The most disgraceful jurisdictional strike in U.S. labor history closed two Michigan war plants last week and crippled a third. The cause was fantastic: a fight between C.I.O. and A.F. of L. for control of Pontiac's grocery clerks.
Because the C.I.O. clerks won a contract, the A.F. of L. threw picket lines around Pontiac's 200 independent groceries. The teamsters, their colleagues, then refused to make deliveries across the line. The stores had to close.
In retaliation, the C.I.O. clerks put pickets around war plants. At Pontiac
Motor Co. (guns and tank parts), 7,000 C.I.O. autoworkers refused to cross the line. At Yellow Truck...
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