In the Wringer

Harry Bridges' long nose was caught in a wringer last week. He had shut down the West Coast waterfront for more than 45 days. He had choked off business in faraway Hawaii, smothered the West Coast's trade with Alaska, had tied up 222 of the coast's 375 ships, costing shippers and shipowners millions of dollars a day. The strike was another dramatic show of power by U.S. labor's second most recalcitrant leader (after John Lewis). But last week Harry Bridges was hollering for help.

The plain fact was that Harry's strike was never necessary. The shipowners had offered his longshoremen wage boosts, had agreed to let his union run the hiring halls until the Supreme Court should rule on their legality under the Taft-Hartley Act. East Coast, Gulf and Great Lakes maritime unions had accepted similar terms. But Bridges struck anyway.

With that, the shipowners determined to break Bridges' 18-year grip on the West Coast. They withdrew their offers, and took the position that they could not negotiate at all so long as Bridges and other Maritime Union chiefs refused to sign the Taft-Hartley law's non-Communist affidavit. The owners showed every sign of being prepared to sit it out until Bridges was busted. Bridges had the choice of eating crow or explaining to his members why they should continue a strike which had cost them more than $5,000,000 in wages.

Bridges' cry for help was heard by C.I.O. President Philip Murray, who has no love for fellow-traveling Harry Bridges. But Murray sent Alan Haywood, national director of C.I.O. organizing, and R. J. Thomas, ex-boss of the autoworkers, to San Francisco. Their job was to intercede as agents of the C.I.O., get the owners to renew their offer. This week the Bridges nose was still in the wringer. Haywood returned to Washington, declaring: "The employers are adamant. They will not deal with Harry Bridges."

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