Gears Ground

In the recent resurgence of labor no new union has had more spectacular success than the United Automobile Workers of America, no labor leader of the past year has achieved more fame than the Auto Workers' brisk and boyish president, Homer Martin. Eight months ago, armed with contracts from General Motors and Chrysler, a membership of 375,000, an overflowing treasury and the enthusiasm of youth, the U. A. W. prepared to shift into high and charge the unconquered Ford fortress. Last week the sound of grinding gears could still be heard.

Throughout the country, elections of local union officers were being completed. Though re-elected without opposition at the union's faction-torn convention last August, President Martin is by no means an unchallenged leader. The current local elections have little to do with local issues; they have become a judgment of the Martin administration. In each local auto workers were usually confronted with two slates: Progressive and Unity. (Both factions accuse each other of being false to their names.) The Progressives are led by Martin and his hand-picked assistant president, Richard Frankensteen. The Unity group is a combination of opposition forces led by Vice Presidents Ed Hall and Wyndham Mortimer and by the daring young tacticians of the sit-down strikes, Robert Travis, George Edwards, John Anderson and the fabulous Reuther Brothers, Walter, Roy and Victor.

With most returns in, it appeared certain last week that Progressive candidates had lost often enough to weaken Homer Martin's prestige considerably. In Flint, Mich., focal point of the General Motors empire, with 30.000 union members, the Martin forces won their only important victory. Martin and Frankensteen took the stump personally, and their ticket was returned by nearly 2-to-1. But Detroit's bustling West Side local, with another 30,000 members, re-elected Unity Leader Walter Reuther by 4-to-1. Roland J. Thomas, president of the Chrysler local, a vice president of the international union and an intimate Martin-Frankensteen aide, was defeated by a Unity candidate. The net results in the country as a whole indicated that Unity had gained at the expense of the Progressives.

Behind this evidence of declining confidence in Homer Martin's leadership was a variety of reasons. Recession has meant long layoffs or drastic reductions in hours for thousands of auto workers. Unemployment is always a severe test of the loyalty of union members, particularly so for U. A. W. members, most of whom are new to unionism.* With it came a drop in dues payments so sharp that the international union took all its organizers off the payroll, asked them to serve on a volunteer basis temporarily. Despite claims of increasing enrollment of Ford workers, the union is now less specific than it was last summer about the date it expects a Ford signature on the bottom of a collective agreement. In renewing the supplementary agreement with General Motors on the settlement of grievances several weeks ago, Martin found it necessary to make concessions.

To the growing Unity opposition, the U. A. W.'s difficulties are due mainly to inept leadership by Martin and Frankensteen. Unity leaders were alarmed to hear that Homer Martin had agreed to further restrictions on G.M. grievance committees, which even last year functioned none too smoothly, but their chief complaint is Martin's disregard of democratic procedure, typified for them by his failure to submit the G. M. supplementary agreement to the membership for ratification. Last week, though Unity leaders disclaimed any part in it, evidence was accumulating of a drive to oust Martin before the U. A. W.'s convention a year from next summer.

*To keep its jobless members under the influence of the union and to help them obtain relief, the U. A. W. last week prepared to charter a special local for WPA workers.

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