The Staggers

Statistically, Lawrence, Mass, was in parlous shape. Lawrence is a textile town (it makes more worsted than any other U.S. city); this winter some mills' production had been off as much as 40%. More than 20,000 of Greater Lawrence's 52,077 workers were listed last week as unemployed.

But along the Merrimack River, the textile mills hummed and chattered. The cobbled main street was thronged with shopping housewives, suits moved briskly off the rack; at Nick Maloof's restaurant ("where the elite meet the dawn") business was fine. Said Austin O'Toole, owner of the town's biggest market: "These people aren't on pork & beans. You know the first thing we sold out today? Lobster."

Lawrence had found a way to ease its labor pains a little. Instead of laying men off, the mills furloughed men in rotation. For the weeks of furlough, each worker marched over to the unemployment office and drew unemployment pay from the state. (Except for the first layoff each year, Massachusetts does not require a waiting period.) Explained Al Bradstreet, a weaver in American Woolen's Wood mill: "I'm off one week in three. When I'm off, I get $25 plus $2 for each of the three kids. Nobody wants this to go on, but oh boy, things would really be bad if they just laid off without the stagger."

Few in Lawrence would disagree. Mill-owners were glad to keep their labor force intact; unions had the stagger provision written into contracts. Said Arthur Brown, area director for the C.I.O.'s Textile Workers Union: "It costs the state no more to issue three consecutive compensation checks to three different men than to issue them to the same man. And if they just lay off, not only do the people who are unemployed stop buying, but so do the ones who are employed."

Nobody pretended that the stagger system was anything more than a cure for economic snuffles, seasonal sprain and local dislocations: a real galloping case of economic depression would quickly empty the Massachusetts unemployment fund. Last week the fund was paying out $1,000,000 more than it was taking in.

Lawrence was not too worried about that. The patient seemed to be feeling a little better already: the fall orders were coming in, and one big mill had started a double shift two days a week.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.