The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-06-03

engineers, chemists, and students of economics and business adminis- tration are hired and given chance to show what they've got.
 These youngsters come out of col- lege full of ideals, sociology, liberal ism and all the new thought about the rights of labor to organize, bar gain collectively and assert its rights. So far so good, and harbor- ing these ideas apparently doesn't disqualify 8 young graduate from | being hired, even by Inland Steel.
 The boy goes to work and, being interested in such matters, he runs 1 into union practices. First of is the griveance committee procedure. It is admitted by good many ern- ployers that three-fourths of the bellyaches which come up in daily, weekly or monthly grievance meet ings are justified, particularly in ex- pansive times like these when men are shifted to new jobs, when the pressure is on for more and more production, when foremen and jun- for supervisory officials are ineX- 1 perienced, and when all the tre- mendous trifles of big plant opera ton constantly have to be readjust- ed. They're all to be expected and they're taken. Thousands of one- man or one-crew work stoppages, sit-doWns or strikes come along, last for two minutes or two hours, are adjusted and no one thinks any, thing about them.
 Then one day there comes a union dues picketing. A com mittee" from union headquarters will stand Outside the plant gate, i and as the men file by, the ones who haven't paid their dues, haven't joined the union and can't show a card are stopped, led over to & car or down the alley and persuaded. Those who don't sign up are not permitted to go to work. MAY MEAN
 TROUBLE
 It is perhaps natural that argu- ments of this kind lead to scuffles, and scuffles lead to strong g-arm tac- tics and strong-arm tactics lead to violence. Men driving to work have had their car windows and head lights smashed, their lenders caved in, their autos overturned and dumped in the ditch. In the War Labor Board hearings on the In- land Steel case, there are some pretty sad pages of testimony from workers who have been beaten up in dues picketing par ties and the records of the com- pany give evidence of how pro- duction has been stopped by not having sufficient crews to operate certain units on dues picketing days.
 But to get back to the young engineers. When these young sters with all their theories go through just one dues picketing line, says Randall, 1t makes them bourbons overnight. And these are the men who, 10 or 20 years hence, will be the operating brains that run the company. Not enough has been told, thinks Randall, about this dues picketing business and its corollary the after-Work calls which the committee makes at the homes of the employees, who are called out on the porch and persuaded. These are the chap ters of the open shop vs the union shop argument that don't make pretty reading.
 ANOTHER SIDE
 There is of course the other side of the story, which MT. Randall and the bourbon boys probably wouldn't agree to, but which in fairness should be stated nevertheless. A good many workmen like to ride on ] the coattailS of union, taking ad- vantage of whatever benefits it se- cures in the way of improved wages and working conditions, without contributing anything toward or ganization support.
 All these organizations have their troubles in just keeping alive. That's why they want union maintenance. which is simply smart press agentry and nomenclature for what used to be called the closed shop. And the unions don't over- look a bet, either, in pointing out that if the union shop principle were adopted, dues picketing and their attendant evils would auto matically be eliminated.
 That's just one side of the big issue which the War Labor Board