The boy left, looking remorseful, and Farwell told himself that not everybody could handle an out-of-the-way type that well. If he pasted the little sermon in his hat he’d be all right.
“Really creative synthesis!” Farwell snorted and poured himself a drink before he buckled down to planning a series of releases for the International Spacemen’s Union. The space lines, longing for the old open-shop days, were sniping at the
I.S.U. wherever they found an opening. They had a- good one in the unions’ high initiation fee. The union said the high fee kept waifs and strays out and insured that anybody who paid it meant business and would make the spaceways his career. The union said the benefits that flowed from this were many and-obvious. The companies said the union just wanted the money.
Farwell started blocking out a midwestern campaign. It might start with letters to the papers signed by SPACEMAN’S WIFE, WIDOW OF SCAB SPACER and other folks; the union could locate them to sign the letters. Next thing to do was set up a disinterested outfit. He teatatively christened it “The First Pan-American Conference on Space Hazards” and jotted down the names of a few distinguished chronic joiners and sponsors for the letterheads. They could hold a three-day meeting in Chicago, and conclude that the most important factor in space safety is experienced crewmen, and the longer their service the betfcr. No mention of the I.S.U. initiation fee policy out of the F.P.A.C.S.H., but the union could use their conclusions in its material.
The union could use it to get a couple of state legislatures to pass resolutions endorsing the initiation fee policy. G. & B. would write the resolutions, but the I.S.U.—an independent union—would have to swing the big federations into putting pressure on the legislatures in the name of labor unity.
Numerically the spacemen were insignificant.
He pawed through stacks of material forwarded to him as ammo by the union looking for the exact amount of fee but couldn’t locate it. The coyness was not surprising; it recalled the way corporation handouts bannered the “profit per dollar of sales” and buried the total profit in dollars and cents. He buzzed Copy.
“Mac, does anybody there know exactly what the, I.S.U. initiation fee is?”
“I’ll see, J. F.”
A moment later he heard Angelo’s voice. “It’s kind of complicated, Mr. Farwell—maybe to keep anybody from saying it’s exactly this or exactly that. Here’s the way it works: base fee, $1000, to be paid before they issue you a work card. What they call ‘accrual fee’ on top of that—$100 if you’re twenty years old, $200 if you’re twenty-two, $300 if you’re twenty-four and so- on up to 30, and after that you can’t
join. You can pay accrual fee out of your first voyage. From the accrual fee you can deduct $50 for each dependent. On top of that there’s a 5 per cent assessment of your first-voyage pay only, earmarked for the I.S.U. Space Medicine Research Foundation at Johns Hopkins.. And that’s all.”
Farwell had been jotting it down. “Thanks, Angelo,” he said absently. The Space Medicine Research thing was good, but he’d have to be careful that they weren’t represented at the F.P.A.C.S.H.; you didn’t want a direct union tie-in there. Now what could you do about the fee? Get the union to dig up somebody who’s paid only the $1000 base because of age and the right number of dependents. Forget the accrual and the assessment. How many people on a space ship—50, 60? Make it 60 to get a plausibly unround number. Sixty into 1000 is 168%oo.
“Dear Editor: Is there anybody riding the spaceways who would not cheerfully pay $16.67 cents to insure that the crewmen who hold his life in their hands are thproughly experienced veterans of interplanetary flight? Is there anybody so short-sighted that he would embark with a green crew to save $16.67? Of course not! And yet that is what certain short-sighted persons demand! Throwing up a smoke-screen of loose charges to divert the public from the paramount issue of SAFETY they accuse—”
That wasn’t exactly it. He had made it look as though the passengers paid the I.S.U. initiation fee. Well, he’d struck a keynote; Copy could take it from there.