Friendly Folks

A long time ago in Newton, Iowa, old Fred Maytag, who died in 1937, dedicated a concrete mausoleum to the glory and preservation of dead Maytags. Last week, Chicago Newshawk Robert J. Casey reported from Newton that Maytags now molder in common dust, Iowa winters having weathered away the monumental box. Concluded philosophical Reporter Casey: "Maybe there is something significant about that." Certainly the creator of the Maytag washing machine would not have understood the peace that returned last week to his "City of 12,000 Friendly Folks." C. I. O. workers in the Maytag plant took a 10% pay cut, gave up their 13-week strike and returned to work. But the spirit with which they returned was not what Father Maytag had fostered with good pay and generous gifts. They went back with a gripe against Son & Heir Elmer Henry Maytag and Iowa's Governor Nelson G. Kraschel.

Son Elmer was in the workers' bad books because he: 1) refused all offers of compromise after the union had turned down an offer from him, and 2) demonstrated that the No. 1 industry in a small city is hard for labor to beat. Governor Kraschel was marked for union reprisal because he alternately played the union's and Maytag's games in his campaign for reelection, was consistently helpful to neither side, finally enforced the dismissal of twelve key men in Local 1116, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America. Having curried labor votes by declaring martial law and shutting down Maytag as the strikers wished, he last week twirled around, permitted Maytag to reopen on Maytag terms and under State guard. The Governor simultaneously weaseled out of his role as a States' Rights champion (TIME, Aug. 8). He amended his order forbidding NLRB to continue its Maytag inquiry anywhere in "the military district of Iowa," allowed the hearings to reopen at Des Moines, 30-odd miles from troubled Newton.

After some 1,400 Maytag workers had gone back, it appeared that no one had got much except a lesson in labor relations. The union had lost its strike and taken a wage cut; the company in beating the strike, had not broken the union, had stored up plenty of potential labor trouble for the future. Governor Kraschel had some tall explaining to do to Iowa's labor vote. Rumbled the union president, James B. Carey: "The Governor is doing what he thinks is politically necessary, but we think his position is political suicide."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.