rejected a Knudsenhillman formula for settlement of this strike.

President of Allis-Chalmers is stocky, hooknosed, fussy Max Wellington Babb, who was named last week as a contributor to the isolationist America First Committee. Said he: "I am thoroughly in accord with the principles of the America First Committee." The Committee opposed the Lend-Lease Bill, has opposed the transfer of war supplies to Britain, recently received a pat on the back in a radio broadcast from Berlin. Last week, fast-talking Mr. Christoffel and owlish, wealthy Mr. Babb glared at each other over the thicket of their differences. Thorniest was the issue of the closed shop.

Talk was of the Government taking over the plant. Those who liked the idea least were responsible Government officials. But if there was any other solution to the Allis-Chalmers strike, no one, at week's end, had proposed it.

Along other streets, smaller strikes endangered the flow of traffic, gave the Administration similar cause for worry. Shut down by a strike was Aluminum Co. of America's plant at Edgewater, N. J., with $17,000,000 worth of orders for aluminum to go into the making of machinery of war. Strike-shut was Universal-Cyclops Steel Corp.'s plant in Bridgeville, Pa., chief makers of special kinds of steel used in fuses, machine guns. A strike of construction workers still held up expansion of the Army Air Corps testing centre at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio.

Said the conservative Wall Street Journal: "No serious damage to the defense program has yet resulted from strikes . . . however, it is clearly indicated that the stage is set for labor troubles which could cripple industry and its defense effort." War Department figures showed a trend upward in the amount of time being lost in strikes, although the total was not formidable--yet. In February, 468,000 man-days had been lost on Army contracts, according to the War Department; as compared with Labor Department figures of 284,616 lost in all industries in February of last year; in the first half of March, the Army estimated 289,000 days had already been lost on their contracts.

But any increase in strikes was a cause of worry and impatience to most U. S. citizens. This was 1941, the period was critical, any stoppage of work now meant time lost, and time was precious. President Roosevelt showed last week that he too felt how precious time was. In his fighting speech (see p. 15) he declared: "The determination of America must not be obstructed ... by unnecessary strikes of workers, by short-sighted management or by deliberate sabotage. . . ." This week Secretary Perkins and Sidney Hillman emerged from a conference with Mr. Roosevelt, announced that the President would appoint an eleven-man mediation board to adjust disputes. It was high time, breathed many a U. S. citizen, that somebody did something.

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