Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-02-13

the passes IN a meeting soon.
He clearly is concerned ali
pledge given to the Govern
ment last May by unions work.
ing at the bases.
Senator Mcclellan, Demo-
crat of Arkansas, said the bad
record in January provided
IAN additional argument" for
enactment of his bill to out
law all strikes at missile and
space bases and to establish
arbitration machinery for set
Element of labor disputes.
He said the voluntary no
strike pledge, lacking enforce
ment teeth, is not adequate.
v,23 Work Delays in Month
Preliminary figures show that
about $500 man-days Of work
were lost in % work stoppages
at the top-priority bases last
month. Lost time amounted to
slightly less than two-tenths of
! per cent of time worked.
BY comparison, 953 man-days
were lost in II stoppages in
December. In the first seven
months after the no-Strike
pledges in May, lost time
totaled 5.513 man-days, for a
rate of OF per cent.
The January record for num-
Der of stoppages, time lost and
rate was the worst since the
Government obtained the no
strike pledges from the unions
and no-lockout pledges from
management.
At the same time the
Government obtained the
pledges, President Kennedy
established a Missile Sites
Labor Commission to handle
labor disputes at the bases and
to prevent wage gouging.
Secretary Calls Leaders
Mr.. Goldberg, who heads the
commission, called a meeting
in his office February 2 with
leaders of five unions primarily
involved in the January work
stoppages. He repeatedly read
them the figures and told them
the voluntary system was not
working.
The union leaders re-
portedly promised to tighten
enforcement of the no-strike
pledges. The commission has
received good cooperation
from national unions, but
trouble has been caused by
some locals and individual
workers.
Five unions accounted for 81
per cent of the time lost in
January, according to prelimi-
nary figures. Two stoppages by
the Carpenters Union accounted
for 40 per cent. The four other
unions were the Plumbers and
Pipefitters, Iron Workers, Inter-
national Brother hood Of Elec-
trical Workers and the Operat-
ing Engineers.
All these unions are in the
building trades, which frequent
ly tangle with industrial unions
over Job jurisdiction. But most
of the January disputes were
among rival building trades un-
ions, rather than between
building tradesmen and indus
trial unioniStS.
Terms Disputes Petty
Jurisdictional disputes &C
counted for about half the
stoppages and lost time at the
bases in January, compared
with only l or 2 per cent of
disputes in industry generally. |
Secretary Goldberg checked
into the January Stoppages in
detail. and concluded that the
disputes were petty.
The no-strikes pledges and
establishment of the commits
sion last May headed off Sena-
tor McClellan's legislation,
which grew out of hearings he
held on labor trouble at the
bases. The record was very
good in the early months of
the commission, with a sharp
reduction of time lost.
During 1860, about $4,000
man-days were lost because of
strikes - an average Of more
than 1000 per month.
Aide Cites Warning
julius Kuczma, the commits
sion's executive secretary, noted
in a memo to Mr.. Goldberg
that even the January record
was favorable" compared with
the situation before the pledges.
But he warned:
1T is obvious that continu-
ance of the January experience
would in a short period of time
nullify the favorable experience
of the first seven months of
the commissions existence i