Imperial Valley press., 1942-11-19
CAPITAL TALKS
by
Peter
Edison


Joe Curran. two-fisted president
of the National Maritime Union
has Just recently repeated his
/ charges that ships carrying war
SUPPLIES from us. east coast parts
to the battle fronts were being lost
because they were badly loaded
and that brings up few bits OF
BACKGROUND ON this situation which
aren't too well known. but should
be.
Curran first made these charges
last April. He printed them in his
unions newspaper, The Pilot, and
he came down to Washington from
New York and spread them before
the House of Representatives COM
mittee en- Merchant Marine and
Fisheries. At that time he listed
eight ships which he charged had
been 'caded badly, and there is no
evidence that there have been 9TH
er cases of the kind since then.
Proof on the eight cases is diff
cult to establish. All eight of
the ships Curran listed did run
into trouble after they left us.
ports. One was tOrpedOed and
one has been given up for lost.
Several ran into storms. One
had mechanical breakdown. One
went aground Two Gid have
To come back TO port and be re-
loaded.
But when it comes to pinning
down all these disasters to the one
cause of bad loading, not even the
insurance companies can definitely
fix the blame.
Giving Curran the benfit of
doubt and admitting all his charges
are true, you should take into con-
sideration that these are eight cases
out of perhaps thousands.
So you begin to look elsewhere
fer reasons and you run into some
interesting factors. the most amaz-
ing of which is merely another
CHAPTER in the welfare between the
A. F. of L and the CIO. 1t spells
out about like this:
CLIO. VS.. A. 4. OF l..
Curran'S union is union OF sea-
men-the men who actually sail
the ships and to whom all credit
IS due for having done an heroic
/ job. Curran'S union is affiliated
with the CLIO. The men who load
j the ships which Currans sailors OPP
crate, however, belong to the Inter
national LongshOremen'S union
/ headed by Joseph p Ryan. This
! union is affiliated with the A. F.
! Of L.. and Just about now you be-
/ gin to catch on.
/ This is the way the situation lines
/ up at all Atlantic coast and Gulf
4 ports where ships are loaded by A.
F.. Of L. longshoremen and sailed
by CLIO. sailors. On the Pacific
/ coast. the situation is Just reversed.
4 At western ports, CLIO. longShore-
/ men in Harry Bridges 1nternation-
/ al Longshoremens and Warehouse
/ mems union load the ships while
/ A. F.. of l.. sailors in the Seafar-
erS' International union of North
/ American man the ships.
II is TO break up the A.. F. of l..
waterfront that the CLIO. Ma
: tional Marine union might be
genuinely interested in spreading
dirt about the way ships az
loaded. From a strictly impartial
point of view. there probably isn't
anything which the Joe Curran
Maritime union can could say
about the Joe Ryan LOngsh0re-
mems union which wouldn't be
true. The Ryan union has been
/ called 4 racket by experts and i'll
many languages. The record is
long, but in all this talk there is
a good bit of the pot calling the
kettle black and you can cast the
characters either way you want
to.
TFCHNICALITIES INVOLVED
There are a lot of technicalities
involved including the dispute as
to whether the CLIO. hiring hall
system is better than the A. F.. OF
l.. labor gang "shape-up' hiring
system, the claim of Curran that
the east coast should have a gov
crnment labor management Mari
time Industrial board to increase
efficiency. TIE claim of the east
coast that its lOngshoremen loaC
more cargo per man hour by work
ing larger sling loads, and the
counter claim that the east coas
now operates on only a basic one
shift, eight-hour day, making the
time of ship turnaround in east
coast norts much longer than OF
the west coast
When the War Shipping Admin
is.ratiOn first took over the SUI
nremc commend Of ship loading
there was some belief that the gov
ernment should step into this sit
uation Now official policy seem
to be to let the situation alone til
after the war.
In other words, why stir up
labor war on the waterfront righ
now of all times, when there
a real war on?