Hit & Run

The giant American Telephone & Telegraph Co. had a gnat in its ear. Not much damage was being done, but it was annoying.

The buzzing in its ear came from the strike of 16,000 C.I.O. equipment workers in A.T. & T.'s subsidiary, Western Electric Co. Though they were on strike in 43 states, the workers knew they couldn't completely disrupt telephone service. There were just too few of them. So to snarl the maximum of telephone lines with the minimum of means, the strikers began what they called "hit & run" picketing. They would show up at one exchange and when telephone workers refused to cross picket lines, supervisory workers and executives would have to be pressed into service to man the switchboards. Then the strikers would withdraw abruptly to picket another exchange. Harassed officials were kept busy shuttling reinforcements from one district to another.

Despite this strategy, the new walkout had not hurt service as much as the strikers had hoped, and the public had feared. Long-distance service in about a third of the U.S. was affected for a while, but emergency long-distance calls were accepted--with the caller usually defining whether it was an emergency to him. At week's end, even this was not necessary. Local service was disrupted only in scattered places.

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