The Daily Independent

United Press Staff Correspondent
Washington, Dec. 20.-(U.P.)—
Labor's big guns roared a warning
tonight that strikes will be called
in two of the nation's blue chip
industries—automobile and steel—
unless their officials recognize
trade unions and bargain with
workers collectively.

Stepping up his 100,000 per
month drive to organize the mass
production industries along "one-
big-union" lines, John L. Lewis,
steely-eyed head of the "rebel" C.
I. O., struck swiftly tonight on
two fronts. The thrusts may de-
cide the outcome of the gravest
labor crisis to confront the nation
in years.

In Pittsburgh. Philip Murray,
Lewis' chief aide, told 250 repre-
sentatives of steel company un-
ions, that a strike would be called
in the $5,000,000,000 industry if it
continues its "dog-in-the-manger"
attitude" toward organized labor.
The
company
union
agents
promptly joined the Lewis forces.

In Detroit. the United Automo-
bile Workers— a C. I. O. union-
inaugurated a furious drive to or-
ganize auto workers with a mass
meeting attended by 2,000 strikers.
The immediate objective of the
auto workers is unionization of
(Continued on page five)
Strike Imminent In the Steel and Motor Industries (Continued from Page One) The 211,000 employees of General Motors Corp.

A show-down in this dispute will come when Homer Martin, president of the auto workers. invites General Motors officials to confer with the unionists on a wage contract. He is expected to extend this invitation within the next 48 hours. No hint has become from the company officials on the attitude they will adopt toward the proposal. Labor officials said privately a strike would follow their refusal to negotiate.

Events of the past week have disclosed salient points of Lewis strategy toward the automobile industry drive. Production was shooting toward its peak when the first of the strikes in auto part plants was called. Rubber workers began "sit-down" strikes. walk- outs were ordered in factories that supply windshields and other glass fixtures essential to the automobile industry.

Today thousands of workers in these allied industries are idle and production in some automobile manufacturing plants has been crippled. Eighty-seven thousand employees of the Ford Motor Company's Rouge plant were laid-off last Friday because of a shortage of parts and officials feared this number would be swelled by more thousands unless the labor unrest is appeased.

Meantime. Murray disclosed tonight in Pittsburgh that the steel drive thus far had netted 128.000 of the industry's 500,000 workers.

They have been enrolled in the Amalgamated Iron. Steel and Tin Association. a "rebel" union.