According to the account of this meeting appearing in the October 6, 1941,   
issue of THE GARY POST TRIBUNE (a copy of which is attached), Mr. Bittrier   
stated to the delegates that the SWOC is now in so strong a position that   
it need not rely on the steel companies "giving us the Union shop. We are   
          strong enough to take what we want ***.           
 
                                                            
 
 
This is one time that the SWOC has the cards and when we have four aces in   
our hand we are going to take the pot. We not only can do it now, buh we   
will do it now ***.  We have demonstrated to the U.S. Steel Corporation   
that this (SWOC) is no company union and  to these non-Union workers that   
if they want to work, they must belong to the SWOC ***. The best way to   
       giving it to you, but to take it yourselves."        
 
                                                            
 
 
When the sheet and tin mill of Carnegie-Illinois at Gary, Indiana, was   
virtually closed down on October 7, 1941, as a consequence of difficulties   
arising from SWOC dues picketing, Mr. Frank Grider, Sub-District Director   
of the SWOC, is reported in the press to have stated: "This is a campaign   
           to get the closed shop in the plant."            
 
                                                            
 
 
These statements of M. Bittner and Mr. Grider confirm the undoubted   
definite drive now being made by SWOC to take advantage of conditions   
growing out of the national emergency to force a closed or Union shop upon  
 the Steel Corporation and other members of the steel industry. We are   
informed that the Union shop is one of the principal demands in the   
negotiations for labor contracts now being conducted by SWOC  
and four of the so-called independent steel companies (Bethlehem, Republic,   
Inland and Youngstown). We are also told that other steel companies have   
recently had numerous work stoppages similar to those occurring in our   
                          plants.                           
 
                                                            
 
 
he closed or Union shop is the sole issue in the Appalachian captive coal   
mining case, now awaiting a recommendation by the National Defense   
Mediation Board, following the conclusion of the recent hearings before   
the Mediation Board. The heretofore existing open shop contracts in our   
coal mining subsidiaries resulted from the negotiations which we concluded   
with Your Excellency in 1934. The United Mine Workers now