MORE STRIKES IN UNITED STATES

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23295, 3 April 1941, Page 8

MORE STRIKES IN UNITED STATES

Dispute in Ford Plant NEW YORK, April 1. A sit-down strike by 10,000 members of the Congress of Industrial Organisations’ United Automobile Workers has paralysed production in the Ford Company's Hugh River plant The local police rushed to the scene, but so far there has been no violence. A spokesman for the company said that only 5000 workers were sitting down. The remainder had gone home. Mr Michael F. Widman, director of the Congress of Industrial Organisations’ drive against the Ford Company. said the cessation of operations was the result of “deliberate • efforts by the company to bring about a showdown with the C.1.0. before the issue could be decided by peaceful methods. The company dismissed men who were acting with the recognition of the company as the men’s spokesmen. We require the reinstatement of these four men.” The Governor has sent a special mediation commission in an attempt to settle the strike. The Ford Company's plants hold 154,000,000 dollars’ worth of defence orders. From Milwaukee it is reported that a police armoured car again went into action against strikers outside the Allis Chalmers plant. Fifteen hundred pickets were dispersed by gas bombs and pressure hoses. From Harlan (Kentucky) it is reported that bloodshed occurred in a strike at a mine when a non-union miner was shot and critically wounded in “bloody Harlan County,” which does not observe April 1 as a miners’ holiday. The victim was endeavouring to enter an open shop near the mine. Union members are picketing eight pitheads. . , From Washington it. is reported that Mr Roosevelt told newspaper representatives that he hoped that labour and capital would conciliate their differences in a healthy atmosphere of give and take without slowing down the production of armaments. He said the Administration would not sponsor any new labour programme until the existing machinery for mediation had been given a fair trial Mr Carl Vinson, chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, has introduced a bill in the House authorising the Government to take over industrial plants working on defence orders if a breakdown in production occurs or threatens. ■Mr Vinson said he was acting on his own responsibility, though it is suggested in some quarters that the bill has administration support. It is understood, however, that the President will discourage it, at least lor the present.