Recently in Detroit 137,000 employees of the General Motors Corporation voted their overwhelming preference for the Congress of Industrial Organizations to represent them in their dealings with the corporation. In this, the largest National Labour Relations Board election ever held, the C. I. O. faction of the United Automobile Workers of America settled the issue of supremacy in the automotive field raised by the American Federation of Labour automobile union. Thus ended a dispute of a year's standing since the A. F. L. group broke away from the C. I. O. organization and, under the leadership of Homer Martin, established itself as a rival union.
Admittedly the year has been a costly one to both factions and to the automotive and allied industries. On the one hand, there has been a lack of solidarity in the labour organization at a period in its existence when a strong front was essential to its progress, Financially it suffered, for not only were there costly lawsuits in an effort to settle jurisdictional and factional disputes, but there was a loss of retaining their bargaining rights against the pressure on their potential dues payers.
The industry suffered from these factional disputes through a loss of production, when time after time it was necessary to close down production lines and send workers home because the employer was powerless to deal exclusively in the matter of complaints with a single group. Disregarding the results of the elections in the 61 plants in which small, unimportant craft unions were' successful in retaining their bargaining rights against the stronger production and maintenance workers" unions, the voting leaves lite to the A. F. L. faction of the automobile workers, What does this vote mean to the automotive industry generally? The reaction of manufacturers may be placed in two classes. There are those, particularly the big companies, whose employees already are organized and have contracts. These see little possibility of change as a result of the voting. As one employer expressed it hey are strong in our plant now. They can't be any stronger."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.