The Motor Strikes in America Since its foundation in November,
1935, Mr. John L. Lewis' Committee for Industrial Organisation has with extraordinary rapidity revolutionised the labour situation in America. The latest crisis in this process was reached on Monday, when the United Automobile Workers of America threatened to bring the motor industry in Detroit to a standstill unless the police ceased to evict stay-in strikers in minor industries in the city. The union includes 175,000 members, and Mr. Lewis, who is backing it in the dispute, has already shown, in his struggle with General Motors, how through the use of the stay-in strike at key points a whole industry may be dislocated. In the Chrysler works 6,000 members of the union are on a stay-in strike, and threatened with a court eviction order which Governor Murphy, of Michigan, has so far not carried out, for fear of causing bloodshed. In this dispute the workers have on their side, in addition to the sense that they are supported by the Administration and the hitherto unsuspected poten- tialities of the stay-in strike, a knowledge of the effect on public opinion which may be expected from the Senate's Committee of Investigation, under Senator La Follette, into the American motor industry. They are strengthened also by the prestige Mr. Lewis has gained in his disputes with General Motors and the United States Steel Corporation.
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