Evening star., 1946-01-05
Phone WaIkout
Next Week Seen
ByUnion Official
Strike Forecast by
Leader of Workers
At Western Electric
BY the Associated Press.

~A' AAsAA3 ol1h :
Fitzsimmons, president of the
independent Western Electric
Employees Association, said to-
day the 3-day-old strike by his
union against the Western Elec-
trio Co. was "just about ready to
explode" into a Nation wide tel
ephone workers walkout.
Mr.. Fitzsimmons said that after
comforting with Joseph A. Beirne,
president of the National Federation
of Telephone Workers, he believed
that "by Monday or Wednesday
something will be ready to break"
Mr.. Beirne said at the outset of
the Western Electric strike that the
100000 paying members of his fed
GRAFTON had been asked in a poll to
authorize sympathy strike. Mr..
Fitzsimmons' union is one of 48 in
dependent telephone and telegraph
unions affiliated with the federation.
Beirne Order Awaited.
Mr.. Fitzsimmons said an order
from Mr.. Beirne could touch off
a walkout by operators and other
employees of the Bell Telephone
System.
Work stoppage in telephone ex-
changes could occur Wednesday. he
said, if 5000 members of the Asso-
citation of Communications EQUIP
ment Workers (NFTW) carry out
their strike threat against Western
Electric.
The communications workers in
stall equipment in telephone ex-
changes in AZ States, Mr.. Fitzsim-
mons said, and a walkout by them
would result in the immediate es-
tablishment of picket lines outside
the exchanges. Western Electric is
the manufacturing subsidiary of the
American Telephone e. Telegraph
Co., which controls the Bell system.
Leaders of the ACEW and Mr..
Beirne conferred again today with
Western Electric officials and Mr..
Fitzsimmons said the union was
"at its wits end" in a wage dispute
with the company. The union is
seeking a 80 per cent pay increase.
Picketing Orderly.
Meanwhile. quiet reigned on picket
lines outside the Western Electric
Co. plants in New Jersey and New
York.
Although police were on the alert
against any renewal of picket-lin
strife which broke out at Kearny
yesterday with four persons being
injured and several others arrested,
more than 300 pickets walked in
orderly lines and no one made any
attempt to enter the plants this
morning.
Mr.. Fitzsimmons said in a state
ment today the union executive
board had agreed to Navy request
to allow Navy personnel in uniform
to enter the plants.
In companion statement relating
to yesterdays picket line disturb
ances, Mr.. Fitzsimmons charged the
company with attempting to 'incite
riot by having picked personnel
from top management use football
tactics to crash the picket lines"
The company was unavailable for
comment.
Accuses Company Personnel.
MIR. Fitzsimmons charged further
that at the tube plant at 403 Hudson
street, New York, yesterday man
agement personnel on the upper
floors threw bags filled with water
out of the windows in an effort to
hit pickets, but only police officer
was struck on the head with one,"
Henry Mayer, union counsel, was
visiting the company's West Coast
plants yesterday, seeking support of
other independent unions not on
strike. Employees at other company
plants at Hawthorne, Ill: Baltimore
and Haverhill, Mass, are not strik-
ing.
Police said yesterdays trouble oc-
Cured when 1000 company super
vlsors attempted to push through a
50O-man picket line at Kearny short
ly after arriving for work. The in
jured persons were struck by wooden
placard staffs hurled by pickets,
Police Capt. j. w. Randall said. Capt.
Randall subsequently banned use of
the staffs, which he described as
about 2la inches square and feet
long.
Another disturbance took place at
the Passaic plant when police es-
corted several men through the
picket lines.