Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1921-02-10

AS far back as 1908, the National
Association of Manufacturers gave a
definition of the term "open shop
which is quite in line with the prin-
ciples laid down by ex-President Taft
in a recent article in the Philadelphia
Public Ledger.
The ope' shop" said the resolution
adopted by the Manufacturers Associ-
alton eighteen years ago, "is one in
which no person should be refused en-
ployment or in any way Disseminated
against on account of membership or
nonmembership in any labor organiza-
ton AS stipulated a short while
ago by Mr.. j. Philip Bird, General
Manager of the Manufacturers AS
ISOLATION, this resolution means that
employees have the right to contract
for their services in collective capa-
city, but that no collective agreement
shall forbid employment to those who,
for any reason, refuse to join a labor
organization.
EX-President Taft, in his discussion
of the open shop question, says:
Every man has the right and should
have the opportunity to labor on such
terms as he will, and any body of men
who physically obstruct him in the ex-
ercise of this right and the improve
ment of this opportunity are wrong
and are fundamentally lawless
With these Illuminating definitions
here does not seem to be much room
or doubt as to what the term "open
hop" means. If labor union men,
by refusing to work by the side of
communion men, are able to exclude
such men from the shop, they are
legally within their rights. They
block the way to the American citi-
| zen's exercise of his right to work for
a living, but they do it lawfully. On
he other hand, if employers refuse to
employ labor union men, then they
90 are within their rights. In both
cases there is the closed shop. That
>ither kind of these closed shops is
detrimental to public interests, de-
rimental to the interests of employee
md employer, there is no manner of
| loubt
In this situation there is no denying
hat the labor unions are facing a
formidable public hostility. 1t is P
hostility from which they have only
themselves to blame. There is no pub
lie antipathy to labor unionism. On
the contrary, the public has ever been
ready to take the union side in all
controversies where there was merit
in the union demands.
1t is the abuses of labor unionism,
| not labor unionism itself, which have
reused the publics wrath. The steel
strike, the Winnipeg and Seattle l.
w. w. strikes, the unjustified coal
! ,trike, the Boston police strike, and
Aalf dozen or more outlaw railroad
trikes are specifications in point. If
| losedshop labor unionism meanssthese
Kings, then the American people want
zone of closed-shop labor unionism.
And what the American people do not
want they generally manage to avoid
| having.
Never was public sentiment in
| America in a state more dangerous to
organized labor itself than it is right
at this moment. Instead of stripping
for a fight on a falsely defined open
shop issue, organized labor, in the
present temper of the American peo-
| pie, would far better be engaged in
such "boring within" it's own house
hold as will undermine and fling out
its ignorant, arrogant, grating lead
RS. Either they must go and such
abuses as they promote must go, or
here is grave danger that the closed
/ shop fight, before it is ended, may
become fight for the very existance
# organized labor itself.-Harevy's
! Weekly.
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