MANAGEMENT: Neglected Duty

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When Arthur Deutsch, a linotyper in Manhattan's Publishers Printing Co., asked to have his vacation in March so he could visit Europe, the company readily agreed. But no sooner had he landed abroad than he joined a group called the American Committee to Survey Labor Conditions in Europe, traveled with it through Poland and ended up at the Moscow International Economic Conference.

When Deutsch returned to the U.S., he was called on the carpet by Sampson Field, president of the company. Two of his big customers, the U.S. Government and the City of New York, Field pointed out, had complained about Deutsch's activities, intimated that the company would lose the business of printing confidential material if something wasn't done about Deutsch. Could Deutsch explain his vacation activities? Deutsch gave a vague explanation that his visit to Poland and Russia was a spur-of-the-moment whim, mainly because his parents had come from those countries. Unsatisfied, Field fired Deutsch under the "neglect of duty" clause in the union contract. The A.F.L. typographical union appealed the decision, arguing that Deutsch could not be fired for something he had done on his own time.

Last week Theodore Kheel, a longtime arbitrator between management and labor in the printing trade, okayed Deutsch's firing, said it was indeed "neglect of duty," vacation time or not. The issue, Kheel ruled, was whether his conduct had actually hurt the company. Summed up Kheel: "It is quite clear that the company was harmed by Deutsch's course of conduct and ... by his participation in a planned pro-Communist propaganda campaign designed to attract publicity . . ."