LABOR: Hari Carey?

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For the first time in the postwar era, a major nationwide strike against a giant corporation producing consumer goods was being broken—and by the workers themselves. After two weeks of strike against General Electric, more and more members of the International Union of Electrical Workers were defying Union President James Carey and reporting to work. The action was the result of the steadily hardening attitude of management toward union demands, which first turned up in the auto strike two years ago and in the steel strike last year.

The first big break in the union ranks came in Schenectady, N.Y. at G.E.'s biggest plant, where the 8,700 members of I.U.E. Local 301 had never shown much enthusiasm for a strike. Local 301 stayed out only eleven days, then went back to work. Explained Leo Jandreau, the local's business agent: "Carey is on a suicidal expedition that will weaken the I.U.E. There are no fighting issues in the G.E. strike."

Carey scathingly denounced Jandreau as a "Judas," got the union's conference board to agree to give him another week to reach a settlement with G.E. One week more was all the longer that some local chiefs thought they could keep their members out. Workers at the Bridgeport, Conn, plant had already returned; Pittsfield, Mass, was tottering, and Burlington, Vt. started action to declare itself independent of the I.U.E.

Carey softened his demands by dropping the key issue of a cost-of-living escalator, but G.E. turned him down. Since 62 other unions within G.E. have accepted its contract proposals, G.E. refuses to modify them under pressure of the big union that went out on strike. Said G.E. Chief Negotiator Philip D. Moore: "Carey is looking for one concession which he can represent as a great victory that he wrung out of the company. He is a master at taking the skin from a gnat and stretching it over a boxcar. Well, he's not going to get a concession from G.E."

More pressure on Carey to surrender came from another quarter. Rather than call a strike, the I.U.E. representatives negotiating a new contract with Westinghouse Electric accepted the company's offer with only a few modifications that did not raise the cost of the total package.

The differences between the Westinghouse contract and G.E.'s offer were slight. At week's end, Carey could hold out no longer. He agreed to end the strike, accept G.E.'s contract proposals which called for an immediate 3% wage increase plus other benefits which would bring an additional 4% in April, 1962.