United Automobile Worker

UAW BACKS J. I. CASE WORKERS IN BITTER 4 MONTH STRUGGLE

All out support for the four-month old strike of 5,000 employees of the J. I. Case Co. in Racine and Rockford was pledged by the UAW-CIO International Executive Board at its recent meeting in Chicago, following an appeal by UAW Regional Director Joseph Mattson.

The board also ordered UAW President Walter P. Reuther to send a letter to President Harry S. Truman and other government officials urging that the two plants be confiscated "to help alleviate the food shortages throughout the world."

A long-range program of financial and other assistance was mapped by the board after consultation with officials of the striking locals.

A temporary budget providing $2,500 a week for the workers in Rockford and $12,000 a week for those in Racine was approved by the International Executive Board.

The union has existed in the plant by its own economic power and has had only one contract, signed after a WLB order was issued in 1943.

The company, headed by Leon Clausen, who is holding aloft the torch dropped by Sewell Avery of Montgomery Ward and Co., has refused even to confer with U. S. Conciliator James Holmes since he was assigned to the dispute prior to the strike. Recently when officials of Allis Chalmers, International Harvester and J. I. Case were asked to come to Washington to confer with Secretary of Labor Schwellenbach and Secretary of Agriculture Anderson on disputes in the farm implement industry, the Case officials were the only ones to reject the offer.

Chief issues in dispute are the company's refusal to comply with a War Labor Board directive issued last August which provided thousands of dollars in back pay for employees, refusal of the company to discuss recommendations of the WLB on terms of a new contract, and refusal of the company to grant a maintenance of membership clause.

Unfair labor practice charges filed by the union against the company are now before the NLRB in Washington and a court case is pending in which the union seeks to have the court declare void a 1937 letter in which the right of employees to join any union or no union and to bargain individually was set forth. Although the letter was signed by the then union officials, and despite the fact that the WLB refused to include this in the contract it ordered into effect in 1943, the company maintains this is a "contract" binding on the union indefinitely.

Other CIO locals in Racine are rallying to the aid of the Case strikes and have launched a program of $1 a month contributions from all members.

The Case employees, half of whom now have other employment, are digging in for a final test of power with one of America's most arrogant companies.