"Destroyer 007 - Union Bust.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

'I never heard of the International Transportation Association.'
'It's a union.'
'I never heard of that union.'
"It's not going to exist until April 17. It's going to be the biggest union in the world.'
'I'd like to see that.'
'Well, that will be a little problem. You see, McQuade, in about ten minutes, you're going to be a puddle.'
The secretary of labor and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation finished their reports to the President. The three were alone in the Oval room.
The secretary of labor, a pudgy, balding man with professional bearing, spoke first.
'I think a union combining the major transportation unions, a supertransportation union, is impossible in the United States,' said the secretary of labor.
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shuffled his papers and leaned a bit closer to the edge of his seat.
The secretary of labor talked on. 'The reason I think so is very simple. The drivers, the pilots, the stevedores, and the trainmen don't have that much central self-interest. In other words, they work for different employers. Moreover, the union leadership of each of these unions has vital concerns with its own sphere of influence. I cannot
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see four major union presidents willing to give up their own freedom of action. Just impossible. The wage scales of the workers are so different. A pilot makes just about three times what the others make. The membership will never go along. I know the drivers for instance. They're independent. They even dropped out of the AFL-CIO.'
'They were kicked out, weren't they?' said the director of the FBI.
The President raised a hand.
'Let the secretary finish.'
'Legally they were kicked out. Actually they dropped out. They were told to do certain things or face expulsion. They refused, and the rest was formality. They're an independent breed. Nobody is going to get the International Brotherhood of Drivers into another union. Nobody.'
The President looked down at his desk, then back at his secretary of labor. The room was cool, its temperature controlled by an elaborate thermostat that maintained the exact temperature the President wanted. The thermostat was reset every four years. Sometimes every eight years.
'What if the drivers are the union behind this?' asked the President.
'Impossible. I know the current president of that union personally, and no one is getting him, not even us, into an agreement whereby he loses freedom of action.'
'What if he's not reelected at this convention coming up?'
'Oh, he's going to win. He's got, excuse the pun, all the horses.'
'If he has all the horses, why was the convention suddenly shifted to Chicago? April is to April 17 is not exactly Chicago weather. Permit me a little pun, April in Chicago. I've never heard a song about it.'
'These things happen,' said the secretary of labor.
'Well, we all know for a fact, that the current president

of the drivers wanted Miami. He didn't get Miami. Las Vegas was mentioned, and then in a joint council meeting of their state and area leaders, trie convention was moved to Chicago. Now, what if a supertransportation union just happens? Tell me the effects.'
'Oh, my Lord,' said the secretary of labor. 'Off the top of my head I would say it would be horrible. A disaster. Given some time to study it, I would probably say that it would be worse than a disaster. The country would just about close down. There would be a food crisis. There would be an energy crisis. There would be a run on the banking reserves to offset stagnated business like there has never been before. We would have a depression because of layoffs from inoperative factories combined with an inflation because of the scarcities of goods. I would say it would be like closing the arteries on a human being. Killing the flow of blood, if all the transportation unions struck jointly as one, this country would be a disaster area.'
'Do you think if you controlled such a union you could get all its members what they wanted?'
'Of course. It's like holding a gun to the head of everyone in the nation. But if this ever happened, there would be legislation from Congress.'
'The kind of legislation that would kill unionism and collective bargaining, correct, Mr. Secretary?'
'Yes, sir.'
'So either way this situation is highly undesirable.'
'It is as undesirable as it is improbable,' said the secretary of labor.
The President nodded to his director of the FBI.
'It's not all that improbable, Mr. Secretary. There have been strong financial links between the leaders of the pilots, stevedores, and trainmen with a dissident element of the drivers' union. These links began emerging roughly two months ago. It is this dissident element of the drivers which pushed for, and got, the convention to move to Chicago. Moreover, it is this dissident element
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that has constructed a large ten-story building just outside Chicago at incredible expense because of the rush aspects of contraction. Incredible expense. We don't know for sure where they got the money. We don't know for sure how they get things done so smoothly, but get things done they do. We have investigated the building and are continuing to attempt to do so. We cannot prove it yet, but we believe two of our agents who are missing were murdered in that building. We have not found their bodies. We have suspicions as to how the bodies are disposed of, but no confirming evidence, as yet.'
'Well, that settles it,' said the secretary of labor. 'No superunion about to be born can survive the murder of two FBI agents. You put all the leaders on trial. There's your superunion right there, doing life in Leavenworth.'
'We need evidence, which we hope to get. There is the jury system, Mr. Secretary.'
'There is that,' said the secretary of labor. 'There is that. As you gentlemen know, I am scheduled to address Friday's closing meeting of the convention. I don't know if I should go ahead with it. I did know there would be representatives there from other unions, but I never imagined it was anything like this.'
'Go ahead with your speech/ said the President. 'Go ahead as if nothing has happened, as if you know nothing of what we talked about. Mention this meeting to no one.' And to the director, 'I want you to withdraw all your men from this investigation.'
'What?' exclaimed the director, shocked.
'That's what I said. Withdraw your men and forget about this case and discuss it with no one.'
'But we've lost two agents.'
'I know. But you must do what I ask now. You must trust me, that it will work out well.'
'In my report to the attorney-general, how will I explain that we are not investigating our agents' disappearance?'
'There will be no report. I would like to tell you what I