Liberal Union Becomes 'Impartial,' Leaves Bra Company Strikers' Side

The Liberal Union yesterday dropped its support of the picketers in the Revelation Bra Company strike and became "impartial". The executive board of the H.L.U. announced that it "cannot concur in some of the methods which the union has employed in this particular case."

Meanwhile, the Harvard Society for Industrial Democracy announced it is continuing to support the union, and will send pickets to the plant this week.

H.L.U. representatives have investigated the union an company positions in the organizational strike of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union against the bra company, and have reconsidered their original, immediate support of the "traditionally liberal cause."

Violence in Homes

Violence against workers crossing the picket line, and against some workers in their homes, is a cause of the Liberal Union's change of position. Its members feel that the union has condoned this violence.

The union claims that since it first started organizing the plant in January, company opposition and discrimination against union supporters in work assignments (jobs are scaled on a piece-work system) have conspired to create hostile feeling among many of the workers against the union.

One of the owners replied that the union has never represented a majority of the workers in the plant, and that an election would prove this.

The union now has charges of unfair labor practices pending with the National Labor Relations Board. It charges discrimination against, and firing of, union followers, and coercion of workers in the plant so that they will oppose the union. An election cannot be held, the law says, while charges are pending.

The union admits, however, that they never had more than a bare majority of the workers, due to company hostility. Union organizer Lewis Glickman said that the union would not now command a majority of the votes.

A memorandum of agreement was initiated by both parties late in March before a Federal Mediator, providing for higher wages, vacations with pay, paid holidays, and a health fund. The company says this is not binding because the union did not represent a majority of the workers at that time.