Blow to Farah

Rarely has a judge from the National Labor Relations Board ever spoken out so passionately over a classic confrontation between a company and a union. Last week Walter H. Maloney, an NLRB administrative law judge, ruled that the Farah Manufacturing Co. is "flouting the [National Labor Relations] act and trampling on the rights of its employees as if there were no act, no board and no Ten Commandments." The El Paso-based company, one of the nation's biggest makers of men's pants, has been struggling for 20 months with some 2,000 strikers, mainly Mexican Americans, who demand to be represented by a union--the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (TIME, March 26).

The strikers, a minority of the 9,000 Farah employees who were scattered in nine plants in the Southwest, were easily replaced by the company from the large pool of poor, nonunion Mexican American workers in the region. In his decision, however. Judge Maloney ordered Farah to reinstate the strikers, along with the six employees whose dismissal for union activities had triggered the strike. The company, he ruled, must grant the union access to its plants to organize the workers. Finally, Farah was told to pay not only the union's legal costs but also those of the NLRB in hearing the case.

Though the judge's outspoken decision is technically only a recommendation, the full NLRB is expected to approve soon, as it has in previous such cases. Company President Willie Farah, 53, then plans to appeal in the courts. Farah, son of a Lebanese dry-goods merchant, had propelled his father's business to record sales of $164 million in 1971 (profits: $6 million) mainly by cutting labor costs through using modern machinery. Last December, in testimony to his hard-driving methods and stubborn resistance to union demands, he was named "Man of the Year" by the trade magazine Clothes.

He appears unmoved by the financial toll that the strike is taking of his company. A nationwide boycott of Farah products, backed by the AFL-CIO and strongly endorsed by the bishop of El Paso, the Most Rev. Sidney M. Metzger, has bitten deeply into sales, despite a high-priced TV advertising campaign featuring athletes wearing Farah pants.

In 1973 sales were $132 million, down 15% from the year before, and profits were $43,000; company officials concede that the boycott has forced Farah products off retail shelves in many cities. The price of the company's stock has plummeted to $5 per share, down from $30 before the strike. Four plants have been closed, but the five El Paso plants are operating with a reduced work force. Worse, Farah is losing the support that he once had from the business community in El Paso, which is hurting from the company's decline. Local newspapers played the NLRB decision on the front pages, but editorials supporting management were conspicuously lacking.

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