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Coen: There it is again. You can't talk about this thing without exposing your Socialistic desires.
Reuther: If fighting for a more equal and equitable distribution of the wealth of this country is Socialistic, I stand guilty of being a Socialist.
Coen: You are wasting your time and our time with all this crap.
Watch the General. Like Coen, many U.A.W. members feel that Reuther is garnering too much of U.A.W. 's publicity for himself and using it to his own advantage in intra-union politics. Ever since his ascendancy in powerful, unruly, and often awkward U.A.W., Reuther has done battle with smart, swart Secretary-Treasurer George Addes, who gets the support of U.A.W.'s Communists, although no Communist himself. Paunchy President Thomas is just the man who happened to be there to keep Reuther and Addes apart.
At last year's U.A.W. convention, Thomas lined up with Addes to try to throw Reuther out of office. The maneuver failed. Since then Reuther's star has risen phenomenally. If. he wins any sort of victory in the G.M. strike, he is certain to press Thomas hard for the presidency at U.A.W.'s convention next March.
Reuther is the kind of man who plays politics by seeming not to play them. He appears content to do his work and take whatever rewards it brings. He works day & night. He lives within his $7,000 salary in a frame house in northwest Detroit. His hobbies are playing with his two-year-old daughter Linda or tinkering in his basement carpenter's shop. At dinner with his wife, who was once his secretary, he is apt to listen to news broadcasts or read union speeches while he eats.
What Strategy? These days he has little time for carpentry. In calling the G.M. strike he has taken on the biggest job of his life. Not a few unioneers feel that, from the union standpoint, he called it too early. To date, G.M. had produced about 20,000 cars; it was nowhere near full production. A stop in production now —even a long stop as the result of a protracted strike—will not hurt the company too much, especially since its top competitors are nowhere near full production (Chrysler has not even started).
The initial Reuther strategy was to pick off each of the three big motor-makers, one at a time, and play them off against each other. As of this week, that strategy appears to have failed. A few weeks ago the U.A.W. had high hopes that it could sign young Henry Ford to a contract with a substantial wage increase (about 23%) and use it as a club to beat G.M. and Chrysler. But that hope faded with Henry Ford's blast at U.A.W. (TIME, Nov. 26).
From the country's standpoint, the strike may have disastrous results. A spokesman for the auto industry warned that a long shutdown at G.M. might shut down the entire auto industry, because G.M. supplies parts to everybody. Reuther pooh-poohed this as an industry threat to break the strike. Meanwhile he has asked U.A.W. workers at Ford and Chrysler to produce as many cars as possible "despite all company abuse."