Warren Murphy: Union Bust

"I never wanted to hurt the country," said Jimmy McQuade honestly.

And the two agents questioned him until dawn. They got his agreement to put two more men on the job. Themselves.

"That'll be dangerous," said Jimmy McQuade.

"Yes. We think it may well be."

"Okay. I never wanted to hurt anybody, I always thought unionism was protecting the working man."

"That's what we think, too. This is something else."

"We're going back tomorrow."

"You're going back today."

"My men are beat."

"It's not us who are going to do the forcing. You can reach us at this number and we'll be ready when you get your crew together. Don't forget to leave out two of your regular men."

The agents were right. Shortly after ten that morning, the vice-president of the International Communications Workers came to his door.

"What the hell are you doing, wildcatting, you sonuva-bitch!"

"Wildcatting? My men were dying on their feet."

"So they're soft. They'll get in shape."

"They got out of shape on this job."

"Well, you get them the hell back there if you know what's good for you."

And Jimmy McQuade got his men the hell back there, knowing all along what the vice-president meant. Only this crew had two men who seemed to be doing a lot of strolling through the building together.

And their tool box contained a 35-millimeter camera with a telephoto lens. The day's work went well enough, considering that Jimmy McQuade was two men shy. At twelve hours Jimmy McQuade split the group into two shifts, asking one to be back in eight hours and the other to continue to work. The two men who did a lot of strolling and talking to other workers, were with the first group.

The last he saw of them, they were getting on the elevator.

Just before he was about to knock off for his eight hours in the early morning, the builder dropped by his floor.

"Come with me," he said.

They took the closed elevator, the one the workers were not allowed to use. The builder pushed a combination of floors and Jimmy McQuade wondered who else would be getting on the elevator at the floors for which the buttons called. But the elevator did not stop. It continued down past the basement a good three floors. And Jimmy McQuade was afraid.

"Hey. Look. I'll get the job done. You don't have to worry about the job getting done."

"Good, McQuade. I know you will."

"Cause I'm a good worker. The best crew chief in the whole telephone system."

"I know that, McQuade. That's why you were chosen."

Jimmy McQuade smiled, relieved. The elevator door opened to a large room two stories high with maps of America stretched end to end across the wall, a football-field-size America with the Rockies jutting perpendicularly from the wall like a hunchbacked alligator.

"Wow," said Jimmy.

"Pretty nice," said the builder.

"Yeah," said Jimmy. "But something puzzles me."

"Ask away," said the builder.

Jimmy pointed to the bottom of the map, and the auto-length sign with brass letters as high as desks.

"I never heard of the International Transportation Association."

"It's a union."

"I never heard of that union."

"It's not going to exist until April 17. It's going to be the biggest union in the world."

"I'd like to see that."

"Well, that will be a little problem. You see, McQuade, in about ten minutes, you're going to be a puddle."

The secretary of labour and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation finished their reports to the President. The three were alone in the Oval room.

The secretary of labour, a pudgy, balding man with professional bearing, spoke first.

"I think a union combining the major transportation unions, a supertransportation union, is impossible in the United States," said the secretary of labour.

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shuffled his papers and leaned a bit closer to the edge of his seat.

The secretary of labour talked on. "The reason I think so is very simple. The drivers, the pilots, the stevedores, and the trainmen don't have that much central self-interest. In other words, they work for different employers. Moreover, the union leadership of each of these unions has vital concerns with its own sphere of influence. I cannot see four major union presidents willing to give up their own freedom of action. Just impossible. The wage scales of the workers are so different. A pilot makes just about three times what the others make. The membership will never go along. I know the drivers for instance. They're independent. They even dropped out of the AFL-CIO."

"They were kicked out, weren't they?" said the director of the FBI.

The President raised a hand.

"Let the secretary finish."

"Legally they were kicked out. Actually they dropped out. They were told to do certain things or face expulsion. They refused, and the rest was formality. They're an independent breed. Nobody is going to get the International Brotherhood of Drivers into another union. Nobody."

The President looked down at his desk, then back at his secretary of labour. The room was cool, its temperature controlled by an elaborate thermostat that maintained the exact temperature the President wanted. The thermostat was reset every four years. Sometimes every eight years.

"What if the drivers are the union behind this?" asked the President.

"Impossible. I know the current president of that union personally, and no one is getting him, not even us, into an agreement whereby he loses freedom of action."

"What if he's not re-elected at this convention coming up?"

"Oh, he's going to win. He's got, excuse the pun, all the horses."

"If he has all the horses, why was the convention suddenly shifted to Chicago? April 15 to April 17 is not exactly Chicago weather. Permit me a little pun, April in Chicago. I've never heard a song about it."

"These things happen," said the secretary of labour.

"Well, we all know for a fact, that the current president of the drivers wanted Miami. He didn't get Miami. Las Vegas was mentioned, and then in a joint council meeting of their state and area leaders, the convention was moved to Chicago. Now, what if a supertransportation union just happens? Tell me the effects."

"Oh, my Lord," said the secretary of labour. "Off the top of my head I would say it would be horrible. A disaster. Given some time to study it, I would probably say that it would be worse than a disaster. The country would just about close down. There would be a food crisis. There would be an energy crisis. There would be a run on the banking reserves to offset stagnated business like there has never been before. We would have a depression because of layoffs from inoperative factories combined with an inflation because of the scarcities of goods. I would say it would be like closing the arteries on a human being. Killing the flow of blood, if all the transportation unions struck jointly as one, this country would be a disaster area."

"Do you think if you controlled such a union you could get all its members what they wanted?"

"Of course. It's like holding a gun to the head of everyone in the nation. But if this ever happened, there would be legislation from Congress."

"The kind of legislation that would kill unionism and collective bargaining, correct, Mr. Secretary?"

"Yes, sir."

"So either way this situation is highly undesirable."

"It is as undesirable as it is improbable," said the secretary of labour.

The President nodded to his director of the FBI.

"It's not all that improbable, Mr. Secretary. There have been strong financial links between the leaders of the pilots, stevedores, and trainmen with a dissident element of the drivers' union. These links began emerging roughly two months ago. It is this dissident element of the drivers which pushed for, and got, the convention to move to Chicago. Moreover, it is this dissident element that has constructed a large ten-story building just outside Chicago at incredible expense because of the rush aspects of contraction. Incredible expense. We don't know for sure where they got the money. We don't know for sure how they get things done so smoothly, but get things done they do. We have investigated the building and are continuing to attempt to do so. We cannot prove it yet, but we believe two of our agents who are missing were murdered in that building. We have not found their bodies. We have suspicions as to how the bodies are disposed of, but no confirming evidence, as yet."