The New York herald., 1921-11-28
Arbitration and Strike Losses.


with million dollars a day from the
New York garment strike alone, is
the amount at which the United
States Labor Department estimates
the present loss of wage earners
through strikes, lockouts and delib-
crate absenteeism from work. 1t
bulks staggering economic wastage.
But the conclusion OF the Govern
ment statisticians that this stupen-
dous loss is chargeable to the refusal
or failure of employers and en-
ployees to take advantage of the medi-
alton and arbitration machinery of
the Labor Department is not alto
eether sound. There are losses from
attempting industrial operation On
wrong basis that are as killing as
losses from industrial stagnation.
1t is an unfortunate fact, and moth
ing is to be gained by conceallng its
truth, that arbitration in the faulty
way it has been practised must bear
its share of responsibility for the
very economic disturbances and in
dustrial paralysis now affecting the
country.
There have been two strikingly
transparent troubles with needless
mediation and arbitration schemes,
and they have borne bitter fruits in
the situation now confronting the
country. One is that almost invari-
ably the arbitrator has scaled up
wages, whether an industry could
stand the burden or not, for the ex-
press reason that the arbitrators'
purpose and commission are to pre-
vent strikes and they have found
this the easiest way to prevent them.
Following this line of least resist
ance in the main they have disre'
garded the fundamental question of
the welfare of the industry or busl-
ness upon which absolutely depend
the Job of the employee and the func-
tion OF the employer.
The second fault with such arbitra
ton has been that a decision sought
primarily if not rolely to meet an
emergency such as artiflcially hoisted
living costs, acute shortage Of labor
or war exactions has been construed
afterward as a final determination Of
specific question decided, as II II
we're an Interpretation by the Su-
preme Court of a legislative statute
or of a clause of the Constitution OF
the United States. Not merely have
labor unions been prone so to con-
strue the arbitrator's award, but later
arbitrators have shown tendency to
build upon such an award as courts
might upon judicial opinions and de-
cisions. Notable instances of this
are found in the coal industry, the
building trades and the railroad
business.
In putting wages UP the arbitrator
IS q swift performer; in putting
wages down he is q weak and shut
fling thing.
In this way it has come about that
many of the labor disputes, strikes
and vacations" of the present are
due to the processes OF the kind OF
arbitration which was so quick to
nut up labor costs to basis which
could not possibly be maintained un-
der adverse conditions or in normal
times, yet has shown itself without
the power or the will to put them
down when they must come down IL
business is to operate and employ
ment continue.
It is not too much to say, under
these circumstances, that the usual
forms and methods Of past arbitra-
tion have cost and are costing the
public more, and vastly more, than
strikes and lockouts are now costing
anybody. This is not an argument
against the principle Of the intelli-
gent and competent economic agency
which sound and fearless arbitration
could be. It is an argument either
for the complete reformation of the
kind of arbitration the country gem
orally has had or for the abandon
ment OF the whole system.