Word: hutcheson
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Died. William Levi ("Big Bill") Hutcheson, 79, longtime (1915-52) president-dictator of the powerful A.F.L. United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (present membership, 822,000) ; of a heart ailment; in Indianapolis. Starting as a 20?-an-hour carpenter in Midland, Mich., Big Bill soon became a union business agent, in nine years fought his way to the presidency. A bitter, irascible foe of shop-wide unionism (i.e., the C.I.O.), he once traded punches with Fellow Czar John L. Lewis during a stormy A.F.L. convention, backed every Republican presidential candidate from Coolidge to Eisenhower. Last year, having quadrupled his union...
When 14 members of the A.F.L.'s Executive Council gathered in Chicago's Palmer House last week, 13 of them were in for a big surprise. Old (79), crotchety Big Bill Hutcheson, ex-president (and still boss) of the 822,500-member Carpenters' Brotherhood, walked out of the federation in a huff over the A.F.L.-C.I.O. no-raiding agreement...
...walkout touched off a flurry of speculation about the real reasons behind it. Some cynics guessed that Big Bill wanted a free hand to go raiding. A more sinister explanation was that Hutcheson planned to join up with the Mine Workers' John L. Lewis to form the core of a new labor federation (dubbed the "Phantom Phederation" in labor shoptalk). Said a member of the executive committee: "I see the fine hand of John L. Lewis in this...
...Whatever Hutcheson was up to, his walkout had an important result. It led to the election to the executive council of Dave Beck, tough, ambitious boss of the 1,400,000-strong International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers. When ist Vice President Bill Hutcheson departed, the twelve other v.p.s each moved up a notch, leaving a vacancy at the bottom. As head of the biggest A.F.L. union, Beck was an obvious choice. But the machinists' Al Hayes had been promised the next opening. Upshot: compromise. Beck became the 13th vice president, and Hayes' hopes were kept...
...Herewith the photos of Hutcheson and Hutchinson, and TIME'S apologies...