LABOR: Wrong Number?

At 8 o'clock one morning last week, 20,000 Western Electric installation men tore up their picket signs and went back to work for an 11½¢ hourly raise. The six-week-old telephone strike, dead in spirit since the operators capitulated three weeks ago, was also dead in fact.

Promptly, the disillusioned affiliates of the National Federation of Telephone Workers began preparing for N.F.T.W.'s own funeral. From the start of the strike they had realized that N.F.T.W., unaffiliated with either C.I.O. or A.F.L., was too weak to buck the concerted power of A.T. & T. Now it was so battered it hardly seemed worth...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!