LABOR: Nothing Serious

A crisis on the labor front—the gravest since the defense program began—had the Office of Production Management scared stiff last week.

Outside Bethlehem Steel Co.'s Lackawanna plant, in freezing weather, Polish, Negro and native-born steelworkers angrily marched in a picket line, on strike. Inside, one by one, open-hearth furnaces shut down, production dwindled, came almost to a standstill.

What scared OPM was that the strike might spread from Buffalo to other Bethlehem plants—Pottstown, Lebanon, Johnstown, the big parent plant at Bethlehem itself. In danger of disruption or complete stoppage was work on...