Meeting of the Board by Alan Edward Nourse (books to read in a lifetime .TXT) 📕

operate. They don't. We also know that the data we keep in the machines is essential to running the business; the machines figure production quotas, organize blueprints, prepare distribution lists, test promotion schemes. It would take an office full of managerial experts to handle even a single phase of the work without the machines."

The man at the window hissed, and Pendleton quickly snapped out the lights. They sat in darkness, hardly daring to breathe. Then: "Okay. Just the man next door coming home."

Pendleton sighed. "You're sure you didn't let them suspect anything, Walter? They wouldn't be watching the house?"

"I don't think so. And you all came alone, at different times." He nodded to the window guard, and turned back to the lawyer. "So we can't be sure of the legal end. You'd have to be on your toes."

"I still don't see how we could work it," Hendricks objected. His heavy face was wrinkled with worry. "Torkleson is no fool, and he has a lot of power in the National Association of Union Stockholders. All he'd need to do is ask for managers, and a dozen companies would throw them to him on loan. They'd be able to figure out the machine system and take over without losing a day."

"Not quite." Walter was grinning. "That's why I spoke of a lock-in. Before we leave, we throw the machines into feedback, every one of them. Lock them into reverberating circuits with a code sequence key. Then all they'll do is buzz and sputter until the feedback is broken with the key. And the key is our secret. It'll tie the Robling office into granny knots, and scabs won't be able to get any more data out of the machines than Torkleson could. With a lawyer to handle injunctions, we've got them strapped."

"For what?" asked the lawyer.

Walter turned on him sharply. "For new contracts. Contracts to let us manage the company the way it should be managed. If they won't do it, they won't get another Titanium product off their production lines for the rest of the year, and their dividends will really take a nosedive."

"That means you'll have to beat Torkleson," said Bates. "He'll never go along."

"Then he'll be left behind."

Hendricks stood up, brushing off his dungarees. "I'm with you, Walter. I've taken all of Torkleson that I want to. And I'm sick of the junk we've been trying to sell people."

The others nodded. Walter rubbed his hands together. "All right. Tomorrow we work as usual, until the noon whistle. When we go off for lunch, we throw the machines into lock-step. Then we just don't come back. But the big thing is to keep it quiet until the noon whistle." He turned to the lawyer. "Are you with us, Jeff?"

Jeff Bates shook his head sadly. "I'm with you. I don't know why, you haven't got a leg to stand on. But if you want to commit suicide, that's all right with me." He picked up his briefcase, and started for the door. "I'll have your contract demands by tomorrow," he grinned. "See you at the lynching."

They got down to the details of planning.

The news hit the afternoon telecasts the following day. Headlines screamed:

MANAGEMENT SABOTAGES ROBLING MACHINES
OFFICE STRIKERS THREATEN LABOR ECONOMY
ROBLING LOCK-IN CREATES PANDEMONIUM

There was a long, indignant statement from Daniel P. Torkleson, condemning Towne and his followers for "flagrant violation of management contracts and illegal fouling of managerial processes." Ben Starkey, President of the Board of American Steel, expressed "shock and regret"; the Amalgamated Buttonhole Makers held a mass meeting in protest, demanding that "the instigators of this unprecedented crime be permanently barred from positions in American Industry."

In Washington, the nation's economists were more cautious in their views. Yes, it was an unprecedented action. Yes, there would undoubtedly be repercussions—many industries were having managerial troubles; but as for long term effects, it was difficult to say just at present.

On the Robling production lines the workmen blinked at each other, and at their machines, and wondered vaguely what it was all about.

Yet in all the upheaval, there was very little expression of surprise. Step by step, through the years, economists had been watching with wary eyes the growing movement toward union, control of industry. Even as far back as the '40's and '50's unions, finding themselves oppressed with the administration of growing sums of money—pension funds, welfare funds, medical insurance funds, accruing union dues—had begun investing in corporate stock. It was no news to them that money could make money. And what stock more logical to buy than stock in their own companies?

At first it had been a quiet movement. One by one the smaller firms had tottered, bled drier and drier by increasing production costs, increasing labor demands, and an ever-dwindling margin of profit. One by one they had seen their stocks tottering as they faced bankruptcy, only to be gobbled up by the one ready buyer with plenty of funds to buy with. At first, changes had been small and insignificant: boards of directors shifted; the men were paid higher wages and worked shorter hours; there were tighter management policies; and a little less money was spent on extras like Research and Development.

At first—until that fateful night when Daniel P. Torkleson of TWA and Jake Squill of Amalgamated Buttonhole Makers spent a long evening with beer and cigars in a hotel room, and floated the loan that threw steel to the unions. Oil had followed with hardly a fight, and as the unions began to feel their oats, the changes grew more radical.

Walter Towne remembered those stormy days well. The gradual undercutting of the managerial salaries, the tightening up of inter-union collusion to establish the infamous White list of Recalcitrant Managers. The shift from hourly wage to annual salary for the factory workers, and the change to the other pole for the managerial staff. And then, with creeping malignancy, the hungry howling of the union bosses for more and higher dividends, year after year, moving steadily toward the inevitable crisis.

Until Shop Steward Bailey suddenly found himself in charge of a dozen sputtering machines and an empty office.

Torkleson was waiting to see the shop steward when he came in next morning. The union boss's office was crowded with TV cameras, newsmen, and puzzled workmen. The floor was littered with piles of ominous-looking paper. Torkleson was shouting into a telephone, and three lawyers were shouting into Torkleson's ear. He spotted Bailey and waved him through the crowd into an inner office room. "Well? Did they get them fixed?"

Bailey spread his hands nervously. "The electronics boys have been at it since yesterday afternoon. Practically had the machines apart on the floor."

