Three weeks before the election both papers published a cartoon depicting Negroes and whites marching together, arms linked, and carrying a banner with "We Shall Overcome." The caption under the cartoon read, "Where did the above slogan originate?" and "Just a Reminder." Handbills were distributed, stating that employees of the company will vote the destiny of the county, "industrially and taxwise." One antiunion comment said the unions are pushing the civil rights movement because they are infiltrated with Communists. Neither newspaper published the union's organizational views or accepted union advertisements.

The Board overruled the Regional Director's findings that such campaign conduct did not prevent the union from communicating with the employees, and that the employees could reasonably evaluate the racial propaganda since it was truthful. It said the director had misapplied the standard established in the Sewell case, and added: "Sewell stands for the proposition that the Board will not tolerate racial propaganda unless it meets the following conditions: The statements must be truthful, temperate, and germane to a party's position; and they must not deliberately seek to overstress and exacerbate racial feelings by irrelevant, inflammatory appeals," as happened in this case. Regarding other aspects of the antiunion campaign, the Board said that the propaganda methods, particularly those involving the irrelevant racial issue and the exaggerations regarding possible economic hardships, were "calculated to convince the employees that a vote for the union meant the betrayal of the community's best interests." They made impossible a "rational, uncoerced selection of a bargaining representative as contemplated by the act."

Selective Training and Service Act

job, hence of "rights and benefits" measurable in terms of seniority, the Court held.

Following honorable discharge from military service at the end of World War II, several former employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. were reemployed as tugboat firemen without loss of seniority, in compliance with the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940.7

In 1960, following a dispute over abolishment of firemen's jobs because of conversion to diesel tugs by several railroads, the union and the carriers agreed to do away with all firemen positions. The railroads agreed to retain some firemen and to discharge others, with severance pay calculated on the basis of "actual total service rendered by the employee." The veterans in question had to leave their jobs, but their severance allowances did not reflect the time they spent in the military service during the war. They filed claims for the recovery of their balances (a total of $1,242.60 each).

In disposing of the company's argument that the severance pay was not based on seniority, the Supreme Court pointed out that the congressional intent in the act was "to preserve for returning veterans the rights and benefits which would have automatically accrued to them had they remained in private employment rather than responding to the call of their country." It cited its previous decision that ""no practice of employers or agreements between employers and unions can cut down the service adjustment benefits which Congress has secured the veterans under the act.'

8

"The use of the label 'compensated services,' the Court went on to say, "cannot obscure the fact that the real nature of their payment was compensation for loss of jobs. And that cost to an employee of losing his job is not measured by how

• Pasquale J. Accardi v. The Pennsylvania Railroad Co. (U.S. Sup. Ct., Feb. 28, 1966).

7 Section 9 (c) (2) of the act provides: "It is declared to be the sense of the Congress that any person who is restored to a position in accordance with [this act's reemployment provision] should be so restored in such manner as to give him such status in his employment as he would have enjoyed if he had continued in such employment . . from the time of his entering the Armed Forces until the time of his restoration to such employment."

Section 8(c) of the act provides, in part, that returning veterans "shall be entitled to participate in insurance or other benefits offered by the employer pursuant to established rules and practices . . . in effect with the employer at the time such person was inducted into [the Armed] Forces..."

8 Fishgold v. Sullivan Corp. (328 U.S. 275, 284-285).

Chronology of

Recent Labor Events

March 2, 1966

THE New York Telephone Co. and the Communications Workers agreed to a 1-year contract, retroactive to February 27. Craft employees will earn $3.50 to $5 more a week, while the remaining 25,000 workers affected will receive increases of $2.50 to $3.50.

March 11

THE NLRB, in a reversal of past policy, ruled that an employer now needs more than a petition to test majority status of the incumbent union. The Board will require evidence of reasonable grounds for doubting the union's continuing majority. The ruling was applied to dismiss a petition filed by U.S. Gypsum Co., which was seeking to test the status of the Steelworkers at its recently purchased Alabama plant. The Board added that it will no longer direct an election on employer petition where there is mere change of ownership and no assumption of the union contract by the new owner.

A U.S. CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS in Chicago ruled in a 4 to 3 decision, reversing its previous finding, that a union may not fine a member for crossing a picket line to go to work. The new ruling was based on a petition filed by Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co. concerning a strike by the Auto Workers at Allis-Chalmers Co. plants in West Allis, and La Crosse, Wis., in 1959 and 1962.

