Beginning of the End?

The biggest and most powerful local of the Red-led United Electrical Workers is at General Electric's Schenectady headquarters. Headed by Business Agent Leo Jandreau, who six years ago refused to tell a congressional committee whether he had ever been Communist, Local 301 claims 20,000 out of a total of some 42,-000 General Electric employees represented by the U.E. Ever since the U.E. was thrown out of the C.I.O. in 1949 for slavish adherence to the Communist line, Local 301 has been the strongest opponent of James Carey's C.I.O. International Union of Electrical Workers for bargaining rights at G.E. But in Schenectady last week, Local 301 about-faced. It started a movement to join Carey's C.I.O. union. Leader of the move: Leo Jandreau.

Local 301's turnabout was the result of increasing pressure on it. Tagged publicly with the Communist label, U.E. recently has lost out in almost every representation election held in new General Electric plants. Dissent and dissatisfaction with its party-line policies have spread among its own rank & file. Said one shop steward: "For years my friends have thought I was a Communist because 1 read the U.E. News." When six members of Local 301 refused to talk about their Red connections before the McCarthy committee last month, other members seized the moment to circulate petitions barring any such Fifth Amendmenteers from holding union office. G.E. added to the pressure by suspending all Fifth Amendment employees (TIME, March 15).

"Underlying Threat." All the while, Jim Carey had been putting on the pressure to get the union to switch to I.U.E. He argued privately with Jandreau, pointing out that his local was losing strength, while publicly branding Jandreau as the kind of "Communist union agent who constitutes the underlying threat" to U.S. security. Fellow U.E. members gossiped that there was another source of pressure on Jandreau. His wife Ruth, a onetime Communist Party leader in New York, has reportedly broken with the party and is planning to rejoin the Roman Catholic Church.

Finally, last February, Jandreau told Carey that his local would join the I.U.E. He even argued unsuccessfully with U.E.'s national leaders that the whole union should do likewise. As evidence of his change of heart, Jandreau promised Carey that if called to testify again before a congressional committee, he would swear that he is no Communist now.

10,000 v. 200. Public notice of Jandreau's decision came in G.E.'s Schenectady plant one lunch hour last week, when shop stewards of Local 301 fanned out to poll the members on the switch. The result, they said, was 10,000 in favor v. a mere 200 opposed. U.E.'s National President Albert Fitzgerald promptly notified Jandreau that he was fired, then got a temporary court injuction prohibiting him from "taking any steps or any act to secede from U.E." contrary to the union's constitution. Nevertheless, at a meeting of the Schenectady local this week, members voted overwhelmingly to join the I.U.E. With its biggest single piece chipping off, it looked as if the whole structure of the Communist-led U.E. might finally be crumbling.

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