Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports that investigators for the Senate Select Committee investigating misconduct in unions and
management this date sought details of the hurried bargain sale of a Teamsters Union automobile reportedly used in a fatal human-torch burning in Michigan. Committee chairman Senator John McClellan of Arkansas had ordered the probe the previous day following testimony by Frank Fitzsimmons that the car was sold to Herman Kierdorf, uncle of the torch victim and former aide to Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa. The nephew, Frank Kierdorf, 56, the business agent for a Pontiac, Mich., Teamsters local, had died the prior Thursday after stating to police that he suffered his burns while setting fire to a Flint, Mich., dry cleaning shop the previous Sunday night. Michigan authorities said that the nephew also stated that his uncle was at the scene of the fire. The uncle had disappeared on Monday and was being sought on a warrant charging possession of a gun equipped with a silencer. By the initial account in the newspaper on Wednesday, the nephew, persuaded by his uncle to talk, had contended to police that he was deliberately doused with gasoline and set on fire by two men whom he did not know, but thought that the act related to union business. The nephew had been questioned by the Committee the prior fall, at which time he uniformly declined to answer under the Fifth Amendment. The uncle also had been questioned the previous fall, prior to the nephew, though answering the Committee's inquiries at the time. Mr. Hoffa had been asked by Committee counsel Robert F. Kennedy on Thursday about Herman Kierdorf and whether he had him investigated, Mr. Hoffa having responded that Mr. Kierdorf had resigned from the union based on Mr. Hoffa's suggestion after he had examined his criminal background. Testimony of the sale of the union-owned Cadillac climaxed a fast-moving day of testimony before the Committee regarding allegations that the Teamsters were involved with underworld individuals in a nationwide plot to dominate business and labor. The previous day, George Heid, a disgruntled former Teamster, testified that he had lied under oath because of threats when he had been a defense witness in a 1956 Minneapolis trial which had resulted in conviction of one of Mr. Hoffa's aides on a charge of planting a bomb. Mr. Heid said that he had given the false testimony in an unsuccessful effort to save Gerald Connelly, a Minneapolis Teamster official, from going to prison. The hearings were in recess until the following Tuesday.
In Charlotte, a Teamsters local strike against the Charlotte Observer Transportation Co. had ended "for all practical purposes" this date. The strike had been called Thursday without notice by Teamsters Local 71, claiming to represent the company drivers and demanding recognition by the company, which was refused.
In Detroit, it was reported that the auto industry, expecting a better year in 1959 than in 1958, had called back laid-off workers for the first time since late the prior fall. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler said that more than 180,000 workers would be recalled by mid-November as the big three automakers moved into full production for the 1959 models. Some 42,000 workers at Chrysler would be the first called back, the majority of whom on August 18 when the company would begin production of the 1959 models. G.M.'s hourly rated employees would be increased from fewer than 200,000 to more than 325,000 between the present and mid-November. Nearly 40,000 would be recalled at Ford and a spokesman for the company said that a nationwide peak of 102,500 employees was expected there at the height of 1959 production. In the first quarter of 1957, G.M. had 387,000 hourly rated workers, while Ford had 143,000 and Chrysler, 108,000. With production and earnings off generally throughout the recession-hit industry in 1958, the automakers were seeking to recoup losses with the new models. The Michigan Employment Security Commission had reported a new high of 475,000 unemployed in the state in mid-July. The international executive board of the UAW had met in secret to map an offensive on the deadlocked new contract negotiations. The UAW had overwhelming approval from the rank-and-file members to call a walkout against any of the automakers if new contracts could not be reached, but there was no indication that the board would call a strike date following its meeting.
What's going to happen to the used car market in the fall, the A-1's and OK's among the four-eyed monstrosities traded in from '58? Are the new ones going back to two after that failed design experiment?
Because we have fallen behind, the
remainder of the page and the editorial page are not summarized for
this date, as notes will be sporadic on selected stories until we
catch up.
