Carey v. G.E.

Onto the television screen flashes the image of a widowed U.S. worker, five little girls and a boy huddled around him. Their problem is spelled out to the viewer: what does a man do if he has six motherless children and no hope of a job? Answers the worker: "I don't want to put them in a home. The nearest thing for me is the river, but that's a horrible thought."

So runs a 29-minute movie called Help Wanted, made by the big (375,000 members) International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers. Its purpose: to blast General Electric Co., whose decentralization program (TIME, Jan. 12) has created heavy, if temporary, unemployment in cities where plants were shut down. The film shows troubles in Fort Wayne, Ind., Lynn, Mass. and Bloomfield, N.J. A Presbyterian minister argues: "The profit motive has destroyed the human personality." I.U.E. President James Barron Carey himself pleads for sympathy from G.E. and its shareholders.

Whatever sympathy Jim Carey may get from G.E., he got little from TV stations. Last week, Manhattan's WABC, Providence's WPRO, Baltimore's WMAR, Toledo's WTOL and Dayton's WLW-D, which were supposed to show Help Wanted, canceled the program. Said WABC, warily: "Too controversial."

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