application. The plan was approved by the President and, with some modifications, found general support in Congress. But nothing has been done in the intervening period to put either this plan or any other into operation, a delay which is laid at the door of the War Production Board. Whether or not the Baruch-Hancock plan is ideal, it was accepted at the time as the best that had been suggested. Nor has any improved plan been developed since. It stands, therefore, as the most generally approved program we have and, it would seem to this newspaper, should be put into operation without delay. The point is that some orderly plan, even if not the best, is superior to no plan at all. Unless something is done to prepare industry for repetitions of the Brewster incident, we may look for something approaching chaos as invasion proceeds, if it develops that less war equipment will be required than at one time seemed likely. [Washington Daily News, Washington, D. C., June 12, 1944] FAIR ENOUGH (By Westbrook Pegler) NEW YORK, June 12.-There is a proposal in Congress to pay $20 a week to warproduction workers during lay-off, or reconversion periods, and additional grants for their dependents. Aside from the fact that many of these people have been receiving the highest pay of their lives with multiple pay in many families, and were presumed to be saving a portion of it in War bonds for the very purpose of tiding them over the slack period when production tapers off, there is another important issue. That is the injustice of rewarding the undeserving along with those who have worked faithfully and well and the arbitrary equalization of inequality. Probably the majority of these workers have done as well as they could under the conditions governing their effort. Lack of material has, at times, retarded production, and incompetent and even bad management have been a drag. But there is absolutely no doubt that many who would qualify for recognition and reward out of the Public Treasury and at the future expense of good citizens, including returned fighting men, have earned nothing but contempt. Therefore, in considering any such proposal, Congress should take the muzzles off procurement and selective-service officers of the fighting forces and let them tell the truth of their experiences with loafers and slackers. The recent sit-in strike of the Brewster plane-factory workers when the plant was about to close, emphasizes a particularly mean case. The Navy itself made a mess of the Brewster project, and the management was bad from the beginning. But, by scme psychological freak, this project attracted a large aggregation of ostensible workers bitterly described by an officer of one of the armed services in highly uncomplimentary terms. When there was work to be done they wouldn't work. When Navy fliers needed planes they stalled their days away, loafing, gossiping, smoking in the rest rooms, whistling out the windows, sleeping on the job, and striking over trivialities. The boss of their union, calling himself De Lorenzo and various other names, defined the Army to draft the bucks among the sordid bums of his loyal personal following, and got away with it because he was making up the recommendations for deferments and presenting them to Selective Service through the company's office. The evil disposition, personified by De Lorenzo himself, infected others who were extremely sensitive to infection, and the spirit spread throughout the job, employing as many as 20,000 men and women at high wages. Those who might have wanted to do a decent day's work for reasons of personal decency were stopped. This was a rotten plant, and the record of the staff as a whole is a disgrace, deserving not reward but reproach. The loafers even developed a grapevine to pass the word from unit to unit when inspectors dropped in so that the sleepers could be roused. There is a large printed record of all the evidence in this particular case for the guidance of Congress in deciding on any plan for reconversion pay. Such a plan would call for selection and discrimination lest the slacker be rewarded like the best, but justice demands that the effort be made in all cases. If selection has been fair and feasible in picking men to fight under the draft law, the same system should be used in this new process lest the sentimental word, "equality," be invoked to establish a rule by which the worst share alike with the best. Brewster is an outrageous case, but it is not the only one. Who wants to reward the eight rubber-company employees of Akron who were convicted of beating up a worker who refused to reduce his production? The Ohio Supreme Court has told the story in affirming the convictions of the eight on charges of assault and battery. The Supreme Court found that the victim was taken from his machine, hustled to a parking lot, and beaten and kicked, suffering among other injuries a broken jaw. Why did they do this, these men who would now receive pensions for themselves and families for helping the brave lads overseas to win the war? In the language of the Supreme Court the injured man's only offense was "a whole-hearted attempt to do a full day's work each day to facilitate the production of war materials." [Sun, New York City, June 12, 1944] THE REAL MOTIVE Suspicion that termination of the contract with the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation was overdramatized by those workers whose stay-in strike prompted intervention from Washington is not lessened by a report on the labor situation in the New York area filed with the Navy Department's Bureau of Aeronautics. - The document holds that there are at least two jobs open in New York for every semiskilled and common laborer at Brewster and five for each skilled laborer, all at comparable rates of pay and working conditions. The report says that notwithstanding the fact that New York is classified as a group IV labor area, there are 50 plants in the area that have No. 1 labor priority and could absorb at least twice as many employees as are now employed at Brewster. Instead of seeing what other jobs might be available without having to leave their homes, the workers elected to make their demonstration. Rather than go after the work, they wanted the work brought to them. With such aid in job hunting as can be furnished by the United States Employment Service, location of these 50 plants needing help would not be difficult. A change, however, might take many of these workers out from under the wing of the Congress of Industrial Organizations' important United Automobile Workers. That may be the real rub. If so, however, the demonstration should be recognized for what it was and not for what it purported to be the attempt to keep many workers from being made idle. [Gazette, Schenectady, N. Y., June 19, 1944] RECONVERSION UNCERTAINTIES The recent sit-in strike, which the employees of the Brewster aircraft factories engaged in, is probably the first of the protests of organized labor against the lack of policy of reconversion. Fortunately most companies will not be in the position which faced Brewster when the Navy canceled its contracts; the manufacturers of consumer goods will be ready to take the first steps of conversion as soon as the Government gives them permission to switch from war to regular products. This