Rout at the Rouge

Among the hard-boiled mountaineers who came from Kentucky and West Virginia to work in the automobile plants, there was never any love for straw bosses. As a West Virginian called Short Laig remarked: "I aim tew get that baster who be my fore-main."

Last week Short Laig got his wish. The independent Foreman's Association of America, which had struck the Ford Motor Co. in the confident belief it could close it drum-tight, was getting the worst thrashing in its six-year career. And it was being given by Short Laig and his C.I.O. brethren. The C.I.O.-U.A.W. workers had walked right past the picket lines of the foremen, some of whom were elderly, prosperous-looking men in decorous blue serge suits. Even their signs had a decorous, plaintive ring: "What Has Happened to Human Relations?"

A Day's Work. For seven days A.F.L. teamsters had refused to drive truckloads of parts through the foremen's lines. So the company brought them in by boxcar and the C.I.O. workers helped unload them. Then Teamster Boss Dan Tobin told the teamsters to go through the lines. Student foremen and nonstriking supervisors worked 14 hours on the skeleton supervisory force. Some F.A.A. members of the 3,800 who had walked out went tack to work. Help also came from U.A.W. shop stewards. They knew that U.A.W. members could not afford to be laid off. And Ford had promised to keep running only if production remained high enough to be profitable. When one department fell behind, threatening a shutdown, a shop steward growled: "Look, you lazy bums, let's do a day's work for a change." The department soon caught up.

". . . Not Until." With Ford auto assembly unhurt, pink-cheeked, balding Robert Keys, the ex-Ford foreman who had formed F.A.A. in 1941 and still heads it, telephoned Ford Personnel Chief John S. Bugas, and asked what Ford had to offer. Answered Bugas crisply: "I'll be very happy to talk to you when the men go back to work--not until."

At week's end, worried Keys called his strikers together to see what should be done. He confessed that he had been wrong--along with many industrialists--in his belief that a foreman's strike could shut down a mass-production plant at once, but he hoped another week might turn the trick. The strikers had little hope of winning their demand for exclusive bargaining rights for supervisory employees not now F.A.A. members. Nevertheless, they voted to stay out for fear, as one said: "If we go back without a contract they'll weed us out one at a time." This week, in tougher mood, they blocked the cars of scab foremen until police cleared the gates.

Keys' union, which had grown to over 35,000 members, found itself in a precarious spot. The labor bill now pending in Congress denies foremen the protection of the Wagner Act (in effect repealing the Supreme Court decision of March 10 which put them under it). The only other club against management--a strike--had proved a slender reed. Furthermore, the union's greatest source of power, prestige and funds had been its big contract at

Ford. This was now canceled. If, as now seemed likely, the strike was doomed, F.A.A. faced gradual disintegration unless it found shelter under a bigger wing. Certainly it was not likely to join C.I.O., after what Short Laig had done.

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