UniRoyal Cites Need For Sample Shoes

By Ruth Nichols

Production at the UniRoyal Footwear plant will be suspended for at least another week to allow time for briefs to be filed and Judge Leo V. Gaffney to come to a decision on whether a restraining injunction should be granted against the firm.

Two days of testimony from both Local 45 and UniRoyal Footwear Division management ended yesterday afternoon in Waterbury Superior Court. Judge Gaffney asked that written briefs be submitted to him by next Wednesday by both attorneys and stated that he will make his decision within a couple of days after reviewing the briefs and transcripts of the court proceedings.

Local 45 ended its testimony yesterday after calling Joseph Foley to the stand. Foley, a 21-year employe of the plant, member of the Union negotiating team and strike captain, was questioned on what might happen if the company was allowed to produce sample shoes.

Foley told the court that there would be violence on the picket line. He also testified that large numbers of supervisory personnel passed through the picket lines daily without incident.

Atty. J. Kenneth Bradley opened UniRoyal’s testimony by calling Thomas Nelligan, Labor Relations Manager, to the stand.

Nelligan told the court that 4,500 footwear plant employes are out on strike while 850 non-bargaining employes are working. All UniRoyal plants in the borough, with the exception of the footwear plant, are producing.

Nelligan cited the need for the sample shoes by August 1st. If the shoes were not ready to show by that date, according to Nelligan, there would be a reduction of production and a need for less employes.

Nelligan, under questioning, stated that if production of samples was allowed there would be no loss to striking employes but their wages. The Judge ruled that this answer should be stricken. Nelligan said he had no way of knowing what the cost to URW members and their families would be overall.

Nelligan said that these sample shoes could not be produced elsewhere. That it would take about 200 people, six weeks to two months to produce the necessary number of sample shoes. He said the bargaining people had been offered, through the union, the work first.

Factory Manager Jack Smith told the court that it was Monday or Tuesday of last week that the decision was made to start production on sample shoes.

Attorney Daniel Baker, URW counsel, questioned Nelligan about production at other UniRoyal plants. He asked if these samples couldn’t be made at one of the other company shoe producing plants that was currently in production.

Nelligan told the court that this was not possible because a different type of shoe was made at these plants.

Baker then opened the question of management starting its inventory using non-bargaining personnel. He also returned to the subject of the “Gray Building.”

How many shoes were produced in the building? Nelligan stated that the first three or four sample shoes were made in the building. The union sought inspection of the “gray building.”

Judge Gaffney asked if a member of the Industrial Relations Department accompanied the union inspection team on its tour.

Smith told the court about the pickets not allowing personnel into the plant in the early days of the strike. He said on the first day of mass picketing he conferred with Naugatuck Police Capt. Joseph Summa and sent management personnel home. He said all this occurred after the union had been notified 24-hours in advance of the company’s intention to ship.

Smith testified that on the May 15th meeting with union representatives, the company made known its intention to start production, first offering the work to bargaining personnel. He told the court he, at that time, told the union he believed there was no longer an agreement; however, it was then believed settlement was imminent and the company did not press for production.

Again on the subject of sample shoes, Smith said that production could not be carried on in the “Keds” line, produced here in the borough, in another company plant without moving equipment in large numbers to another location.

Smith spoke of the work the union had allowed to continue in the “Gray Building.” He said that the union knew that certain materials were produced in the main plant to carry on this work and hadn’t objected.

He said that this was the only footwear plant in the United States to be shut down and declared it was necessary to have sample shoes ready by the August 1st date.

Smith said that if samples were not ready, salesmen would miss sales and this, in turn, would lower sales, lower fill-in sales, and thus reduce production in the Naugatuck Footwear plant.

Smith, again questioned about the agreement and the May 15th meeting, told the Judge that he did not remember coming back into the meeting room after making a telephone call and telling union representative that he would “honor the agreement.”

Baker asked Smith had he given the union 24-hours notice of intent to ship. And had not the company made an oral agreement that no personnel would enter the plant after 6 p.m.

Then Baker asked had not the fact that personnel came into the

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Beacon Falls

Beacon Hose Co. Firemen To Parade

BEACON FALLS – Captain Walter C. Carlson of Beacon Hose Co. No. 1 has announced that members will attend the Firemen’s Parade in Oxford this evening.

Members are requested to meet at the firehouse at 6:30 in full dress uniforms.