Word: phil
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...half a dozen smaller firms. Now, they were firmly against any form of union shop, as a matter of "principle." Said U.S. Steel's Vice President John A. Stephens: "In the U.S., membership or nonmembership in a union should be a matter of free choice with the individual." Phil Murray scoffed. He wanted to know how the companies could say they were standing on principle when they have union-shop agreements with other groups of employees, such as their coal miners, seamen and railroad workers...
...tentatively offered a bigger wage-benefit boost than most observers thought they would. By doing so, they had hoped to isolate the union-shop issue, so that they could argue that Murray was keeping the strike going only to build his union's membership and its treasury. Phil Murray, who didn't want the union-shop issue isolated, contended hotly that there had not been a final agreement on anything...
...then requested the President to use the Taft-Hartley law. Truman in his speech had made it clear that he was against the law, and would use it only if Congress urged him to, i.e., if it freed him of political responsibility for invoking it in this election year. Phil Murray was violently against it too. Like Harry Truman, he didn't want the law to get any credit for settling the strike...
Glumly, the nation's mobilizers turned their attention to living with the strike. They would try to route critical orders to the 29 steel plants still operating (because their workers are unorganized, or because they have new or unexpired contracts), and they would try to take advantage of Phil Murray's offer to reopen enough plants to keep defense production going. A mobilization official was less than confident about how much steel these efforts would provide. Said he: "It won't be a drop in the damn bucket...
...some manufacturers (e.g., jet engine plants), who need special high-alloy steel. On the television-equipped picket lines, the workers have not yet asked for help from union welfare funds, but the steelworkers' treasury and those of other big C.I.O. unions are ready to help in hardship cases.* Phil Murray and his lieutenants vowed that they would "never surrender." Said Murray: "There just isn't any group or citizen in this country big enough to whip this union...