Brakes on the Big Town

On one day last week there were 40 strikes going on in New York City. One of them had New Yorkers jittery; it threatened to take a major bite out of their food supplies and to cut off their newspapers, cigarets, soap, candy bars and hundreds of the items they purchase daily over store counters. Unless it ended soon, it would throw hundreds of thousands out of jobs.

The strikers were about 12,000 A.F.L. truck drivers who work for general hauling contractors. Out in sympathy were some 15,000 drivers in nearby New Jersey cities. The issue: a demand for a 30% pay increase (present scale: $8.45 to $11.63 a day).

The walkout immediately blocked some 5,000 long-distance trucks which daily rumble into the metropolitan area with much of the city's food, manufacturing and mercantile supplies. Strike leaders promised to keep food and essential drug supplies moving, but in many cases drivers refused to haul food to chain stores, most of whose shelves were almost empty.

About 70,000 warehousemen were made idle at once. Many industries, including the immense garment and printing trades, air-braked to a creep by lack of supplies and glutted by unmovable finished products, served notice of shutdowns if the tieup continued. Mayor William O'Dwyer stepped in with a settlement proposal-- the magic 18 1/2-an-hour raise. But the drivers, against the urgings of their union leaders, tossed it back to him as unacceptable.

New Yorkers had suffered since V-J day from elevator tieups, two tugboat strikes that periled fuel and power supplies (see above), a war of nerves over a subway standstill, and now this. They had learned two things:1) how easily one union can put the brakes on the Big Town; 2) there was nothing they could do about it.

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