Word: bergoff
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...last summer at sight of two well-known townsmen in conference over a lunch table in a dark corner. One of them was James H. Rand Jr., brisk, bulky president of Remington Rand, Inc., world's biggest makers of office equipment. The other was gruff, blocky Pearl Louis Bergoff, No. 1 U. S. strikebreaker...
Last week in Manhattan, red-headed Strikebreaker Bergoff told the National Labor Relations Board some of the things that he and Tycoon Rand discussed last summer. "Most of the time." said he, "we talked about football. Jim [Harvard 1908] was telling me what a great football player he was. He thought he was better than Jim Thorpe in his younger days, and I told him he wasn't." Mr. Bergoff also said they had talked business-the breaking of strikes then in progress at six Remington Rand plants (TIME, June 22). It was in connection with that series...
...Witness Bergoff, who has supplied strongarm platoons to many a strike-sieged employer in the past 20-odd years and claims to have made millions doing it (lost later in speculations), described a change of technique in his business since the days when he sent out tough scabs ("finks") to take over strikers' jobs. Now, he said, he sends "missionaries" who try to persuade strikers to go back to work...
Most indignant was Breaker Bergoff at what happened to some of his men at Remington Rand's Tonawanda, N. Y. plant. Tycoon Rand wanted them to walk through picket lines, thus give loyal employes courage to follow. When the Bergoff huskies tried it, they were showered with bricks. "Rand," recounted Bergoff last week, "kind of put it over on me. I didn't know my men were getting into quite such a dangerous spot. He even wanted me to bring women up there, but I didn't do it, and I'm glad I didn...
Nothing but Federal legislation could put Bergoff out of business. But a combination of growing industrial enlightenment, Governmental disfavor and the New Deal's labor mediation services made it seem probable last week that the lushest profits of the Bergoff system were behind...