Papa Knows Best

Said Union Boss Joseph G. Papa: "We have the merchants at our mercy."

Last week a congressional committee, investigating the high cost of food in New York, agreed with Papa. Food could not move, or be sold, in New York without the approval of bright-eyed Mr. Papa, president of the food-hauling local of the A.F.L. Teamsters Union. Mr. Papa was glad to tell the committee just how he controlled the $300 million-a-year business. His weapon, of course, was union contracts, which he writes himself. These contracts give him the power to force any food dealer out of business by merely withdrawing his truckmen.

Was it true, an incredulous Congressman asked, that Papa could fine any employer who worked overtime at his own business? Was it true that the union "reserved the right to issue instructions" to employers on how to run their business? Yes, said Papa, it was all true. Missouri's Representative Max Schwabe asked Papa if he did not think so much power was dangerous. Said Papa: "I think it's dangerous--I use the first person singular-- for me to have that much power." However, he hastily added, he had never used his power to close a business and did not intend to do so.

Ah, yes, nodded several employers, their relations with Papa had indeed been harmonious and beneficial. They had been willing to give Papa his exceptional powers to "keep chiselers out." Papa, they thought, was the man who knew best how to do that. And despite his sweetly reasonable air, it was testified that Papa would indeed put a merchant out of business, if he did not go along with him. Fred H. Vahlsing, wholesale fruit-&-vegetable jobber, testified that when he refused to sign a union contract in 1945, Papa had forced him to shut up shop. Out-of-town members of Papa's union had to pay his local an "unloading fee" of from $2.50 to $14.28 on any truck they drove into New York. One Congressman estimated that these fees added $21,600 daily to Papa's coffers.

Papa's union even included employers. He had found it advisable, in the case of small companies with only two partners, to make one partner join the union. Then he would "bargain" for the union with the other partner. In the face of this power, John McCauley, Brooklyn potato wholesaler, signed his contract without looking at it. "The union said everyone else was signing."

Papa conceded that the Taft-Hartley Act would force him to leave the union's life-&-death powers out of future contracts. But he did not seem concerned. Kansas' rawboned Representative Wint Smith, who had heard back home that city folk were smart people, summed up the committee's opinion of New York's food merchants. "They talk about hicks," he said. "This seems to be a fertile field."

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