The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-02-27
Officials Of Steel
 Co. Ask Protection
CcontInued from Page l0

Bittner, SWoC regional director in charge of Bethlehem organizing, said sympathy strikes would follow soon at Bethlehem's Sparrows Point, Md, and Bethlehem, Johnstown and Pottstown, Pa, plants. Bittner said at Pittsburgh, however, that i've have no plans to call the men out at other Bethlehem mills"
 Other Steel Plants
 The company also has plants at Coatesville, Stelton, Danville, Will Transport and Lebanon, Pa., Will mington, Del, Tulsa, Okla, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles; it has shipbuilding plants at New York, Baltimore, Boston, Sparorws Point, San Francisco, Alameda and San Pedro, Calif.; coal mines in Pennsylvania, Chile, Cuba and Venezuela, and limestone quarries in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Cuba.
 When the strike call came, 5000 men of the to Il p. m. shift were on the job. Many of them filtered out to the picket line, which had been started at 8 p. m. by 5000 union members marching from the SWOC headquarters, across the street from the main plant gate, to take up posts along the miles of iron fences around the plant property.
 The pickets carried signs reading: "SWOC wants to bargain" Grace Eugene Grace, Bethlehem presi- denD gets $125, ,000-How much do you get?"
 Although union spokesmen said the strike had paralyzed most units of the plant immediately, tele- phone call from a worker in the plant to the United Press early to- day disclosed that hundreds of workers who went on duty at D. m. were still inside. The caller said the workers stayed inside rath- CT than cross the picket line and take chance on not getting back to work this afternoon.
 We're being taken care of here" he said, "and I suppose they'll ar- range to keep us at work as long as they can except for rest periods. I don't know just how many there are inside-some hundreds of us. But there's nothing official yet and we don't know whether work will con- tinue."
 He said telephone facilities at the plant were limited and those inside had trouble communicating with their families.
 $25O,0O0,OO0 In Contracts
 Unofficial estimates were that the plant here had $250 0000,O 900 worth of government contracts.
 Outside, the pickets braved a bit- ing wind. Union leaders ordered that women be kept out of the pic- ket lines. Automobile units patroled the long picket line distributing coffee and hot dogs from two restau- rants, rented by the uion for $35 a day.
 Throughout the night 8 mile-and- a-half length of the Hamburg turn pike, main Lackawanna thorough fare which bisects the Bethlehem properties, was aglow with red smudges from coke firepots which the pickets used to warm them selves. The turnpike, principal high way from Buffalo to Cleveland, was blocked to traffic. As
 The plant is surrounded by a high steel fence, broken by a dozen brick gateways. at which company police were posted. Beyond the fence lie company railway tracks, and beyond them, the grimy, high stacked mill sheds. A mile south of the main plant units are newly built strip, bar and cold mill plants. At the north end of the property, company ore docks jut into Lake Erie near the Lackawanna Buffalo city line. One plant gate is inside Buffalo, giving metropolitan police jurisdiction there.