A Man Who Understands

At K-25, the $650 million plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., production of Uranium 235 for atomic and hydrogen bombs has never stopped for a second since the process first began ten years ago. In the 44-acre building, which uses as much power as New York City, thousands of motors pump fiercely corrosive gases through endless microscopic filters in a steady surging flow. No one knows what would happen if the process stopped. Last fortnight, the Atomic Energy Commission feared that a strike of 3,500 employees might cause a ruinous stoppage. But the strike was quickly settled. Last week it became clear that most credit for the settlement belonged to one man: Secretary of Labor James Mitchell.

Hurry & Anxiety. Four hours after the strike began, the White House asked Mitchell to round up a fact-finding board, paving the way for a Taft-Hartley injunction. Big Jim Mitchell, recognized as one of the country's top labor-relations men (for New York's Macy's and Bloomingdale's) before he went to Washington, lined up the board. But he did more: he called C.I.O. General Counsel Art Goldberg to talk settlement.

At Mitchell's request, Goldberg called Oak Ridge to sound out Elwood Swisher, president of the striking C.I.O. Gas. Coke & Chemical Workers Union. Next day while the fact-finding board hurriedly began hearings and anxious supervisors kept K-25 bubbling. Swisher flew to Washington to see C.I.O. President Walter Reuther. At 7:30 p.m., Reuther called Mitchell for a conference; they met at the Labor Department. Until 2 a.m. Mitchell listened to the union's aims and grievances (poor housing and community facilities, bad relations with K-25's operator, Union Carbide & Carbon). Next day he checked the AEC and company officials, who rejected the terms but promised to take up the grievances.

Conference & Study. When Mitchell telephoned Reuther to say that the union terms were too stiff, he was asked up to Reuther's Statler Hotel room. At 2:30 p.m., he arrived and worked out an agreement to arrange 1) union-AEC conferences on community facilities for atomic workers, and 2) an AEC study to improve collective bargaining. At 6:15 p.m., hands were shaken all around; in a special Air Force plane, Swisher flew to Oak Ridge for a back-to-work meeting.

At 5 a.m. next day, Swisher called Mitchell: K-25's employees were back at work. Twelve hours later, workers at a secondary plant in Paducah, Ky. were back on the job, and the first actual production strike in AEC history was over.*

This week at K-25, as always since its beginning, the gaseous uranium flowed endlessly, with full crews at work and no fear of breakdown. In Washington the C.I.O.'s Swisher said, with a slight note of surprise: "I think he [Mitchell] understands and appreciates the problems of people who work for a living." Said Mitchell, who clerked in a store, worked in a factory, and went through Depression layoffs before he became a labor specialist: "It is much sounder that people voluntarily go back to work than if they are forced back by an injunction."

* Last week's wildcat strike by 6,000 A.F.L. building workers slowed new construction at Oak Ridge but did not affect production.

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