Strikers and Company First at Portsmouth

Article taken from The Lima News, May 28, 1936

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Portsmouth, May 26--(AP) Possibility of national guard intervention hung over Portsmouth today as the Wheeling Steel Corp. paid off employes at its downtown offices and federal authorities admitted mediation in the four-day-old strike affecting 5,500 workers appeared remote. Two national guard officers were sent here by Gov. Martin L. Davey and Adj. Gen. Emil Marx to determine if the strikers' request for protection by troops should be heeded. Sporadic fights, with more than a score of men treated for minor injuries, marked the walkout. DEAD LOCK REPORTED

"The situation is at a deadlock," declared R. M. Pilkington, federal conciliator sent here by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. He reported after separate meetings with strike leaders and company officials that it probably would be "several days" before tension had cased sufficiently to attempt to get the factions together. Richard Evans, president of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, which struck on the contention that its bargaining rights under the national labor relations act were not respected, declared the union "would not yield an inch."

C. C. Caudill, general manager of the Wheeling plant here, reiterated that the company would sign no contract with the union. PICKET LINES HEAVY

Caudill said heavy picket lines about the plant necessitated the company meeting its semi-monthly payroll at the downtown offices. Almost all the 5,500 workers involved had pay coming for work prior to Friday night, when the strike took effect. Evans said the union "regretted" an attack on Frank N. Kinskey, 40, milk company manager who was beaten yesterday after he had transported 15 men to the factory by boat. The union was not responsible, the president said.

Meanwhile Police Chief Clarence Highfield of suburban New Boston, denied that two union men had been fired upon there, as contended in the union request to Gov. Davey for troop protection.