The President & the Picket

Thermometers plunged toward zero, and so did labor relations at South Bend's Studebaker-Packard plant, strikebound for three weeks. As pickets huddled to keep warm one day last week, a black Mercedes-Benz picked a path toward the main gate. At the wheel was Studebaker's Hollywood-handsome president, Sherwood Harry Egbert, 41. Pickets closed around his sedan, refused to let Egbert through unless he showed a union pass.

A flying wedge of policemen forced an opening for the Mercedes, and in the melee a picket took a poke at a patrolman and was arrested. Another picket, Gloyd Richards, 40, swore out a complaint charging that athletic, 6-ft. 4-in. Egbert had dramatically offered to take on pickets "one at a time." Egbert was taken to a police station on a disorderly conduct charge and freed on $50 bail. Later he went on television, said that Striker Richards had "made a whale out of a min now." Egbert was soon receiving telegrams praising him for what he was accused of; but amiable Egbert is proud of getting along with his workers, pops out several times a day to chat with pickets.

Whale or minnow, the incident did not improve South Bend's nerves. Until the current strike, Studebaker-Packard and the United Auto Workers had got along as well as two men struggling to keep a raft afloat in an ocean. In the past seven years, only eight production days had been lost to strikes. The U.A.W. had even accepted lower wages from S.P. than from the industry's Big Three to help the company survive.

Last November both sides quickly agreed on wages (a 2 1/2% annual raise for three years), but stalled on the issue of "toilet time." S.P. previously had granted 39 minutes of daily relief and washup time; the U.A.W. wanted 83 minutes. Not only did President Egbert refuse, but he also argued for a cut to 25 minutes to help the company compete against General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, which at present provide 24 minutes of relief time.

Since the union hit the bricks, U.A.W. and S.P. negotiators have both stood their ground. All this was no Lark to South Bend, whose economy spins around Studebaker-Packard. Also somber were the parting words of Sherwood Egbert as he left for a brief business trip to Europe: "Don't forget, the labor problem is not our only problem."

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