“Strikers Are Going Back,” Windsor Star. May 12, 1942. Page 11. ---- Dumart’s Employes Decide to Return After Protest ---- KITCHENER, May 12. Employes of Dumart’s Limited decided at a mass meeting last night to return to work today after 290 workers had walked out in mid-afternoon in protest against the management's refusal to arbitrate the dismissal of two employes for insubordination.
TO MEET COMMITTEE The decision followed the announcement that the meat packing company had decided to meet the employes committee and the civic industrial disputes committee this afternoon.
The two men, employed in the cutting department, had a dispute with the foreman. The management claimed ‘insubordination.’
Fred Dowling of the Packing House Workers Organization Committee, a Congress of Industrial Organization affiliate, declared:
There is no doubt in our minds but what the company is out to smash the union and used these two employes as the goats.
A company statement before the walkout said the two were dismissed for gross insubordination to their foreman." The company said that this insubordination occurred within sight of the plant superintendent and the general superintendent.
NEITHER PROTESTED ‘Neither employe protested their dismissal nor have they made representations for reconsideration of these cases, although our employes agreement provides that they could do so in writing within two days of dismissal.”
The vote to return to work came after Frank Ainsborough, conciliation officer for the federal labor department, who arrived in the city an hour after the walkout, announced the company’s agreement to meet the two committees.
While admitting that the workers really desired that only the three-man executive of the 12-man committee represent them, both Major Joseph Meinzinger and Ainsborough urged that the workers accept.
The conciliation officer and Dowling will attend the meeting also.