Montana labor news., 1937-07-22
wings OVER
WASHINGTON
By HENRY ION
Federated Press

about the position of the Committee
for Industrial Organization towards
the strike of independent steel
workers.
Covertly, they were wondering tol
themselves if the steel strikers had
been let down. They were reading
in the newspapers of the great back
to-work movements and they saw
the troops in Ohio performing the
usual function of state troops, pro-
tecting scabs. The newspaper col
umns told of smoke pouring from the
mill stacks and of railroad cars be-
ing shunted around the mill yards.
They remembered the admonition
given the President by C. I. o. chair
man John L. Lewis during the auto
mobile strikes and they expected a
repeat performance. Instead there
was silence in headquarters and only
a busy air of confidence.
So the worried observers set out
to find out the true status of the
steel strike. They found that the
strike is not lost, that steel mills are
making mighty little steel, that soli-
darity and confidence pervade the
ranks of the steel workers and that
the struggle will last for some time
but the factors are in favor of the
union.
Recent indications of attitude from
the President, both Immediately
prior to the marriage of his son to
the duPonts and subsequently, have
shown that another demand upon
him for support of labor would have
only invited rebuke. The President
is busily engaged in trying to pacify
the southern bourbons in the Senate
in order that his court bill may pass
with minimum of effort. Trained
in the school of politics, the Presi-
dent would rather trust his own
political wiles than the powerful
support labor would give him if he
backed labor.
Part of the price the southerners
are demanding of the President is
abandonment of labor. Textile mill
owners view with an uneasy eye
the desire of their workers to Or
ganize and bargain collectively. The
President, it seems, is willing to pay
the price, hoping that in the future
he will be able to recoup. So much
for the silence.
AS to the back-to-work movement
there has been the strange spectacle
of persons who regularly condemn
the big business press for distortion
and Justification believing these dis
tortions and falsifications They for
get the reliable stories of the labor
papers which declare that most of
those going through the mill gates
are foremen, white collar workers
and clerical forces. They forget the
fact that in many instances cars of
scabs are driven in one mill gate and
out the other and then back in again,
several times over. They forget the
old trick of tar paper in the furnaces
to produce smoke and the Shunting
of empty freight cars around the
yard to create an illusion of activity.
Also forgotten in the scare over
the back work movement are over
10000 coal miners in the captive
mines of the independent steel COM
panies. Even the boldest reactionary
has not dared to say those men are
going back to work Instead it is
claimed the steel independents will
buy coal on the commercial market
Those who claim the independents
will buy coal from commercial mines
forget that not many union miners
will produce coal for scabs. The
miners will not strike and break
their contracts. They will simply
quit work and 60 elsewhere. For
gotten too is the history of the inde-
pendent steel companies.
Both Republic and Youngstown
Sheet and Tube started out success
fully because they were low cost
producers. Modern machinery was
used. Efficient methods of produc-
tion were adopted. The plants were
located close to the source of supply
and the markets. Because they could
produce steel at lower cost they
could compete with the topheavy U
: S. Steel Corp. with its antiquatec
equipment and inefficient mills.
Even if these low cost producers
can get coal in the commercial mar
ket it will cost them SO much more as
] to destroy the price advantage upor
: which their mills are based Re.
S public Steel one year tried buying
t coal outside its own mines and found
: the extra cost, somewhere about
: $l,000,00O year, too heavy to bear
In addition no love is lost between
: Republic and Youngstown and U. S
: Steel and Jones and Laughlin which
: have satisfactory union contracts
4 Boil these companies have been in.
stalling modern machinery and will
T be able to compete on the same low
S cost basis and possibly drive Ton
S Girdler and Frank Fvrnell out of The
t industry. Big stockholders like tt
! see unions busted but tisey woulc