Sand in the Wheels

Labor, which often squirmed under its wartime no-strike pledge, was squirming no longer. Last week the biggest wave of strikes since peace began swamped and shut down many a reconverting plant. The effect was far greater than might have been expected from the comparatively small number. Reason: much of U.S. industry was in the warm-up stage, when the jobs of many often depend on few.

Detroit was typical. There, 4,500 struck at Kelsey-Hayes Wheel Co., forcing the Ford Motor Co. to send 30,000 home and shut down temporarily. A strike of 500 at Hudson Motor Car Co. threw another 6,000 out of work. All across the nation, strikes mushroomed faster than the War Labor Board could keep track of them, much less track down the reasons for all of them.

They were strikes over seniority, over wage cuts caused by the return to peace, over stored-up grievances, real & fancied. One was out of sheer exuberance: when patternmakers picketed a small shop in Detroit, the shop's co-owner marched with them, smilingly picketing the picketers.

Only in Cleveland was violence reported. There, the International Assn. of Machinists (A.F. of L.), which had been on strike for three weeks at the Parker Appliance Co. (a question of seniority), battled with mounted policemen (see cut).

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