STRIKES CONTINUE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 106, 3 April 1941, Page 7

STRIKES CONTINUE

;j BIG PLANT IDLE. I (Roc. 8.5 a.m.) NEW YORK, April 1. A sit-down strike by 10,000 members ]! of the Committee of Industrial Organ ! isation of United Automobile Workers j has paralysed production at the Ford Company’s huge River Rouge plant. ! Local police were rushed to the scene, j but so far no violence has occurred, j The Governor has sent a special medii ation commission to attempt to reach i a settlement. The Ford plants hold j 154 million dollars’ worth ol defence i orders. j A later report says the strike at River Rouge is the most serious in the I labour situation in the United States. I The plant is the largest industrial unit jin the world, employing 98,000 men. ! ! Sporadic fighting between pickets land non-strikers broke out at the] I gates of the plant this morning when | the day shift wore reporting for work, i About 150 pickets, with bricks and | clubs, battled with groups of emj ployces. Later about 200 men. mostly | negroes, armed with steel rods, holts, I anil hits of metal emerged from the works and began pelting the C. 1.0. j pickets, who retaliated. Tlie police wore virtually helpless for | a time, hut when the fighters broke j up into small groups officers int.erveni ed and escorted the non-strikers hack) | to fhe plant. At Milwaukee Governor Julius 11 oil j has advised President Roosevelt of fhe j shutting down of the Allis-Chalmers i plant on Wednesday to avoid hloodj shed and possible loss of life. At the same time he requested the presence of Federal troops. Mr Roosevelt indicated to the Press his hope that Labour and Capital will conciliate their differences in a healthy! atmosphere to give and take without] slowing down arms production. He saidi the Administration would not sponsor any new labour programme till the existing machinery for mediation was given a fair trial. Air Vinson, chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, has introduced a Bill authorising the Government to take over industrial plants engaged on defence work if a production breakdown occurs or threatens. In Harlan (Kentucky) bloodshed occurred in a mine strike when a nonunion miner was shot and critically wounded in “Bloody Harlan County,” which does not observe the April 1 holiday. The victim was endeavouring to enter an open-shop mine. The Labour Department said that approximately one million man-days of 1 idleness were involved in 210 strikes in February, in which 20 more strikes were listed than in January, but the workers involved numbered 60,000 compared with 65,000 in January.