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It was Reuther, boss of the union's G.M. division, and master strategist of the union, who blueprinted the attack on G.M. A onetime tool and diemaker at Ford's, he had learned his strategy in the sitdown strikes of the '30s which had finally brought G.M. to sign a union contract. Since then all union activities pertaining to G.M., such as organizing, bargaining, etc., have been his bailiwick. Ironically, he fathered G.M.'s umpire plan to settle union grievances which kept wartime strikes in G.M. plants lowest in the industry.
But now, as in the fighting '30s, the plan was one of strategic bombing strikes in key plants. Said Reuther: ''We can send thousands of the 325,000 G.M. workers . . . on fishing trips while a few hundred close one plant." He kept the names of the plants to himself, but every G.M. worker knew that the Fisher Body plants headed the list. Without bodies, G.M. could make no cars.
How Long? Meanwhile, the rest of the industry, except for Ford, watched and went on working, getting ready to make cars. Packard hoped to bring its slick line of Clippers out in two weeks; Studebaker. with production almost ready to start, tried to placate the union with a 12¢-an-hour pay raise. Chrysler had little to worry about—for the time being. The union talked of a strike against it too. But, reportedly, Chrysler was so far behind the others in reconverting that its cars might not come out until the first of the year.
Even the Ford Motor Co., which shut down its plants and laid off 50,000 workers rather than struggle with wildcat strikes, could see a silver lining. It had reconverted so fast and made so many cars that it might soon have had to set a price to get them off its hands. If it had, it would have laid itself wide-open to undercutting by all the other automakers. Now it could keep its plants closed while the rest caught up. It was a strategy which might appeal to the entire auto industry. If pressed hard enough, might not the automakers shut down until the new war between labor and management is settled? But could the U.S., which needed the jobs new car production would make, afford that?
*An auto manufacturer may calculate his price in one of two ways: his own 1936-39 profit margin, or one-half the 1936-39 industry average based on 1941 base costs plus increases in basic wages and material costs—or on his 1942 model price, whichever is higher.
*Not to be confused with G.E.'s President Charles Edward Wilson or G.E.'s Engineer Charles Edward Wilson.