"Destroyer - 007 - Union Bust" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Warren)

Jimmy McQuade had been screened for this job. That should have warned him. He should have known there would be something screwy, that just maybe he would find himself not a shop steward or a crew supervisor but a slave driver working men sixteen-hour days nonstop for two weeks to meet the district supervisor's order:

"We don't care what else isn't ready. They want the phones. And they're going to get them. The phones have to be in and operating by April 17. I don't care what expenses, what delays you have. April 17."

That was management. You could expect that sort of excitability from management. What was surprising was that the union was worse. It had started at the screening.

Jimmy McQuade had not known it was a screening. He had been invited by the international vice-president himself to union headquarters in Washington. The union would pick up his lost time. He had thought at first he was going to be appointed to some national labor post.

"I guess you want to know why I asked you here," said the international vice-president. He sat behind a desk remarkably like the one used by the vice-president of the phone company. Although here the window opened to the Washington Monument instead of Lake Michigan.

"No," said Jimmy smiling. 'I thought we'd play pinochle until the summer, then maybe go golfing until the fall."

"Heh, heh, heh," laughed the vice-president. He didn't sound as if his mirth were real. "McQuade. How good a union man are you?"

"I'm a shop steward."

"I mean how good?"

"Good."

"Do you love your union?"

"Yeah. I guess so."

"You guess so. If it were a choice between the union or going to jail, would you go to jail? Think about it."

"You mean if someone were trying to break the union?"

"Right."

Jimmy McQuade thought a moment. "Yes," he said. "I'd go to jail."

"Do you think union business is anybody else's business?"

"Well, not if we're not doing anything illegal."

"I'm talking about giving information about union business to people outside the union."

"Hell, no!"

"Even if they're some kind of cops?"

"Yeah. Even if they're some kind of cops."

"You're a good union man. You've got a good union record and a good work record. There's a job starting that's important to all good union men. I can't tell you why, but it's important. And we don't want to go advertising it around."

Jimmy McQuade nodded.

"I want you to select a fifteen-man crew of good union men, good workers who can keep their mouths shut. It's a job that would call for more than fifteen men, but that's the minimum, absolute minimum for completing this job in time. We don't want to be using any more people than we have to. If we had time, I'd do the damned thing myself. But we don't have time. Remember. Men who can work and keep quiet. There will be plenty of overtime." The vice-president reached into his large desk and brought out two envelopes. He held forth the fatter one. "This is for you. I find it good policy never to let anyone else know what I'm making. It will serve you well to follow it. There may be a lot of pressure in this job, and what may be a small friction at the beginning, becomes a bigger one later on. This smaller one is for the men. Don't take it out of the envelope in front of them. Individually, personally on the side."