National Affairs: Strike-of-the-Week

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One morning last week in Milwaukee, 64-year-old Fred Ernst Yahr arrived to begin another day's work at the Yahr-Lange Drug Co., of which he had been president, general manager and principal stockholder for 18 years. Before he reached his office he learned that none of the 115 employes in the seven-floor establishment was turning a hand in the interest of Yahr-Lange's prosperous wholesale trade. When he got to his desk, his chief accountant, his sales manager and his credit manager were waiting to tell him why.

They and the rest of the employes, they informed him, had voted to sit down until he granted their single demand: he must resign and let someone else run the business. President Yahr told them they were ridiculous, ordered them back to work. But the employes were resolute. Customers who called could not get them to interrupt bridge games or badminton contests to fill orders. Telephones rang unanswered. President Yahr finally called in the board of directors. The bargaining committee explained to the directors that, although not unionized, they had decided on concerted action because of President Yahr's policy of hiring young men and women at low pay and firing them to hire others when their length of service entitled them to pay rises. President Yahr denied that this was his policy, but after day-long conferences he capitulated, agreed to fire himself. They let him keep his stock and title of president.