SPEEDUP ON SLOWDOWNS

STRIKES by public employees make almost everyone unhappy except the strikers themselves--and sometimes even them. When sanitation men refuse to pick up garbage and teachers stay away from their classrooms, the resulting disruptions win little sympathy for their cause. As a result, workers who provide vital public services are turning increasingly to work slowdowns --strikes, of a sort, that do not carry quite the onus of a full-scale walkout. As Anthony D'Avanzo, general chairman of New York City Lodge 886 of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, put it last week, "We don't want to strike, because that would just make us look like culprits."

D'Avanzo's union may not have been striking, but the 180,000 daily commuters on the Long Island Rail Road could hardly tell the difference. Because of a 30% curtailment of normal service, which the state-owned Long Island blamed on a slowdown by D'Avanzo's car repairmen, overcrowded trains whizzed by their usual stops, forcing thousands of frustrated commuters to abandon the platforms in search of other transportation to their jobs. Engaged in a dispute with the ailing Long Island over job security, the union conceded that its men were refusing to work overtime to service trains and were scrupulously following federal safety rules that had long been ignored. But brotherhood officials also charged the railroad with "union busting"; at week's end they vowed to appeal a federal-court preliminary injunction ordering an end to the slowdown.

Ticket Strike. Other slowdowns have taken a variety of forms. To back up their demands for higher pay and shorter working hours, Kansas City firemen resorted to a slowdown in 1966 during which they continued to answer alarms but refused to keep records, make safety inspections or clean up debris after fires. Detroit policemen, demanding more money and better work conditions, staged a brief "ticket strike" last year, deliberately cut the number of summonses issued for minor traffic violations by 50%. Slowdowns also occur when workers phone in sick in large numbers, a ruse used over the past 18 months by Philadelphia street cleaners, San Antonio garbagemen and Des Moines firemen.

Such tactics often prove remarkably successful. Last fall 800 Los Angeles County probation officers deliberately dragged their heels on the job, winning a reduction of case loads in the process. Far more dramatic is the current slowdown by Federal Aviation Administration air-traffic controllers, which has snarled airports in metropolitan New York and elsewhere with flight delays. Unhappy over a manpower shortage and congested skyways, the traffic controllers have been playing strictly by the rule book in clearing planes for take-offs and landings. They scored one breakthrough earlier this month when Congress empowered the FAA to hire an additional 2,439 air controllers. Last week they scored another when Transportation Secretary Alan S. Boyd warned that Washington would limit traffic at New York airports unless the aviation industry took steps to relieve the congestion.

Minor League Activity. Nowhere have slowdowns caused more trouble than in New York City. Last summer more than 3,000 city welfare employees staged a "work-in," during which they showed up at the office but refused to process cases. Unhappy over slow progress in contract talks, 115 nurses at two city hospitals phoned in sick one day this month, an epidemic that forced doctors and supervisory personnel to take over their chores. Three weeks ago, embroiled in a dispute over how many new fire fighters the force should hire, uniformed firemen and the city averted a threatened slowdown only by agreeing to submit the issue to a fact-finding board.

This week the 1,000-member subway-supervisors union plans to meet and decide what action to take if there is no progress on contract negotiations with New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The union may strike or show its grievance with a slowdown. Even if it chooses the latter course, says Union Chief Frank Tedesco, the troubles for the city's 4,500,000 daily subway riders would "make the Long Island Rail Road tie-up look like minor-'league activity."

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