March 17

A 3-YEAR labor agreement was announced between Jonathan Logan, Inc., and the Ladies' Garment Workers, covering about 5,000 workers in 27 of its plants. It provides wage increases of 5 percent, 4 percent, and 3 percent beginning March 1 of each year from 1966 to 1968 and eliminates the previous 20-cent-an-hour limit on the amount of wages the company must make up if a worker on piecework doesn't produce enough to qualify for the minimum wage. An automatic cost-of-living adjustment was added as well as a provision stating the company's intent to maintain employment at existing plants when building new ones.

March 22

THE NLRB ordered J. P. Stevens & Co. to rehire and pay back wages to 71 employees fired during an organizing campaign by the Textile Workers. In addition, the Board took the unprecedented step of ordering the com

pany to hold meetings of employees for the reading of a notice that the company will not penalize workers for union activity, and to mail notices to its 40,000 employees in North and South Carolina acknowledging its guilt. Also, the company was ordered to permit union access to plant bulletin boards for 1 year.

THE ELECTRICAL WORKERS (IUE) voted to end a 21-day strike over unresolved grievances at General Electric's Appliance Park plant in Louisville, Ky., sending 10,000 idled workers back to the job.

A 1-YEAR contract, effective March 15, provides a 12-centan-hour across-the-board wage increase for 21,500 members of Western Pulp and Paper Workers (AWPPW). The uniform labor agreement with the Pacific Coast Association of Pulp and Paper Manufacturers covers 18 companies and 47 mills. In addition to wage increases, improved fringe benefit, grievance, and arbitration clauses were added.

A contract was also approved between AWPPW and the Western Kraft Corp., of Albany, Oreg., and Richmond, Calif. Western Kraft negotiated separately because it had withdrawn from the manufacturers' association shortly before negotiations began. The major differences between the two contracts were the employer contributions for workers' health coverage ($3 a month in the uniform labor agreement and $5 a month at Western Kraft) and vacation length (the fifth week after 25 years of service, offered under the uniform agreement, was traded for additional health coverage at Western Kraft since that firm would not have any 25-year employees for some time).

March 24

THE ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT reversed a lower court ruling of discrimination by Motorola, Inc., against a Negro job applicant. (See Monthly Labor Review, January 1965, p. 71, and May 1965, p. 569.) The court found that the complaint of unfair practice was not established by a preponderance of the evidence, as required by the Illinois Fair Employment Practice Act.

March 26

PRESIDENT JOHNSON signed into law a bill which extends the Federal Coal Mine Safety Act to all mines, ending exemption for those employing 14 men or less.

March 27

STEELWORKERS LOCAL 302 approved an agreement with the Aluminum Company of America that will keep the Alcoa plant in New Kensington, Pa., in operation but will mean early retirement for some workers and elimination of the incentive pay program for all workers beginning March 28. (The company will pay $730,000 to employees on incentive through the end of 1966.) Alcoa had told union members that in order to keep the plant running, through modernization and expansion, it would need to discontinue bonuses, transfer some operations to other plants, and reduce the work force.

Insurance for hospital extras above $500 was revised so that 80 instead of 75 percent of these costs would be paid and the major medical provision was changed so that up to $1,000 will be restored each year. Previously, there was a $5,000 lifetime maximum on the major medical expense allowance.

For active employees aged 65 or over, the plan provides benefits not covered by Medicare. The $3 monthly fee for Medicare's supplemental plan is to be paid by the Travelers insurance plan.

The Engineers (Ind.), Firemen, Conductors and Brakemen (Ind.), Railroad Trainmen, and Switchmen also agreed with the railroads during February and early March on integration of their welfare plans with Medicare.

General Electric Co. announced that it will pay the full cost of $9,000 in medical benefits which will be provided to each of its 22,000 retired employees. The company currently pays the full cost of $6,000 of retiree's medical insurance, with an additional $3,000 available to the retiree for 75 cents a month for a single person, and $1.50 a

month if spouse is covered. The changes will become effective on July 1, the effective date of the Medicare program.

On January 20, the Communication Workers and Ohio Bell Telephone Co. announced agreement on a hospital-medical plan which integrates private and Medicare benefits for retirees and their dependents to be effective July 1. Under the plan, those qualifying for Medicare will pay $3 a month, and the company will pay the remaining cost. (Retirees had been paying $4.02 a month for individual and $9.34 for family coverage.) Full Blue Cross-Blue Shield protection is to be provided, including payment for all deductibles under Medicare Plan A and Plan B, for 2,400 retirees and their dependents in Ohio. A union spokesman predicted that it would set a pattern for the telephone industry throughout the country.

