Monday, Nov. 25, 1946
The People v. John L.
Eight times in the past five years, the Great Gargoyle of U.S. labor had flashed the walkout signal and his 400,000 soft coal miners had obeyed. Eight times, fighting the companies, the Government or public wrath, John L. Lewis had won most of his demands.
That was part of the background this week as the nation watched the Government grapple again with John Lewis. The rest of the background lay in the volcanic nature of Old John. At an age when he should have retired to pipe & slippers, Boss Lewis was playing for big stakes, perhaps his biggest--boldly, ruthlessly, and for many reasons.
For one thing, John could not keep up his present pace much longer. For another, he liked to keep his United Mine Workers well in the van of other unions--and himself in the spotlight. Quite obviously, he also wanted to get his latest demands down and the issue settled before the new Congress meets in January and revises labor legislation.
Whatever was in Old John's mind, he played his game with his usual matchless skill. From the Government viewpoint, the contract which Interior Secretary "Cap" Krug had signed with Lewis last spring, after a 59-day strike, seemed foolproof. The Stars & Stripes flew over the 3,300 soft coal mines manned by U.M.W. miners. They could not strike against the Government. There was a law against it --the Smith-Connally Act.
Tactics. But Lewis was not to be quieted by that one. He merely applied to the Krug-Lewis agreement a fateful clause from the U.M.W.'s 1945 contract with the private operators. That clause permitted either signer to reopen negotiations after ten days' notice, to bargain for 15 days, and to cry "no contract" five days after the bargaining stopped. Cap Krug contended that the clause had been abrogated by the 1946 agreement with the Government. Lewis said it had not--and he had gained a great tactical advantage when, by an election eve strike threat, he got the Government to sit down and talk contract with him.
That was where matters stood as John herded in 26 of his district union presidents to see Cap Krug last week. Now, for the first time, Lewis' demands came clear. He wanted, first of all, a 40-hour instead of the present 54-hour week, with no reduction in pay. He also wanted the work week to begin on Monday. Since some operators do not open their mines until Tuesday, miners on the Tuesday-Saturday shift would automatically get time and one-half for Saturday.
He demanded an end to "unilateral" interpretations of the Krug-Lewis contract by the Government, insisting that they be made jointly by the union and the Government. For a trading point, he also asked for a half-hour instead of a 15-minute lunch period.
Riposte. With this whopping bill of particulars before him, Cap Krug--whose greatest hope had been to get the Government out of the coal business--hit his vaulted ceiling. When he settled back, he called in the operators and talked them into conferring with Lewis. Then he offered a compromise negotiation plan which asked Lewis to keep his miners on the job for 30 to 60 days while negotiations continued.
This time it was Lewis' turn to blow up, and he did it handsomely. In a letter that would fire an oyster, he told Krug: "Your attention was again directed . . . to the brutal, 54-hour schedule of men laboring in the bowels of the earth. . . . You cavalierly now propose a 60-day freeze. . . . Your proposal ... is sheer folly and empty platitude. . . . You now, at the last hour of the last day yield to the blandishments and soothing siren voice of the operators and seek to place the United Mine Workers of America between Scylla and Charybdis. This course, we refuse to follow. . . ."
Before these thoughts had had time to sink in, Lewis gave notice that the Krug-Lewis contract would end on Nov. 20. Once again, the historic miners' policy of "no contract, no work" spelled strike.
The Administration was caught flatfooted. Could the Government sue, or even jail, John Lewis? Attorney General Tom Clark said yes--maybe. Others frankly doubted it. Still others got lost in legalistic quibbles over whether Lewis' move was really a strike--after all, he would not be ordering his men out in so many words.
But the coal-burning U.S. was in no mood for quibbling, and Cap Krug knew it. The day after Lewis' statement reached him, he ordered the nation's coal supply frozen for essential use only: homes, hospitals, certain heavy industries, etc. Then the Office of Defense Transportation ordered a 25% reduction in coal-powered passenger service. There was an overall 37-day supply on hand. Railroads had a 30-day supply, but steel mills, with only a 14-day stock, would feel the pinch almost immediately. At a time when decontrol had just been put in operation, a coal strike would cause havoc.
Motion. Then, this week, came electrifying news. For the first time in five years the Government was preparing to take a stand against John Lewis. Cap Krug made the first moves. He announced that the mines would stay open, plastered the mine shafts with placards asking the men to stay at work.
The next maneuvers were stronger. After a Sunday session with his aides, Attorney General Clark screwed up his courage, went to the courts and got a temporary injunction restraining Lewis from ending his contract for at least nine days. Whether or not the miners would pay any attention to the injunction remained to be seen (at week's end, 32,000 had already walked out). If the injunction failed to stop Lewis, the Government would have but one move left--to invoke the Smith-Connally Act, and see if it could be enforced.
The President, even though he was vacationing in Florida, stood squarely behind his Attorney General. There were indications that Harry Truman had thrown all political ambitions to the winds and decided to be just a good President for the next two years (see The Presidency). If so, he could act with complete freedom and courage. In this battle, Harry Truman unquestionably had the people behind him. He had read the election returns. It remained to be seen whether John L. had also.
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