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our people from working on the reactor."
"Well, didn't Hausinger try to stop them?"
"Not very hard. I asked him what he had that deputy marshal's badge on his
shirt and that Luger on his hip for, but he said he had orders not to use
force, for fear of prejudicing the mediators."
Melroy swore disgustedly. "All right. Gather up all our private papers, and
get Steve and Joe, and come on out. We only work here when we're able."
Doris Rives was waiting on the street level when Melroy reached the new
Federal Building, in what had formerly been the Greenwich Village district of
Manhattan, that evening. She had a heavy brief case with her, which he took.
"I was afraid I'd keep you waiting," she said. "I came down from the hotel by
cab, and there was a frightful jam at Fortieth Street, and another one just
below Madison Square."
"Yes, it gets worse every year. Pardon my obsession, but nine times out of
ten ninety-nine out of a hundred it's the fault of some fool doing
something stupid. Speaking about doing stupid things, though I did one.
Forgot to take that gun out of my overcoat pocket, and didn't notice that I
had it till I
was on the subway, coming in. Have a big flashlight in the other pocket, but
that doesn't matter. What I'm worried about is that somebody'll find out I
have a gun and raise a howl about my coming armed to a mediation hearing."
The hearing was to be held in one of the big conference rooms on the
forty-second floor. Melroy was careful to remove his overcoat and lay it on a
table in the corner, and then help Doris off with hers and lay it on top of
his own. There were three men in the room when they arrived: Kenneth Leighton,
the
Atomic Power Authority man, fiftyish, acquiring a waistline bulge and losing
his hair: a Mr. Lyons, tall and slender, with white hair; and a Mr. Quillen,
considerably younger, with plastic-rimmed glasses. The latter two were the
Federal mediators. All three had been lounging in arm-chairs, talking about
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the new plays on Broadway. They all rose when Melroy and Doris Rives came over
to join them.
"We mustn't discuss business until the others get here," Leighton warned.
"It's bad enough that all three of us got here ahead of them; they'll be sure
to think we're trying to take an unfair advantage of them. I
suppose neither of you have had time to see any of the new plays."
Fortunately, Doris and Melroy had gone to the theater after dinner, the
evening-before-last; they were able to join the conversation. Young Mr.
Quillen wanted Doris Rives' opinion, as a psychologist, of the mental
processes of the heroine of the play they had seen; as nearly as she
could determine, Doris replied, the heroine in question had exhibited
nothing even loosely describable as mental processes of any sort. They were
still on the subject when the two labor negotiators, Mr. Cronnin and Mr.
Fields, arrived.
Cronnin was in his sixties, with the nearsighted squint and
compressed look of concentration of an
old-time precision machinist; Fields was much younger, and sported a Phi Beta
Kappa key.
Lyons, who seemed to be the senior mediator, thereupon called the meeting to
order and they took their places at the table.
"Now, gentlemen and Dr. Rives this will be simply an informal discussion, so
that everybody can see what everybody else's position in the matter is. We
won't bother to make a sound recording. Then, if we have managed to reach some
common understanding of the question this evening, we can start the regular
hearing say at thirteen hundred tomorrow. Is that agreeable?"
It was. The younger mediator, Quillen, cleared his throat.
"It seems, from our information, that this entire dispute arises from the
discharge, by Mr. Melroy, of two of his employees, named Koffler and Burris.
Is that correct?"
"Well, there's also the question of the Melroy Engineering
Corporation's attempting to use strike-breakers, and the Long Island Atomic
Power Authority's having condoned this unfair employment practice," Cronnin
said, acidly.
"And there's also the question of the I.F.A.W.'s calling a Pearl Harbor strike
on my company," Melroy added.
"We resent that characterization!" Cronnin retorted.
"It's a term in common usage; it denotes a strike called without warning or
declaration of intention, which this was," Melroy told him.
"And there's also the question of the I.F.A.W. calling a general strike, in
illegal manner, at the Long Island
Reaction Plant," Leighton spoke up. "On sixteen hours' notice."
"Well, that wasn't the fault of the I.F.A.W. as an organization," Fields
argued. "Mr. Cronnin and I are agreed that the walk-out date should be
postponed for two weeks, in accordance with the provisions of the Federal
Labor Act."
"Well, how about my company?" Melroy wanted to know. "Your I.F.A.W. members
walked out on me, without any notice whatever, at twelve hundred today. Am I
to consider that an act of your union, or will you disavow it so that I can
fire all of them for quitting without permission?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]