Key Spot

Of all the unions in U.S. labor, the most potentially important is C.I.O.'s United Automobile Workers. The man who can run that rambunctious outfit may well be the future boss of U.S. labor.

On its way to becoming the biggest union in the U.S., last week U.A.W. was fairly busting its pants. In two years its dues-paying membership had tripled, was around half a million. Its bank account had swollen 650% to a fat $439,663. Holding its sixth convention, in Buffalo, chesty U.A.W. changed its name to the United Auto, Aircraft and Agricultural Implements Workers, announced a membership goal of 1,000,000 in the next four years.

One man who is well aware of U.A.W.'s key position is John L. Lewis. While C.I.O. President Philip Murray lay convalescing from overwork and nervous exhaustion, John Lewis moved in on U.A.W. with the stealth of an elephant crashing through a cane brake.

Mr. Lewis did not go to Buffalo himself. But an intimate henchman, Allan S. Haywood, C.I.O.'s national director of organization, did. From a hotel room Haywood proceeded to pull strings. There were plenty to pull. Big and lusty as it was, U.A.W. was split by factionalism. On one side were Walter Reuther and Dick Frankensteen, who were determined to purge U.A.W. of Communists and oust wavy-haired, black-browed George Addes from his job as secretary-treasurer. On the other side was saturnine Mr. Addes and some shadowy figures in dark corners.

Frankensteen was persuaded to abandon Reuther, flop over to Addes' side; he was slated for a new office especially created: U.A.W. vice president. The radical element in U.A.W. was to be let alone. Communists in North American Aviation Corp., who two months before had engineered a wildcat strike (TIME, June 16) and defied U.A.W. and C.I.O. leaders, and whom the Reuther group wanted to hang and quarter, were to be given a thoroughgoing slap on the wrist. The whole program was to be labeled "harmony."

This deal burst like a bomb on the sweltering, restless convention. The Reuther group bellowed: "Cheap politics." Dick Frankensteen's lame explanation that he did not want to "crucify" the North American local got more boos than cheers. President Roland Jay Thomas, as inept as a June bug, bumped his head against both sides. Many a cautious delegate believed that a Red purge might do U.A.W. more harm than good. But the Reuther group, angry at Frankensteen's flipflop, were out for blood.

To their delight they discovered that they commanded a majority of votes. In one skirmish after another they routed the Lewis-Addes side. By week's end it was plain that Mr. Lewis was taking a pratfall. Showdown would be over ousting the Communists, beating George Addes, electing a new executive board with a Reuther majority on it. But the final showdown would be bigger than that. As the convention went into its second hot, tense week in Buffalo, behind the scenes the fight was on for control of U.S. labor.

On other Labor fronts:

At Federal Shipbuilding and Dry dock Co.'s vast yards in Kearny, N.J., labor and management came to an impasse over a matter of policy. Wages, hours and conditions of work had already been settled or were not a matter of serious dispute. For promising 0PM to forgo strikes for a year, C.I.O. shipyard workers demanded a "union shop." Federal, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel, rejected the point on principle, stuck to Big Steel's long insistence on the open shop, turned down a Defense Mediation Board's compromise.

Sixteen thousand employes quit work. Launching of the Navy's new cruiser Atlanta was postponed. Work on $450,000,000 worth of destroyers, freighters, oil tankers ceased. From Washington this week came reports that the Navy might seize the plant. The management's answer: the Navy could have it.

> Strike-shut was Curtiss-Wright's propeller plant in Caldwell, N.J. An NLRB election had ended in a victory for an independent union. Defeated A.F. of L. employes, crying that the election had been unfair, had promptly raised the issue of higher wages, and when the company refused to negotiate with them had walked out. Tied up was production of all-important propellers for all-important planes.

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