"I know that, stupid," Torkleson roared. "I ordered them there. Did they get the machines fixed?"

"Uh—well, no, as a matter of fact—"

"Well, what's holding them up?"

Bailey's face was a study in misery. "The machines just go in circles. The circuits are locked. They just reverberate."

"Then call American Electronics. Have them send down an expert crew."

Bailey shook his head. "They won't come."

"They what?"

"They said thanks, but no thanks. They don't want their fingers in this pie at all."

"Wait until I get O'Gilvy on the phone."

"It won't do any good, sir. They've got their own management troubles. They're scared silly of a sympathy strike."

The door burst open, and a lawyer stuck his head in. "What about those injunctions, Dan?"

"Get them moving," Torkleson howled. "They'll start those machines again, or I'll have them in jail so fast—" He turned back to Bailey. "What about the production lines?"

The shop steward's face lighted. "They slipped up, there. There was one program that hadn't been coded into the machines yet. Just a minor item, but it's a starter. We found it in Towne's desk, blueprints all ready, promotion all planned."

"Good, good," Torkleson breathed. "I have a directors' meeting right now, have to get the workers quieted down a bit. You put the program through, and give those electronics men three more hours to unsnarl this knot, or we throw them out of the union." He started for the door. "What were the blueprints for?"

"Trash cans," said Bailey. "Pure titanium-steel trash cans."

It took Robling Titanium approximately two days to convert its entire production line to titanium-steel trash cans. With the total resources of the giant plant behind the effort, production was phenomenal. In two more days the available markets were glutted. Within two weeks, at a conservative estimate, there would be a titanium-steel trash can for every man, woman, child, and hound dog on the North American continent. The jet engines, structural steels, tubing, and other pre-strike products piled up in the freight yards, their routing slips and order requisitions tied up in the reverberating machines.

But the machines continued to buzz and sputter.

The workers grew restive. From the first day, Towne and Hendricks and all the others had been picketing the plant, until angry crowds of workers had driven them off with shotguns. Then they came back in an old, weatherbeaten 'copter which hovered over the plant entrance carrying a banner with a plaintive message: robling titanium unfair to management. Tomatoes were hurled, fists were shaken, but the 'copter remained.

The third day, Jeff Bates was served with an injunction ordering Towne to return to work. It was duly appealed, legal machinery began tying itself in knots, and the strikers still struck. By the fifth day there was a more serious note.

"You're going to have to appear, Walter. We can't dodge this one."

"When?"

"Tomorrow morning. And before a labor-rigged judge, too." The little lawyer paced his office nervously. "I don't like it. Torkleson's getting desperate. The workers are putting pressure on him."

Walter grinned. "Then Pendleton is doing a good job of selling."

"But you haven't got time," the lawyer wailed. "They'll have you in jail if you don't start the machines again. They may have you in jail if you do start them, too, but that's another bridge. Right now they want those machines going again."

"We'll see," said Walter. "What time tomorrow?"

"Ten o'clock." Bates looked up. "And don't try to skip. You be there, because I don't know what to tell them."

Walter was there a half hour early. Torkleson's legal staff glowered from across the room. The judge glowered from the bench. Walter closed his eyes with a little smile as the charges were read: "—breach of contract, malicious mischief, sabotage of the company's machines, conspiring to destroy the livelihood of ten thousand workers. Your Honor, we are preparing briefs to prove further that these men have formed a conspiracy to undermine the economy of the entire nation. We appeal to the spirit of orderly justice—"

Walter yawned as the words went on.

"Of course, if the defendant will waive his appeals against the previous injunctions, and will release the machines that were sabotaged, we will be happy to formally withdraw these charges."

There was a rustle of sound through the courtroom. His Honor turned to Jeff Bates. "Are you counsel for the defendant?"

"Yes, sir." Bates mopped his bald scalp. "The defendant pleads guilty to all counts."

The union lawyer dropped his glasses on the table with a crash. The judge stared. "Mr. Bates, if you plead guilty, you leave me no alternative—"

"—but to send me to jail," said Walter Towne. "Go ahead. Send me to jail. In fact, I insist upon going to jail."

The union lawyer's jaw sagged. There was a hurried conference. A recess was pleaded. Telephones buzzed. Then: "Your Honor, the plaintiff desires to withdraw all charges at this time."

"Objection," Bates exclaimed. "We've already pleaded."

"—feel sure that a settlement can be effected out of court—"

The case was thrown out on its ear.

And still the machines sputtered.

Back at the plant rumor had it that the machines were permanently gutted, and that the plant could never go back into production. Conflicting scuttlebutt suggested that persons high in uniondom had perpetrated the crisis deliberately, bullying Management into the strike for the sole purpose of cutting current dividends and selling stock to themselves cheaply. The rumors grew easier and easier to believe. The workers came to the plants in business suits, it was true, and lounged in the finest of lounges, and read the Wall Street Journal, and felt like stockholders. But to face facts, their salaries were not the highest. Deduct union dues, pension fees, medical insurance fees, and sundry other little items which had formerly been paid by well-to-do managements, and very little was left but the semi-annual dividend checks. And now the dividends were tottering.

Production lines slowed. There were daily brawls on the plant floor, in the lounge and locker rooms. Workers began joking about the trash cans; then the humor grew more and more remote. Finally, late in the afternoon of the eighth day, Bailey was once again in Torkleson's office.

"Well? Speak up! What's the beef this time?"

"Sir—the men—I mean, there's been some nasty talk. They're tired of making trash cans. No challenge in it. Anyway, the stock room is full, and the freight yard is full, and the last run of orders we sent out came back because nobody wants any more