LABOR: Embarrassing Picket

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As he strode into the united labor movement's sleek, modern headquarters in Washington last week, burly A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany blushed for all to see. Plodding back and forth on the sidewalk was a pudgy picket carrying a sandwich board that proclaimed: 21 YEARS AN A.F.L.-C.I.O. ORGANIZER THEN FIRED BY A 3^ STAMP. Admitted an A.F.L.-C.I.O. official: "It's damned embarrassing."

The embarrassing picket was James Sweeny, 59, a onetime coal miner and longtime professional organizer who was booted out of his $6,500-a-year job a few weeks ago and into retirement with a $96-a-month pension. At the same time, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. fired, retired or switched to different jobs nearly 100 organizers (out of 218). The A.F.L.-C.I.O. explained the shake-out as a necessary economy measure, but to the jolted organizers and ex-organizers it seemed just a hard-fisted example of old-fashioned capitalistic union-busting. Reason: early in 1957, the organizers organized a little union of their own, the Field Representatives Federation, and tried to get the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to recognize it. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. balked, and the thwarted F.R.F. took its case to the National Labor Relations Board, where the decision is still pending. Muttered one F.R.F. member: "Union leaders make lousy employers."