Toward Target Day

The announced business of the convention was to make ''one big union" out of six C.I.O. and one independent maritime unions./- But hardly had the 240 delegates seated themselves in the tobacco-fogged auditorium of San Francisco's Eagles Hall last week before they began to function as a strike strategy committee.

Wrinkled, grandpappyish Eugene F. Burke, 71, president of the Marine Cooks & Stewards, called the first assembly to order. "As I understand it," said he, peering over his spectacles, "we are going to try and unite all organizations ... so that we can use our economic strength where it is necessary. ... It might be a month, or six months, or a year. . . . But that organization will be built. . . ."

None of the following speakers seemed to doubt Pappy Burke. But the mechanical details of consolidation bored them. The air was electric with hit-the-bricks talks. Cried lean, keen Harry Bridges: "The I.L.W.U. is ready to roll right now. The shipowners . . . are as tough and nasty as I have ever seen them."

When the cheering had died down, the delegates appointed a committee of 35 members, five from each union, to formulate the "national strike policy," and the cornerstone of the unprecedented maritime amalgamation was laid. Then the

N.M.U.'s Joe Curran set the strike date: June 15.

For 15 minutes the delegates whooped, rang bells, filled the air with paper showers and snake-danced around the dingy hall. They sang Solidarity Forever and On the Picket Line while Convention Secretary Lou Goldblatt banged on a grand piano.

The delegates had done more than set a strike date. They had formed the C.I.O.'s sixth biggest union (214,000 members). And they had given the competition, the A.F. of L. maritime unions on both coasts, a tough trend to buck or follow.

/- The International Longshoremen's & Ware housemen's Union, the American Communications Association, the Inland Boatmen's Union, the Na tional Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association, the National Maritime Union and the National Union of Marine Cooks & Stewards (all C.I.O.), and the Pacific Coast Marine Firemen, Oilers, Water-tenders and Wipers (independent).

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