ustxtxb_obs_1958_11_28_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

ity one State P1114 BRAINPOWER Over $110 Million Insurance In Force Gail Jnirambie4 INSURANCE COMPANY P. 0. Box 8098 Houston, Texas The Lion and the Oxen In union, there is strength. The fable of the Lion and the Oxen illustrates this lesson very forcibly. As long as the three Oxen stayed together, the Lion dared not attack. But ‘the king of beasts’ sowed dissension and jealousy amongst his adversaries, and they separated. It was then easy for the Lion to attack and destroy them one by one. Lone Star Revisited Insurance Board Address List Used by Blakley; It’s for Sale LONE STAR Not a Texan in ten thousand knows the simple facts of the wildcat’ strike against E. B. Germany’s Lone Star Steel Co. and the unraveling of the twisted consequences. The dispute was irritation more than disagreement. Lone Star was unionized, the wage scale was $2 to $3.40, the contract has been in force throughout the strike and the violence, and there has been an automatic 16-cents-an-hour* cost of living increase since the strike has ended. The government developed and built the steel plant out here. but it went on the auction block after the war and Germany bought it. The ore is strip mined, processed, and turned into steel by Lone Star. The “trigger” for the strike was a dispute over grievancesnot big grievances, little ones. The question was an area in the contract regulating procedures for the hiring of replacements for temporarily absent workersmen ill a day or two, or on vacation a couple of weeks. The union argued that the contract required the company to hire replacements; the company said the contract was permissive and they could leave the places open until the regular workers came back on the job if they so elected.” In just such areas of disagreement as this, a union has no effective recourse at law if a company rejects arbitration settle 7 ments as precedents for similar cases. With only a few dollars at stake , in each,. case, or a couple of hundred at the most, the company, by refusing to yield to the results of arbitration and forcing the union to the courts again and again, can render the union’s legal remedy ineffective. Fewer and fewer union contracts these days leave the union with the recourse to strike anytime it wants to. Such economic pressuresthe strike by the union, the lockout by the companyare reserved, in effect, for the time when the contract has to be renewed. Any other strike is illegal. The local at Lone Star, exasperated beyond its staying power by Lone Star Steel’s refusal to accept the results of arbitration in the union’s favor on hiring workers for temporary vacancies. met one night and voted to take a recourse which was illegal under their contract and the TaftHartley law, that is, to strike. This is why their strike was “a wildcat.” If a union wins such a strike, one of the conditions of the settlement is an agreement from the company not to retaliate by firing the strikers and taking the union to court for triple damages. If the union loses, the story is somewhat different. Since the Lone Star Steel local was financially exhausted shortly after the strike began,. a suit against it for triple damages would have been a waste of the company’s time. \(Lone Star still has time under the law to sue the international union if it wishes to allege it was encouraging the The strike was controversial among the members of the union, and 700 stayed on their jobs from the first; about 1,200 were working several weeks after the strike began. Germany also hired in outside non-union labor on a mass basis. Many local merchants in the Lone Star Steel area began carrying members of the union for drugs and groceries until they could get back to work, but the situation deteriorated. There was violence. A front porch was blown up and pipes were blasted. Union men were implicated. \(One of them subsequently received a suspended In the convulsive reaction of public opinion and in the ebbing away of the militant unionists into other jobs or impoverished inactivity, the strike was broken. Lone Star Steel Company won. In accordance with the union contract, the differences between the company and the union were subinitted to an impartial arbiter, who had been agreed upon by both sides. He ordered the company to reinstate all of the fired strikers with back pay except as many as 200 which the company might allege instigated the illegal strike. The union was to have the right to defend each of the members accused of instigating the strike in subsequent cases before the appropriate authorities. Weeks passed, and Germany did not indicate whether he would accept the arbitration decision. Privately an offer was made: if the union would agree that the 700 union men who had stayed on ,hroughout the strike would have “super-seniority,” that is, seniority above normal seniority channels and preference in layoffs, the company would accede to the arbitrator’s verdict without a court fight. This put the union hard up against it, for a court fight might have established some precedentsetting principles a few years from now in the U. S. Supreme Court, but meanwhile the unemployed union men’s credit would run out. The company was told by union leaders that they could not accept the offer but that it would be taken up with the membership. The company objected to this but the union insisted, so the com pany said all right, take it up with them; the offer stands. Began then a bitter conflict among the union men. Many of the leaders argued that such an agreement, distasteful as it was to them, was better than total defeat while the courts deliberated. The point was made that the union’s contract would surely expire before the final court judgement would be rendered, and then even if the union won, and all the workers were ordered