The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1943-11-18
Bv WESTBROOK PEGLER

NEW YORK. - Well, friends, being as
have nothing else to do l thought would drop
you a few lines about now I looked up Henry
Kaiser to talk about the sweet graft of the
big A. F. of L. boiIermakers' union in all the
big shipyards on the West coast and later in
the same day a girl from the CLIO ship build
ers named Ruth Meyers. She dropped and
yelled murder at the way KAISER the U. S.
Congress and the boilermakers moved her I'm
ion out of the play way back there early in
the game.
Kaiser deals with labor in terms equivalent
to divisions of troops and prefers to do bust
ness with unions because that saves him the
detail work of negotiating with all those indi-
viduals So back in May, 194l he made a
closed shop contract with the A. F. of L. crowd
for his Portland, Ore, yard when there were
only n shipbuilders at work. Miss Meyers
says there were only 66 but we won't bubble
about II men. They may have been asleep In
the dark corners of hold at the time her
count was made. Other closed shop contracts
followed and the CLIO was frozen out
This A. F. of L. union IS this Kansas City,
Kan. crowd run by old guy named j. A.
Franklin in such way that his son, Harold,
gets tremendous rdkeoff in the agents COM
missions on the insurance which the members
are obliged to carry. # the seris don't keep
up their insurance payments ana the union
presidents kid doesn't get his graft right on
the line every month, they fall into bad stand
ing and Kaiser is required TO run them out OF
the yards. The Frankllns nave been runnng
this racket ever since 1926 an, back IN 1875
the executive council came to boil over the
matter and threw the old gent cut OF Office
| The councils report said the insurance com
| pany was delinquent IN paying %oo'ooo IN IN
! surance claims and that the company SAID the
main reason was that after the OLD man klc
| got his dough there wasn't enough lett 10 take
care of all the widows and orphans But a1tel
a time, through the operation OF that type o.
scale-model Tammany politics which justice
Felix Frankfurter would justify as familiar
union practoce, the old gent got back INTO OF
| flee and the racket resumed with the resul
that when the war program came on alle
people were shooed into the union by the tens
of thousands, young Franklin's income swell
ed to lend-lease dimensions.
Well, friends, Kaiser has about a quarter
of million members of this union on his pay
rolls, all covered by contracts signed lon&
before most of them ever har any ldea o.
| building ships and Miss Meyers speaking Io1
| the CLIO ship builders says this Is oirty out
rage and wants the government 10 holo regu
lar Labor Board elections and LEI the people
themselves decide whether they want 10 stay
in Franklin's outfit or join hers 10 compH
cate matters. Congress- put rider in an ap
preparation act STIMULATING that where con
tract had been in force three months or more
the Labor Relations Board must let IL stale
so the Franklins are sitting very pretty laoeee
and moreover the local unions IN tne Dig cen
tiers are gathering in dues ana lnltlalloli Lee
by the million with the prospect t1at wien .iis
war program closes down the memDersh 1
will shrink down to just few hundred a. W ne
then will have perfect legal right to cut o W
the loot and simply vote themselves hiiii'o''
| aires.
Out in Portland a local unoneer nails 1a
Tommy Ray, a Chicago fellow got ~ 0 Iasd
heavy that he built an elaborate union nea
quarters Which the clio crowds call the Marble
Palace to which the rank and file IS hoe cor
daily invited except for the purpose u pay