Judge Tells Farah to Rehire Strikers

In a long-awaited and far-reaching decision, a National Labor Relations Board judge Wednesday ordered the Farah Manufacturing Company to reinstate 2,000 striking workers and to give the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union (ACWA) full access to all Farah factories.

Accusing Farah of wholesale "lawlessness," Walter H. Maloney, the Board's administrative law judge, ruled that the company must rehire the six employees originally ousted for union activity and compensate them for the loss of 20 months' salary.

Maloney also ordered Farah to pay all legal costs for both the union and the National Labor Relations Board.

"This respondent [Farah] has been repeatedly directed to mend its ways," Maloney wrote, "and yet it continues on as if nothing had happened, pursuing its policy of flouting the Board and trampling on the rights of employees as if there were no act, no board, and no Ten Commandments."

A Farah spokesman, Alvin Herman, said yesterday that Maloney's "drastic penalties are so extreme that even lawyers for the ACWA did not dare suggest them."

Appeal Planned

Farah plans to appeal the ruling to the full Board within 20 days, Herman said. Maloney's statement is "simply a recommended decision and has no binding force on the Board itself," he said.

Herman charged the judge with "wholesale disregard for the principles of due process" and said the ruling was based on "ACWA propaganda."

"The public may well suspect that Maloney, who recklessly brands a company as disrespectful of the Ten Commandments, shows possible disregard for that commandment which forbids bearing false witness against one's neighbor," Herman said.

Robert Wiseman, a Boston representative of the Union, said last night, "There is also a commandment which says 'thou shalt not steal' and underpaying laborers is the same as stealing from them."

Wiseman added that he believes the Board will uphold Maloney's decision because it is an "accurate and unbiased opinion after much investigative work."

The Farah spokesman said he expects the Board "to summarily reject Maloney's recommendations and fully exonerate Farah."

Strike

The 2,000 Chicano strikers first walked out on May 10, 1972, to protest the dismissal of six workers who were attempting to organize a union in one of Farah's El Paso, Texas, plants.

Although Farah replaced the strikers, the company has been hard hit by a national boycott endorsed by the AFL-CIO and several large religious organization.

Plummeting sales and profits have forced Farah to close down almost half of its plants in the Southwest.