$350 Million Strike

Leathery, cigar-chewing Billy McMahon, 47, a dock walloper who loathed the gangster-ridden leadership of his International Longshoremen's Association, switched his membership last fall to the American Federation of Labor's new dock union. One of Billy's cousins who did the same was later found drowned in the Hudson River. Billy McMahon lost only his job as steward of New York's Pier 32. By last week, after six months of waterfront warfare between the A.F.L and the old I.L.A., Billy McMahon had his job back, and the A.F.L. looked like a winner all around.

In an NLRB election last December, the I.L.A. came out ahead (9,060 votes to the A.F.L.'s 7,568), but 4,405 challenged ballots were never counted, and no winner was certified. While the labor board checked into I.L.A. electioneering methods (including three stabbings), the A.F.L. went on signing up stevedores. Five weeks ago the A.F.L. felt strong enough for a showdown on one small issue: Billy Mc-Mahon's job.

At the A.F.L.'s insistence, Pier 32's operators, Moore-McCormack Lines, took McMahon back. Right away, the I.L.A. began picketing, and Billy was fired once more. Again, A.F.L. pickets showed up, and A.F.L. teamsters stopped truck deliveries to the pier. Finally, the I.L.A.began a boycott of trucks driven by members of the A.F.L. Teamsters' Union--and kept it up, despite a Federal Court injunction forbidding the boycott.

By this week the I.L.A.'s month-old strike had cost the port of New York more than 5,000,000 man-hours of work and $350 million in foreign trade. Court delays stalled an effort to enforce the injunction by arresting I.L.A. leaders for contempt. I.L.A. President William Bradley, a longtime tugboat captain, called out the I.L.A.'s tugboat locals. Some liners docked clumsily on their own power. The Queen Mary went to Halifax. I.L.A. locals in other ports, gorged with diverted ships, stalled off Bradley's appeal that they join his strike.

The NLRB is considering a new election, which the A.F.L. hopes to win. Dock Steward Billy McMahon thinks so. Happily planning to go back to work at Pier 32, he said: "This is very, very good. This is the beginning of the end for the old I.L.A."

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