Meeting of the Board | Page 5

salaries, the tightening up of inter-union collusion to establish the infamous White list of Recalcitrant Managers. The shift from hourly wage to annual salary for the factory workers, and the change to the other pole for the managerial staff. And then, with creeping malignancy, the hungry howling of the union bosses for more and higher dividends, year after year, moving steadily toward the inevitable crisis.
Until Shop Steward Bailey suddenly found himself in charge of a dozen sputtering machines and an empty office.
* * * * *
Torkleson was waiting to see the shop steward when he came in next morning. The union boss's office was crowded with TV cameras, newsmen, and puzzled workmen. The floor was littered with piles of ominous-looking paper. Torkleson was shouting into a telephone, and three lawyers were shouting into Torkleson's ear. He spotted Bailey and waved him through the crowd into an inner office room. "Well? Did they get them fixed?"
Bailey spread his hands nervously. "The electronics boys have been at it since yesterday afternoon. Practically had the machines apart on the floor."
"I know that, stupid," Torkleson roared. "I ordered them there. Did they get the machines fixed?"
"Uh--well, no, as a matter of fact--"
"Well, what's holding them up?"
Bailey's face was a study in misery. "The machines just go in circles. The circuits are locked. They just reverberate."
"Then call American Electronics. Have them send down an expert crew."
Bailey shook his head. "They won't come."
"They what?"
"They said thanks, but no thanks. They don't want their fingers in this pie at all."
"Wait until I get O'Gilvy on the phone."
"It won't do any good, sir. They've got their own management troubles. They're scared silly of a sympathy strike."
The door burst open, and a lawyer stuck his head in. "What about those injunctions, Dan?"
"Get them moving," Torkleson howled. "They'll start those machines again, or I'll have them in jail so fast--" He turned back to Bailey. "What about the production lines?"
The shop steward's face lighted. "They slipped up, there. There was one program that hadn't been coded into the machines yet. Just a minor item, but it's a starter. We found it in Towne's desk, blueprints all ready, promotion all planned."
"Good, good," Torkleson breathed. "I have a directors' meeting right now, have to get the workers quieted down a bit. You put the program through, and give those electronics men three more hours to unsnarl this knot, or we throw them out of the union." He started for the door. "What were the blueprints for?"
"Trash cans," said Bailey. "Pure titanium-steel trash cans."
It took Robling Titanium approximately two days to convert its entire production line to titanium-steel trash cans. With the total resources of the giant plant behind the effort, production was phenomenal. In two more days the available markets were glutted. Within two weeks, at a conservative estimate, there would be a titanium-steel trash can for every man, woman, child, and hound dog on the North American continent. The jet engines, structural steels, tubing, and other pre-strike products piled up in the freight yards, their routing slips and order requisitions tied up in the reverberating machines.
But the machines continued to buzz and sputter.
The workers grew restive. From the first day, Towne and Hendricks and all the others had been picketing the plant, until angry crowds of workers had driven them off with shotguns. Then they came back in an old, weatherbeaten 'copter which hovered over the plant entrance carrying a banner with a plaintive message: ROBLING TITANIUM UNFAIR TO MANAGEMENT. Tomatoes were hurled, fists were shaken, but the 'copter remained.
The third day, Jeff Bates was served with an injunction ordering Towne to return to work. It was duly appealed, legal machinery began tying itself in knots, and the strikers still struck. By the fifth day there was a more serious note.
"You're going to have to appear, Walter. We can't dodge this one."
"When?"
"Tomorrow morning. And before a labor-rigged judge, too." The little lawyer paced his office nervously. "I don't like it. Torkleson's getting desperate. The workers are putting pressure on him."
Walter grinned. "Then Pendleton is doing a good job of selling."
"But you haven't got time," the lawyer wailed. "They'll have you in jail if you don't start the machines again. They may have you in jail if you do start them, too, but that's another bridge. Right now they want those machines going again."
"We'll see," said Walter. "What time tomorrow?"
"Ten o'clock." Bates looked up. "And don't try to skip. You be there, because I don't know what to tell them."
Walter was there a half hour early. Torkleson's legal staff glowered from across the room. The judge glowered from the bench. Walter closed his eyes with a little smile as the charges were read: "--breach of contract, malicious mischief, sabotage of the company's machines, conspiring to destroy the livelihood of ten thousand workers.