Blackmail?

Tough-fibered little Sidney Hillman, who has so far survived all the violent winds of controversy in Washington, last week met a hurricane that threatened to blow him away.

Transplanted from a comfortable C.I.O. clothing workers' union to the windiest spot in the capital, Mr. Hillman was given the vast assignment of the defense program's labor problems. Shrewd, resilient, he has bent before gales but still held fast until a dispute started in the Federal Works Agency.

As part of its defense-housing program, FWA, planning to put up 300 houses in Detroit, asked for bids. The big Currier Lumber Co. of Detroit was $216,000 under its nearest rival. One reason: Currier's houses were prefabricated (factory-made in sections, to be assembled on the site). Although a housing shortage is one of the scandals of the defense program, A.F. of L. building unions have fought prefabrication from the start. They saw the new, streamlined process displacing their craftsmen with factory workers, their ancient union structures wrecked, their union bosses out in the cold. Furthermore, Currier Co. employes had just been organized by C.I.O. The news of the Currier bid was hardly out when John Michael Carmody, FWA head, got a call from a Detroit official of the A.F. of L. Building Trades Department. Had Mr. Carmody forgotten the stabilization agreement signed last summer by OPM and A.F. of L. Building Trades? In return for certain concessions, which included a promise to end work stoppages, OPM had granted A.F. of L. a virtual monopoly in the building field. Marred by a few wildcat strikes by a few undisciplined workers, the agreement had worked out pretty well, by & large. Was the Currier contract going to be allowed to spoil this happy state of affairs?

From Washington presently came a strangled cry: to give the contract to Currier would cause "a reign of terror" in the building trades in Michigan. In other words, A.F. of L. would probably strike $50,000,000 worth of building in the Detroit area, to say nothing of what it might do to defense projects elsewhere in the U.S. OPM's Hillman took the responsibility of making the final decision. Although the Currier Co. had already started work, Mr. Hillman ordered its contract withheld. Then came the hurricane.

From C.I.O. came charges that Hillman "with stealthy efforts" was trying to make a deal with A.F. of L., was perpetrating "intolerable conditions that have retarded the progress of this industry." Congressman Howard Worth Smith demanded that A.F. of L. and the labor division of OPM (Mr. Hillman) be indicted for conspiracy to defraud the Government. Justice's trust-busting Thurman Wesley Arnold pawed the ground. The Truman Committee in the Senate, investigating the defense program, got ready to charge.

Nevertheless, Mr. Hillman was still prepared to maintain that the stabilization agreement was worth preserving. It had kept the construction program running on an even keel. The U.S. was halfway through a $10,000,000,000 building program; now certainly was not the time for revolution in the building field. He was not willing to foster or provoke a bitter labor war.

Observers granted that Mr. Hillman, in assuming the responsibility, had acted with courage. But had he acted right? Columnist Raymond Clapper, like many another U.S. citizen, was irate at the spectacle of the U.S. Government knuckling under to a labor union. Wrote Clapper:

"If A.F. of L. unions are taking the patriotic attitude which President William Green says they are, they will not retaliate with sabotage against a Government which is only doing what is to the best interest of the nation. If, as is less likely, labor is ready to take the arrogant course of retaliating with strike sabotage, then we had better face it now. You don't get anywhere by temporizing with blackmail."

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