reinstated, they could be reinstated one day and fired the nextthey would have no contract to protect them. On the other hand, an. angry minority in the union felt that to except the offer would be capitulation, that the men who had stayed on the job were the ones who ought now to take the lowest, not the highest rungs in the plant. At the meeting on the issue the union accepted. the offer, and the union and the company agreed to accept the arbitration award in addition to the side agreement about super-seniority for the 700. The union is now preparing to contest, one by one, the cornpany’s cases against the 200 union men the company alleges had instigated the strike. The 200 are having difficulty obtaining work in industrial plants elsewhere. Behind these essential facts, of course, are countless episodes of anger, rebuke, and retaliation. Working mysteriously in the origins and development of the strike were the years of harsh and lonely farming in the area’s past; a perceptible will to violence; the theories of a populist heritage. On the other side was the steel-like resistance of Lone Star Steel to the strike. On the record men do not talk about many of the things that happened, but privately everything is remembered as in the raw light of a bare globe. R. D. AN AUCTION We have about a dozen bound sets of the Texas Obser ver’ three ‘year’s the paper began appearing un der its present management late in 1954 \(the first year’s volume combines the issues of the last few weeks of 1954 with binding additional volumes each year. The binding is unpretentious grey cardboard with red material at the backing. The sets are sturdy and complete. Libraries, historians, students, aficionados, or anyone else interested in having a set of four years’ Observers \(the volume for the fourth year, 1908, will be added in due time without additional a bid to the editor by Jan. 1. Sets will be sold for the highest adequate bids. The editor will keep the bids confidential. AUSTIN Planning to run a statewide political campaign anytime soon? You can buy a list of the names and addresses of the state’s fire and casualty agentsor the lists for the citiesfrom the State Board of Insurance. This fact came to the Observer’s attention as a result of our inquiry into the use of the same addressograph plates in last summer’s election for an offical mailing from the insurance board and a political mailing for Senate candidate William A. Blakley. State commissioner of insurance William A. Harrison responded to the Observer’s inquiry that the department sells the list of licensed fire and casualty agents in Texas for $30 and the lists for cities or towns for smaller sums. “On July 14, 1958,” he said, “the Austex Duplicators purchased a listing of the local fire and casualty agents and submitted its check in the amount of $30…. The Austex Duplicators submitted its own envelopes to be addressed by use of the department’ a ddr e ss o gr a ph plates. This same service is available to the public generally, and has been used on the same basis, at the same price, both for statewide lists and for lists by individual towns.” The political mailing for Elakley for senator was dated July 17, 1958, from Austin. A letter enclosed was addressed “Dear Fellow Agent” and was signed by Hub Bechtol, John H. Chilse, Jr., and Adoue Parker. Excerpts: , “We have been in the past aligned with what we have called ‘Conservative’ candidates. In this present campaign we believe that William A. Blakley is fully qualified to represent the majority of Texas citizens.. -.. “Senator Blakley is familiar with the problems of business …. We believe that Senator Blakley can be most helpful to our industry if he is elected to be our United States Senator. “In this office he will be beholden to no one. leaderor anyone give him directions structions before he goes to the floor of the Senate on important issues relative to any industry.” Also enclosed in the mailing print of the Austin American’s May 29 story by Sam Wood, “DOT Takes Aim, Minority Bloc Has Candidates Ready…. Is Steaming for Political Grab Efforts.” r r I i I.: CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR AN INTERNATIONAI Good Reading for the Whole Family News Facts Family Features The Christian Science Monitor One Norway St, Boston 15, Moss. Send your newspaper for the time checked. Enclosed find my check or money order. 1 year $18 0 6 months $9 3 months $4.50 Name Address 5 OUR MOST VITAL RESOURCE, Tea ain’t .dig ‘dustbin est el the earth. Thew. may ens piste where business and industry opts get the educated saes and weer se vitally needed for futon That’s frees Cra ille nd . universities. ear tri. Today these institutions MO doing their best to emit the need But they fate a aril& The demand for brains is fast, sad so is the press iaa r bi A teller, applications. Elm money must be raised each year to expand facilities being faculty salaries up to as adequate standard provide semi ohm:atlas for the yews./ people who seed and deserve k. s practical bus s iness UMW sr*, bibs the sell er universities el year ehonewt 1 Minus will be greater then yes Wok, I yew went to know whet the same as swam Is yew who is. free booklet tee HMO EDUCATION, sox Men Yek 36, New Teth. No labor elsew i 11 or in In Sun Life, also, there is strength. Nk1,4 111*1444/14,f e , When you become a policyholder of this great international company, you become one of a group of farsighted men and women the holders of two million policies and group certificates in 25 countries who protect their families and themselves against an uncertain future through the medium of life insurance. MARTIN ELFANT 201 Century Building Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 SUN LIFE OF CANADA Shaw Transportation Company, Inc. E. P. SHAW, PRESIDENT Houston,. Twat’ THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 7