Strike Leader In Hospital

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30951, 6 January 1966, Page 9

Strike Leader In Hospital

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, January 5. New A ork's crippling public transport strike today entered its fifth day with the strikers’ leader, Mr Michael Quill, lying seriously ill in hospital.

Eight of his top lieutenants are in gaol, where he collapsed.

The flamboyant union leader’s sudden illness reportedly shook the three-man panel trying to mediate between the 35,000-member Transport Workers’ Union I and their employer body, the | city Transit Authority. A source close to one of the mediators said: “W’e don’t! know what’s going to happen, | It is going to have a very serious effect on the whole thing, but we don’t know which way.” But the city’s new Republican Mayor, Mr John Lindsay, took a more optimistic view. “The chances of reaching; agreement are not diminished,” he told a press conference late last night. Mr Lindsay, who took office the day the strike began, said: “I will keep the pressure on very heavily to bring this (strike) to the fastest possible settlement that is fair to all.” The union’s second-string negotiators and the mediation panel last night held a meeting which was hoped would lead to a joint bargaining session between union leaders and Transit Authority representatives.

Mr Quill, a 60-year-old native of Ireland, and his aides had been in gaol—for committing contempt of Court by defying an order banning the strike—less than two hours when he collapsed. He has a history of heart trouble, but late last night the supervising medical superintendent of Bellevue Hospital said cardiogram tests had shown no definite sign of a heart attack.

The rough-tongued unionist’s condition was described as serious but not critical. The superintendent said he had improved considerably in hospital. The bus and underground railway strike, called in support of more pay and shorter hours, is costing the city’s economy up to 100 million dollars a day, according to the New York Commerce and Industry Association's latest estimate.

Traffic jams were worse than ever yesterday, as many more people, encouraged by relatively free passage on Monday, ignored appeals to leave their cars at home.

Another factor was that schools opened yesterday for the first time since the New Year holiday. In the evening rush hour, cars were bumper to bumper, congealing into vast stationary masses at the narrow entrances to bridges and tunnels leading from Manhattan Island.

At Pennsylvania station, one of the major railway terminals, 10,000 milling commuters, packed shoulder to shoulder, stormed police barricades before they were brought under control.