"H. Beam Piper - Day of the Moron" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

"It seems, from our information, that this entire dispute arises from the discharge, by Mr. Melroy, of two
of his employees, named Koffler and Burris. Is that correct?"

"Well, there's also the question of the Melroy Engineering Corporation's attempting to use
strike-breakers, and the Long Island Atomic Power Authority's having condoned this unfair employment
practice," Cronnin said, acidly.

"And there's also the question of the I.F.A.W.'s calling a Pearl Harbor strike on my company," Melroy
added.

"We resent that characterization!" Cronnin retorted.

"It's a term in common usage; it denotes a strike called without warning or declaration of intention, which
this was," Melroy told him.

"And there's also the question of the I.F.A.W. calling a general strike, in illegal manner, at the Long Island
Reaction Plant," Leighton spoke up. "On sixteen hours' notice."

"Well, that wasn't the fault of the I.F.A.W. as an organization," Fields argued. "Mr. Cronnin and I are
agreed that the walk-out date should be postponed for two weeks, in accordance with the provisions of
the Federal Labor Act."

"Well, how about my company?" Melroy wanted to know. "Your I.F.A.W. members walked out on me,
without any notice whatever, at twelve hundred today. Am I to consider that an act of your union, or will
you disavow it so that I can fire all of them for quitting without permission?"

"And how about the action of members of your union, acting on instructions from Harry Crandall, in
re-packing the Number One Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactor at our plant, after the plutonium and
the U-238 and the neutron-source containers had been removed, in order to re-initiate a chain reaction
to prevent Mr. Melroy's employees from working on the reactor?" Leighton demanded. "Am I to
understand that the union sustains that action, too?"
"I hadn't known about that," Fields said, somewhat startled.

"Neither had I," Cronnin added. "When did it happen?"

"About sixteen hundred today," Melroy told him.

"We were on the plane from Oak Ridge, then," Fields declared. "We know nothing about that."

"Well, are you going to take the responsibility for it, or aren't you?" Leighton insisted.

Lyons, who had been toying with a small metal paperweight, rapped on the table with it.

"Gentlemen," he interrupted. "We're trying to cover too many subjects at once. I suggest that we confine
ourselves, at the beginning, to the question of the dismissal of these men, Burris and Koffler. If we find
that the I.F.A.W. has a legitimate grievance in what we may call the Burris-Koffler question, we can
settle that and then go on to these other questions."

"I'm agreeable to that," Melroy said.