Chapter Twenty-Six: FBI Agents and Labor Union Mess
The second guest who followed Lawrence to FedEx headquarters was FBI agent Melvin Pavis, who had a relationship with John. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. biquge。 infoJohn was a little puzzled by the arrival of this FBI star agent. Although Melvin himself said that he had come to fulfill the agreement between John and Director Hoover to set up a secret intelligence network at FedEx and be the head of the network, John did not believe it at all. The FBI's secret intelligence network is so numerous, is it necessary to send the head of a major branch for this trivial matter? (Melvin Pavis was previously head of the FBI's Chicago division.)
The more John thought about it, the more strange he became, and just as Lawrence was still in the company, he told the new political adviser his doubts. After listening to John's account, Lawrence thought about it for a moment and figured out the key to it. He told John not to worry that Hoover's arrangement was not directed at him, but against Melvin Pavis.
"Hoover was a man with a strong desire for power, and he was notoriously cautious." Lawrence said, "The FBI has been in existence for less than three years, and most of the credit goes to Melvin Pavis. The head of the Chicago bureau has been in the limelight lately, making Hoover feel threatened. Hoover took the opportunity to transfer him out of the FBI's main business and refrigerated him. ”
Lawrence then told John some of the little things he knew about Hoover, reminding him that Hoover was a particularly tough and domineering character, and that he should pay special attention to these traits in his dealings. Lawrence gave a small example of Hoover's penchant for annotating in the margins of documents. Once, when a subordinate submitted a memo with too narrow margins, he annotated it: "Watch theborders!" The subordinates did not understand what he meant, and no one in the entire FBI headquarters dared to take the initiative to ask, so they could only send people to strengthen the monitoring of changes in the US-Canada and US-Mexico borders. It wasn't until a week later that an F.B.I. clerk understood that the phrase was referring to the edge of the memo. But the increased error in border surveillance had a windfall: the F.B.I. successfully found and arrested a U.S. Communist Party leader at the border.
After listening to Lawrence's introduction, John was relieved. It's good to have a senior political adviser, but he doesn't know how long he will be suspicious if he has to put it on hold. Since Hoover is not targeting him, it is better to treat Melvin Pavis as if he does not exist, and the affairs of the intelligence transmission network are tossed around with him, and John will not be involved in this kind of FBI housework.
Although John had a good idea at the time, sometimes trouble would come to his door. A few days later, Melvin Pavis quietly came to John's office and presented him with an investigative report. This report is an investigative analysis of the situation of labor organizations within FedEx. John was surprised to find that in addition to the official labor union controlled by Dvořák, the United Transportation Union under the Confederation of Industrial Trade Unions of America, as well as various labor fraternities, labor knights, and even some left-wing labor organizations with communist overtones and right-wing extreme small groups with religious overtones have developed within the company.
While he was a little surprised by the fact that there was so much "mess" of labor organizations within the company, John was even more surprised by Melvin's purpose. The FBI's "star of yesterday" didn't hide it, telling John bluntly that he knew he had no future in the FBI. He wanted to get a position within FedEx that could help John control the spread of the labor organization within the company, and the report was a welcome gift.
Knowing Melvin's intentions, John was a little moved. First of all, Melvin's ability is speechless. Secondly, due to the rapid expansion of the company in the early stage, Dvořák really failed to deal with the company's labor problems in time. Melvin's addition could effectively bring the current chaos under control. John was still haunted by the previous wave of auto workers' strikes in Detroit, and he didn't want that to happen again in his company.
However, Lawrence's previous reminder of Hoover still made him suspicious. This kind of thing seems to outsiders to be digging into the corners of the FBI, and will Hoover hold a grudge against him because of it? John told Lawrence about his concerns. The old man suggested that John seek Hoover himself directly. He believes that although Hoover was a good-looking person, he was more focused on practical interests. Now that there is an opportunity to get Melvin out of the FBI as an invisible threat in the open, Hoover may not disapprove.
Sure enough, the ginger was still old and spicy, and Lawrence's judgment was correct. When John cautiously made a request to hire Melvin over the phone, Hoover agreed after a little groaning. Not only that, but he also sent another unpleasant unlucky guy to John to take over Melvin's current job.
"Really, when I'm a garbage dump!" Hanging up, John muttered dissatisfiedly. In fact, he was still very satisfied with such a result.
The next day, Melvin took up his new role as the company's administrative director. Walter raised his hands in favor of such a personnel arrangement. Since John generally doesn't meddle in the day-to-day affairs of the company, his job as the company's deputy general manager is busy enough, and stepping down as administrative director can give him a breather. Now Melvin, the head of administration, together with Dvořák, the head of personnel, and the head of security, Reilly, have become the troika of FedEx's internal management system.
With three new officers in office, Melvin now needs a good track record to prove his abilities to his new boss. Anyway, John offered him several times as much salary as he did when he was in the FBI, and he had to prove that he was worthy of it.
The first to be targeted by Melvin were the small labor groups of the Brotherhood nature. Even the unstoppable Chicago gangsters were beaten by Melvin, not to mention these small groups that were not tightly organized. Mervin, the intelligence master, quickly locked down the backbone of these organizations and found a reason to remove them from the company one by one.
The real challenge comes from the CIO. The center-left labor organization, which had just splintered from the American Federation of Labor, was known for its fighting power. ICI leader John L. Lewis, who led more than 1 million members to a succession of giant companies in the U.S. automobile and steel industries in 1937, is now pressuring Congress to pass the Fair Labor Act as soon as possible.
John knew that his FedEx company was far inferior to industrial giants such as General Motors and American Steel, and it was undoubtedly an egg to fight against a giant organization like the Industrial Federation. However, cats have a cat path, and rats have a rat path. Melvin and Dvořák came up with a roundabout solution. It didn't take long for Melvin to successfully plan a major corruption case, and several heads of the Federation of Industry and Industry were imprisoned one after another. After some operation, Jimmy Hoffa, the leader of the guild who was favored by John and Dvořák, successfully took the position of chairman of the FedEx branch of the United Transport Union. Of course, for this ambitious new guild leader, Melvin already had enough control in his hands in advance to ensure that he would not be a tiger in the future.
A professional is a professional. As soon as Melvin made a move, he quickly cleared up the labor union chaos within the company, and what is even more commendable is that it did not cause further intensification of labor problems. John's suppression of trade unions was not because he wanted to be a black-hearted capitalist. In fact, FedEx's employee benefits system is pretty good. In his previous life, however, he had seen the virtues of these labor organizations.
Speaking of labor organizations in the United States, it is really strange. Take, for example, the AFL-CIP, where some people have guns in their hands (with tens of millions of members, most of whom legally own guns), and proletarian revolutions have already broken out in other countries. These American workers, however, are bent on threatening the government and enterprises, and are busy seeking benefits and welfare. I don't want to work hard, and I am extremely hostile to migrant workers like John, thinking that this is robbing them of their jobs. In later generations, the entire automobile industry in the United States can be said to have been crushed by these lazy guys. John is doing this now, which can be regarded as a precaution.