Contracts in Manufacturing

Three-year contracts between the Hatters and five Massachusetts companies,' affecting more than 1,100 workers, were ratified by union members on January 13. Day workers received a 6-cent-anhour wage increase, retroactive to January 1, and 7- and 6-cent increases are scheduled for January 1, 1967, and January 1, 1968, respectively. Pieceworkers are to receive a 2-percent wage increase on each of the same three dates. The minimum hourly rate was increased to $1.40 (from $1.35), then to $1.45 in 1967 and to $1.50 in 1968; the guaranteed differential between the Federal minimum and the minimum hourly rate was maintained at 10 cents. Company payments to the vacation fund are to increase from 4 to 5 percent of payroll in 1967 to provide improved vacation benefits to employees with a minimum of 10 years' service. The contracts also provided for company contributions to the Millinery Promotion Fund to increase by one-half of 1 percent of payroll in both 1966 and 1967, and made other fringe benefit improvements.

The Philadelphia Apparel Producers Association, the Fashion Apparel Manufacturers Asso

*Prepared in the Division of Wage Economics, Bureau of Labor Statistics, on the basis of published material available in early March.

The Kartiganer Hat Corp. and the Tobias Hat Co. in Upton, Richard Hat Co, in Medway, Lish Hat Co. of Framingham, and the Paul Hat Co. in Worcester.

ciation, and four independent companies reached agreement on 3-year contracts with the Ladies' Garment Workers in late January, affecting some 8,000 employees in Philadelphia. Pieceworkers are to receive a 5-percent wage increase, retroactive to January 1, timeworkers a 10-cent-an-hour increase, and cutters a $5-a-week increase, with additional increases of 3 percent, 5 cents, and $3, respectively, effective January 1968. The cutters' minimum pay was increased to $105 a week, from $90. A paid half holiday on election day was added, bringing the total number of holidays to 612. Companies are to pay an additional 1 percent to the Health Insurance Fund, bringing the total to 7 percent of weekly payroll for company employees and 7 percent of gross payroll of contractors' employees, or 512 percent of contractor's entire bills, for contractors' employees in Philadelphia. A method for upgrading new, inexperienced employees was also provided.

Agreement was reached on February 1 between the General Aniline and Film Corp. and the Distillery Workers on a 2-year contract providing wage increases of 10 cents an hour in the first year, and an additional 9-cent increase to become effective in February 1967, to some 1,200 production workers in Linden, N.J. Other benefits included the addition of a "floating" holiday; the total number of holidays is now 10.

The Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. and the Glass and Ceramics Workers agreed in mid-February to a 3-year contract affecting 8,000 workers in six States. The pact provided wage increases of 13 cents an hour over the term of the contract for bonus paid workers and 31 cents for nonbonus workers. Fringe benefit changes, generally similar to those in the union's agreement with Libbey-Owens-Ford,2 also increased pensions and insurance benefits.

A 2-year contract between H. J. Heinz Co. and the Canning and Pickle Workers Union, representing some 1,800 workers at the company's main plant in Pittsburgh, Pa., was announced on March

Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. and the Communications Workers agreed on February 10 to provide general wage increases ranging from $2 to $4 a week to some 47,000 employees in six States. In addition, 424 towns were reclassified to higher wage schedules. The agreement resulted from the second of two wage reopeners in a 38month contract due to expire in February 1967.

Under similar reopenings, American Telephone & Telegraph Co.'s Long Lines Department and the Communications Workers agreed to wage increases ranging from $2 to $5 a week for 20,000 workers throughout the country. A reduction in the number of wages zones meant an upward reclassification of 154 towns, thereby providing additional increases to employees in these areas.

On March 2, the New York Telephone Co. and the CWA agreed to wage increases ranging from $2.50 to $5 a week for some 25,000 plant and related employees throughout the State. Craft employees received increases of $3.50 to $5, while clerical workers received $2.50 to $3.50 a week, retroactive to February 27.

Maritime Activities

An 11-day wildcat strike of about 1,000 longshoremen in Baltimore ended on February 7. The dispute began on January 28 over a manning problem in the loading of pig iron; the company wanted to use 7 men while Local 829 of the Longshoremen's Association wanted 15 men used. The union also wanted a guaranteed 1,600 hours a year (Longshoremen in New York have such a guarantee).

International President Thomas W. Gleason put the local into trusteeship when the men refused to go back to work. The men did not return until the local's president said he had a promise from Mr. Gleason that he would visit Baltimore and set