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Show Battle: Creek x : -'; ' rk-p- B,K.B. The futility and stupidity of a long drawnout strike was perhaps never better exemplified than by what is happening to 25,000 CIO loggers in Washington and Oregon. After being idle for 12 weeks, the lumberjacks are returning to work. A seven-man fact-finding committee, com-mittee, appointed by Governors of the two states, will work out a solution to the problem. The Unions however, will say "yes" or "no" to the plan. A little arithmetic applied to the troubles of the wood-cutters is interesting in-teresting an enlightening. The loggers log-gers are paid on the average of $12.00 for an eight-hour day. At this rate they have each lost $720 for the 12 weeks they have been idle. If the strike is settled according accord-ing to the pattern of most of the recent disputes, they may get an increase of five cents an hour. Eight times five cents is forty cents per day; which is the amount of wage increase they may expect after the settlement. Dividing forty cents into $720.00, we get 1,800; which is the number of days they must work at the increased wage in order to recover the loss. This amounts to something over seven years. Again, if we multiply $720.00 by 25,000 the number of workers who have been idle we get the staggering total of $18,000,000.00. This is the buying power lost to the communities where the loggers log-gers live. On top of all this, numerous num-erous unscrupulous lumber dealers have raised their prices because of the scarcity; and the common man has taken another beating of several sev-eral millions more. What seems so idiotic in the whole affair is this: If a fact-finding committee can settle the strike now; why coudn't it have been done 12 weeks ago? Why were the men forced to stop working in the first place? When boiled down to its essentials the answer might be just this: It was about time for someone to start throwing his weight around. In practically every prolonged strike in recent times, everyone lost except the top brass. While never having belonged to a labor union, this writer has a suggestion that might help. In the event of a strike, stop everybody's pay, including the labor leaders. This would get things down to fundamentals; and stimulate action act-ion no end. It all reminds me of one of my boyhood fight promoters, who used to say, "Let's you and him have a fight." So long 'til Friday. |