LABOR: Welders' Woes

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A handful of West Coast welders packed their bags last week and got ready to depart for Hawaii. They figured that it was the only way out of their pickle.

For years, almost since welding became a major tool of modern construction, welders have had peculiar troubles. They are generally migrant workers. The A.F. of L. has never granted them an autonomous union. They have been forced to join whatever A.F. of L. union had jurisdiction over the job they happened to be working on.

Consequently, a welder's memberships would read like a partial roster of A.F. of L. craft unions: the Boilermakers, the Carpenters (to work on steel window frames), the Sheet Metal Workers, the Plumbers, the Sawmill Workers, the Machinists. For each new membership he had to fork out an initiation fee, until his pockets bulged with union cards but his pocketbook was flat.

Welders protested loudly to the A.F. of L. convention in Seattle last October, but got nowhere. More recently, welders on shipbuilding jobs in the San Francisco Bay area, fed up, refused to pay dues to the Boilermakers. The Boilermakers, who had a closed-shop agreement, demanded that management fire the rebels. Management had to.

A hopeful independent union, the United Weldors,† Cutters and Helpers of America, called on the 200,000 welders in the U.S. to strike in protest. Promptly U.S. troops with fixed bayonets and armored cars rolled into the Bay area. OPM's Sidney Hillman, who declared that "no welder need belong to more than one union to work anywhere in any shipyard," sputtered from Washington: "Shocking act of disloyalty." A.F. of L. officials raised their hands in holy horror. Public opinion fell on the welders' heads like a ton of bricks. The strike call was a dud. Only a scattering from a few Pacific Coast yards responded to it. At one yard last week A.F. of L. boilermakers charged out and dispersed a straggling picket line.

Maintaining that they wanted to work, one of the strikers' spokesmen promised: "We'll buy defense bonds with the money A.F. of L. wants as dues and fees." More than a score signed up for Navy construction jobs in Hawaii. There, under Civil Service, they can toss their union cards into Pearl Harbor. And doubtless will.