Question in Detroit

What is a foreman? Most employers claim he is a boss, and therefore an arm of management. The Foreman's Association of America, a labor union, claims that a foreman is an employe and thus entitled to bargain collectively. NLRB and WLB have skittishly skirted the question.

In Detroit last week, 2,850 F.A.A. members, striking for union recognition, left eleven war plants without foremen. Intense, young (32) F.A.A. President Robert H. Keys, lashing out in all directions, blamed the strike on 1) stubborn plant management, 2) the Government, 3) a hostile National Association of Manufacturers. Pleading the case for his foremen, President Keys said: "All they ask is an avenue for negotiation. . . ." Explained Foreman H. J. Finn, whose son was reported missing in the Pacific last July: "I am fighting for a principle and my son was fighting for a principle, too. Both are important."

The eleven plants went right on working, but at slower pace. Most Detroiters knew that a job without a foreman eventually gets tangled, slows down, finally stops. NLRB hastily tried to make up its mind on two pending cases which will clear up the old, knotty question of a foreman's relations with his bosses.

Meanwhile, the Detroit area (including Ford of Canada's plant across the river at Windsor, Ont.) was having more than foreman trouble. About 22,000 of the area's U.A.W.-C.I.O. workers, disgruntled for a wide variety of reasons, walked out. Union officials pleaded with the wildcat strikers, cajoled, threatened to resign. WLB sent stern back-to-work orders. Most of Detroit's strikers gave in. But at week's end the score stood: 17,500 workers still out, three plants shut down.

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