alone, however, is not going to be the solution to the problem of conversion and continued employment. Private industry seems well in advance of the Government in meeting the problems. Almost every large company has a post-war planning committee, with subcommittees down through the various departments, getting ready for the day when automobiles, refrigerators, radios, and other products can be manufactured again. If the recent action at Brewster is any indication, the Government has not made any plans. True, the War Manpower Commission moved in immediately to offer jobs to the discharged workers, but the action did not undo the damage of the cancelation of the Navy contract. Despite the well-organized plans of industry, many of the biggest producers of consumer goods cannnot make definite plans for conversion because of the uncertainties of Government contracts. The continued review of prices on war contracts has already given rise to several difficulties with smaller companies, which maintained they could not continue in business unless the Government left them some money for conversion and resumption of civilian business. The bigger companies probably did not face this difficulty, but there can be no certainty to the plans for conversion if the money which is available is subject to Government review and court action over a period of years. In the transition period, such uncertainty can further undermine the whole financial structure of the country, which may or may not be the intention of the administration. The action of the union at Brewster will not help the situation, and the administration will not help the economic rehabilitation of the country by aiding and abetting such union action. When there is no longer need for airplanes, tanks, and guns, there is no reason for manufacturing them. Manufacture of war goods in peacetime can only result in the same sterile economy of Japan and Germany, and it has no place in a capitalistic society. The brains of the country which were mobilized to convert industry to war production should be utilized for the reconversion; an equitable program for both management and labor can and must be worked out. [Chronicle, San Francisco, Calif., June 21, 1944] It seems strange that the American people must face what the Government describes as a critical shortage of labor for war production and, at the same time, the first symptoms of the labor dislocation and unemployment that is threatened unless post-war antidotes are provided. The Brewster airplane plant shut-down is the most publicized, through not the only case in which large numbers have been thrown out of work by war contract stoppages. The Congress of Industrial Organizations, by appointment of representatives of the trades chiefly affected now and in prospect by contract terminations, takes a sensible step. But its potential effect can touch only those functions within reach of the labor organizations. The other factors are beyond their reach. The domestic trade department of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has gone exhaustively into the probems involved and has a reasonably workable program laid out. But all such agencies are handicapped if the Army and Navy contract officials pursue cut-back tactics with no relationship to the manpower problems involved. Donald Nelson, of the War Production Board, told Senate investigators that he is trying to encourage industry to quick reconversion and to such resumptions as now are feasible. Yet at the same time 200,000 men are needed for war industry and Nelson said he will not hesitate to cancel any civilian production activity that gets in the way. War production and peace reconversion are more and more clearly being disclosed as two factors of one industrial program. Cut-backs are samples of the complexity to be met when the war industrial machine finally comes to a peace stoppage. The tests to date are not encouraging. The Army and Navy contract officials must be brought into smooth cooperation with the whole industrial and manpower program before reconversion plans can be practically advanced. NEWSPAPER COMMENT AND TELEGRAM CONCERNING CUT-BACK AT BUDD MANUFACTURING CO. BUDD PLANE ORDER CANCELED BY NAVY-DOUGLAS TRANSPORTS TO BE USED INSTEAD OF CONESTOGAS-PLANT MAY MAKE ARMS WASHINGTON, June 13 (A. P.)-The Navy has canceled its contract for about 175 stainless steel Conestoga cargo-carrying planes manufactured by the E. G. Budd Manufacturing Co. of Philadelphia. The cut-back leaves the company only 25 of the original total of 800 planes scheduled to be produced, since the Army recently canceled its contract for 600 Conestogas. Naval spokesmen said that the Army was expected to provide war work in the Budd plants which would avert unemployment for several thousand workers there. It was expected that 1 to 4 months would be required to convert the plants to munitions production. Representatives of the company and of labor will be invited to Washington to discuss the situation with the War Manpower Commis sion. The Navy's need for cargo transports, it was explained, will be met with lowercost Douglas transport planes now available from the large-scale Douglas production for the Army. The Navy said that the Budd Conestoga production "lagged seriously, only four having been delivered to date." It added that production costs were "substantially more than the company's original estimates." The Navy continued that the need for the new type Conestoga plane, "as yet untried in actual service, has decreased due to delay of over a year in deliveries. "No further need now exists," the Navy said, "since it has just become possible for the Army to make available to the Navy the Douglas transports, which are of substantially lower cost than the Conestoga, have been in large-scale production for some time, and have proved their worth as transports in operation all over the world." The design of the twin-engined Conestoga was originally developed by the Defense Supplies Corporation, which was interested in obtaining cargo planes for use in South America. The Navy said it was understood that the Defense Supplies Corporation "is currently undecided as to its need for the planes." TELEGRAM ADDRESSED TO SENATOR MURRAY BY CHARLES JERRIGAN, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKERS, CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS, NEW YORK CITY SENATOR MURRAY: JUNE 14, 1944. United Automobile Workers, Congress of Industrial Organizations protest cut-backs in Navy order at Budd Manufacturing Co. without any previous notice. Unplanned hasty action causing demoralization among thousands of workers and loss of precious man-hours. Request investigation by your committee of underlying causes. CHARLES JErrigan. (Earlier hearings are contained in Parts 10 to 16 of hearings entitled HEARINGS U.S. Congress. Senate, BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS SEVENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON S. 1730 AUG 15. A BILL TO CREATE AN OFFICE OF DEMOBILIZATION, ESTABLISH S. 1893 (Supersedes S. 1823) A BILL TO PROVIDE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN OFFICE S. 2061 A BILL TO PROVIDE A NATIONAL PROGRAM FOR WAR MOBILIZA- 2 98534 PART 10 AUGUST 3 AND 4, 1944 Printed for the use of the Committee on Military Affairs UNITED STATES WASHINGTON: 1944 |