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Contrary to early reports yesterday, sweaters are not entirely banned at the Chance-Vought division of United Aircraft, officials of United Auto Workers Local 277 stressed last night.
Union Pres. John Robinson and! Shop Steward Arthur Skerrit point out that shop workers in the Bridgeport plant, after completion this week of a safety survey will be permitted to wear sweaters, provided they are not engaged in dangerous machine work.
After two months of argument over the sweater girls, U. S. Conciliator Elizabeth Christman, following a solid week of conferences with union and management, yesterday announced that a compromise had been signed,
According to this agreement, management, with aid from, the union, is to make a survey of the hazards involved in each girl's job.
This survey is to be completed during the coming week.
When it is finished, girls adjudged to be working on dangerous machines must wear the old management-approved safety outfits of turbans, slacks and jackets.
All others, union officials emphasize, may wear sweaters.
During the week, however, while the survey continues, all are to wear the company-approved slacks and jackets which two months ago stirred up the sweater girl controversy.
The jackets need be worn by unendangered girls only until the end of the survey.
Phony reports on the settlement, Skerrit warns, may cause further disharmony among the girls.
The truth of the matter is, he points out, that the agreement which yesterday was posted on plant bulletin boards, was misquoted in the daily papers.
Instead of reading "Employes requiring safety clothing will wear
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Sweaters Not Banned
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safety garments and other employes will be permitted to dress in accordance with established regulations as soon as the survey is completed.
Girls in safe jobs will not be required to abide by "established regulations" calling for jackets.
Quoting the official announcement, he says, "Sweaters may be worn when employe is not employed on moving machinery or other jobs requiring safety clothing."
Although the union gave in to some extent, it didn't give in the whole way.
Further victory' for the girls was seen in the provision that questions about the new agreement must be referred to the personnel manager and to a union representative.
Safety, all factions in the dispute agree, is the main concern.
According to the agreement, the management, following its survey this week, will buy uniforms for the girls involved in hazardous tasks.
Additional outfits may be purchased by the girls at cost.
This procedure is expected to take about three months.
No coercion is involved in the agreement, both sides point out.
Girls merely must wear safe outfits, either uniforms or clothes which meet with company safety demands.
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WASHINGTON. —(UP)— The Office of War Information said last night that sweater-clad women are a hindrance to war production.
"It isn't just a rumor that a tightly-sweatered working companion takes a man's eyes off his machine," the OWI said in a report on women war work.
What is more, the report continued, there are certain '.'lessons" women have to learn when they go to work in war plants.
They must be warned, for example, not to ."trade on their femininity."
They must not "flirt with the foremen or men supervisory employes."
And, the OWI said, they must never, never try to date the boss or get male co-workers to do the "heavy unpleasant tasks."
On the whole, however, women are "proving their worth" in the factory, the OWI concluded, and in general have "disproved the old bugaboos that women have no mechanical ability and that they are a distracting influence in industry."
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