Christmas Shutdown

Traditionally, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Northwest loggers come out of the woods. The rainswept camps in the hills close down; over the Jogging railroads that curve through the logged-off land, over the pitted roads, the fallers, buckers, choker setters, whistle punks hurry to the cities or for a visit home. This is the period, long or short, depending on business and weather, of the Christmas shutdown. In many a mill town the rising whine of the headsaw biting into a log dies away; the absence of the pulsing rhythm of a sawmill--compounded of the piercing wing-wing of the trimmer, of the throb of the conveyors, of the thud of lumber falling on transfer chains--makes every day seem like Sunday. The noon whistle, no longer a deep roar that reaches for miles through the woods, is just a perfunctory hoot for the millwrights working on repairs in the silent recesses of the mill. Workmen in this part of the country, even more than most U. S. workmen, are used to going in debt for Christmas, measuring the disadvantages against the luxury of a few days home.

Last week the Christmas shutdown, was on in earnest, but with a new twist. Spreading through the Northwest was a joint A. F. of L.C. I. O. strike that at week's end had closed 38 mills and five logging camps. Although there was some talk that its long extension might injure national defense, the strike-ridden Northwest has had more than its share of strikes, and this one aroused little public outcry. But it was like no other Northwest lumber strike on record. It promised to set a new-pattern in Northwest labor relations. It threatened to isolate an extreme left-wing group of C. I. O. unions. It might even foreshadow a new period in joint A. F. of L.C. I. O. relations throughout the entire U. S.

Two big unions have long fought for dominance of the Northwest lumber industry. A. F. of L.'s is the Lumber and Sawmill Workers' Union, powerful, expanding (after a sorry period of scandals in its early organizing days) and affiliated with Bill Hutcheson's rich Carpenters and Joiners. C. I. O.'s is the International Woodworkers of America, organized in 1937 by Harold Pritchett, a Canadian, aggressive left-winger and Northwest ally of Harry Bridges. So fierce were the jurisdictional fights between these two unions that in one three-month period 900 men went to the hospitals as a result of inter-union battles. Presently the C. I. O. union split again. An opposition group, damning Pritchett as a Communist, failed to oust him as president last October. Harold Pritchett meanwhile was isolated in a war-tightened British Columbia, refused entry into the U. S., barely keeping in touch with his I. W. A. followers.

The lumber business has boomed. A. F. of L. unions have demanded higher wages. While A. F. of L. picketed a big Weyerhaeuser mill in Everett, demanding 7 1/2-c- more than the present minimum 62 1/2-c- an hour, the C. I. O. union stepped in, signed a contract gaining only 2 1/2-c- an hour increase. This situation demonstrated, for anybody to see, the need for labor unity.

Representatives of 59 A. F. of L. locals met with representatives of 17 C. I. O.

anti-Pritchett locals, agreed to joint action to win a general 7 1/2-c--an-hour increase.

Leading the anti-Pritchett unions was softspoken, wary Worth Lowery, who, after long inter-union battles, walks as if he always expected an ambush.

One sign of tension in Pritchett's ranks came from Pritchett himself. In a stormy session behind closed doors, the executive committee of I. W. A. accepted his resig nation, upped stern, cautious "Mickey" Orton, one of his vice presidents, to succeed him. Bitterly President Orton damned his rivals for trying to take C. I. O. members into A. F. of L. through the back door. Smoothly Worth Lowery replied : "The anti-Communist bloc of the I. W. A. is pleased with the results of the efforts of the coalition, which will result in increased wages for the workers in the woodworking industry." Union contracts were expiring throughout the Northwest, yet it was a curious period for a strike to be called. The thought of her husband be ing on strike at Christmas worried many a housewife. Even in times of industrial peace, this was a season of shutdowns and layoffs for repairs when the class struggle itself seemed due for an armistice. But the stakes were big. Hopefully the North west waited for a settlement that might bring, not only higher wages before Christ mas, but a working agreement between a big part of A. F. of L. and a big part of C. I. O.

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