The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-12-29

Industry combined as far as possible to eliminate competition and increase prices. Labor strung out the job as far as possible.
 But now, with shortage of man. power one of our most acute prob lens, the situation is entirely dif- ferent.
 For instance, the trucking
 unions succeeded, years ago, in
 gaining an agreement that not
 fewer than two men should Op-
 crate a truck. Now, in many
 cases, two men are not avail
 able for each truck, but the
 union, like the proverbial dog
 in the manager, has opposed re-
 laxing the ruling. It prefers
 that the truck shall not run,
 rather than to lose the working
 standards won in peacetime.
 The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, under Dan ToDin, recently has been in fight with the Office of Defense Transpor- tation on a similar issue. Joe Eastman of ODT ordered a 9 per cent cut in deliveries of such things as milk and bread and laundry. This was done to con- serve tires and gasoline, and it required re-routing plus every other-day service instead of every day. But the Teamsters object ed, saying they must have the same pay, regardless of decreased work.
 Instead of consenting to laying some men off, at a time when other jobs are plentiful, the team sters argued: "To hell with that; we have ten years seniority" A specific instance of this con- flict took place recently in Pitts burgh, where the Teamsters de- manded tile same number of men be retained on the job, with the same number of trucks and same pay, even though they would work much less.
 JURISDICTIONAL ROWS
 Another constant war headache is jurisdictional squabbles. Tn the building trades, for example, there has been tug of war be- tween the painters and the car- penters over which should erect a scaffolding. The painters say they should do it, because scaf- folding is a carpenters job. re- gardless of its purpose. They re- fuse to set this squabble aside for war efficiency, saying that if they abandon the principle now, they will have lost peacetime ground.
 Meantime, the CIO is urg-
 ing men to join the United Con-
 stTuctiOn Workers, single
 building trade union, instead of
 the diverse and stratified unions
 of the AFL.
 A similar fight rages between the carpenters and the Interna- tional Association of Machinists as to which shall set up machin- cry in the plant. The machin- ists are getting the worst of this battle, as the AFL has ruled against them. But the Machin- ists' president, Harvey Brown. says, "If we turn this loose, we're lost forever"
 Some big industrialists and some labor leaders in effect, al- most say. TO hell with the war, we'll be here after the war!
 The carpteners International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners) are believed by some gov- ernment officials to have much the same attitude. This atti- tud. particularly prevails in the older unions which remember the gone to gain present standards. The newer unions are more elas- tic. -s
 The auto workers. for the most part-though not all-haye speed up production: likewise the air- craft and shipbuilding trades. Some ttime ago, before Russia was attacked by Germany. Army Inspectors found that some work CTS, presumably Communists, in the Boeing factory at Seattle. were staging siow-downs. but Harvey Brown of the Machinists went out and cleaned house. Meraeges. when Russia got inte