Surrender In Manhattan

Red Mike was in the spotlight again. Red Mike was once a fighter in the Irish Republican Army, once a lowly change maker in a New York City subway station. Now Michael Joseph Quill, 40, is president of the C.I.O.'s Transport Workers Union and a member of New York's City Council. He is a practicing Catholic and a member of the American Labor Party.

Red Mike carries a blackthorn cane (as a boy he injured his hip in a fall), talks tough, and considers his greatest achievement a daring sit-down strike he pulled in 1937. He loudly denies that he is a Communist, but he has followed the U.S. Communists' corkscrew line with regularity.

When Red Mike gets excited, the veins invariably stand out on his forehead. Last week his face looked like a relief map of the Balkans. What brought on his near-apoplexy was a proposal by New York's Board of Transportation to sell back to Consolidated Edison, a private utility, three power plants which the city had bought in 1940. Explained the board: the power plants, which serve municipal subways, need such costly repairs that the city could save money by buying power from the utility.

But Red Mike would have none of it. For one thing, he had a direct stake because 1,500 of his union members now man the power plants and might be thrown out of work. Beyond that, the board's proposed action just did not suit him. Cried he: "We had a referendum when we bought the plants, let's have a referendum to see if we'll sell them." To enforce his wish, he threatened a strike on all New York City's municipal subways and privately owned buses--a strike which would make millions walk to work.

This brought down on Red Mike the most unanimous editorial barrage he has ever suffered. The sober Times, the Republican Sun, the left-wing PM and even Columnist Fiorello LaGuardia (who was against the sale) burned Mike's ears with catcalls ranging from "unwise" to "blackmail." But New York's brand-new Mayor William D. O'Dwyer, elected last November with A.L.P. support, heeded the threat. He plumped for the referendum. Red Mike called off his strike.

Quill thanked the Mayor, then got ready to pummel him some more. He called for a flat $2-a-day raise for all his workers on New York City's transportation system, which has been losing $40,000,000 a year. Wryly, the Times commented that perhaps here was the ideal case to apply the C.I.O.'s "ability-to-pay" principle.

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