Crossed Wires

When President Leroy A. Wilson opened a special stockholders' meeting at American Telephone & Telegraph Co.'s Manhattan headquarters last week, a strange sight met his eyes. One stockholder carried a big sign saying: "I protest against the unfair labor practices of my own company." Another waved the message: "I am not interested in dividends that are sweated out of the working people."

The sign-bearers were playing an ambivalent role. As part of the 200,000 employees (out of 600,000) who have bought A.T. & T. stock at the company's urging, they represented management. But they were also getting in some licks for the 16,000 C.I.O. unionists who were on strike at A.T. & T.'s subsidiary, Western Electric. The strikers had been picketing A.T. & T. exchanges, trying to disrupt service and sometimes, as in Philadelphia, trading wallops with police who tried to clear the buildings.

Evenhanded, even-tempered Leroy Wilson was not bothered by his picketing stockholders. Every stockholder, said he, had a right to speak his piece, and he agreed to give anybody up to ten minutes to say it. When the words of one stockholder provoked a scattering of yells, President Wilson rapped for order and made the most good-natured parliamentary ruling of the week. He said he would tolerate booing from the floor, but no catcalls.

The strike sympathizers subsided. When the vote came, many of them dutifully lined up with management and other stockholders to approve a plan to set aside 3,000,000 more shares of A.T. & T. stock for employees to buy at $20 under the market price (latest quotation: $150). They also approved an increase of common shares from 35 million to 45 million, and the raising of $435 million in new financing (TIME, Oct. 2). Such felicity proved catching. This week Western Electric granted wage boosts averaging more than 10-c- an hour, and the strikers went back to work.

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