Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-07-21
STATE FEDERATION
OPPOSES RAILROAD
BOARDS ACTION


The Illinois State Federation Of
Labor through It's Executive Board,
has adopted the following resolution
in opposition to the anti-union action
Of the Railroad Labor Board:
Whereas, the United States Rail
road Labor Board, by a resolution
passed July 3, 1922. has announced:
/ III That the recognized national or
ganization Of railway employees who
! have suspended work have ceased to
represent those classes of employees;
lf2) That associations Of non-union
men employed BY the carriers should
be formed; l3) That the strike
breakers" are officially purified, and
| "a That the carriers and such puri-
| fed strike breakers" should take
steps at once to organize associations
which associations, it is evident,
will not be Independent organizations
of free labor, capable of exercising
liberty of contract in collective bar
gaining but merely instruments for
destroying the freedom of labor; and
Whereas, the arrangements OF
ninety-two railroads in at least one
hundred and four cases have refused
to comply with rulings of the same
United States Railroad Labor Board
and not in a single instance has the
Board announced that any manage
ment has ceased to represent the rail-
road in question, or demanded that
another management should be or
ganized, or directed the stockholders
to select a new management, but on
! the other hand the board has repeat
eddy recognized and dealt with man
agements that have violated decis-
ions of the board, which shows that
the board is attempting to exercise
power over railroad employees which
it does not claim to possess, or is
unwilling to attempt to exercise over
railroad arrangements, and is in this
manner, as well as in the bias shown
in its resolution, exhibiting a parts
anship making it useless as a mediat-
ing body; and
Whereas, the Labor Board, in
seeking to destroy the organizations
or railway employees who exercise
their constitutional right affirmed in
the Transportation Act itself, to re-
fuse to work under unacceptable
conditions of employment, and in
seeking to create in their place organ
izations of employees wholly subser-
Went to their employers, is assuming
power not granted to this board;
is violating the laws of the United
States in letter and in spirit, and is
attempting to bring about conditions
of involuntary servitude in violation
of the Constitution of the United
States, now therefore, be it
Resolved, that the Illinois State
Federation of Labor denounces the
action of the United States Railroad
Labor Board taken in it's resolution
of July 3, as sinister and lawless
attempt to destroy the constitutional
rights of free American labor; and,
be it
Resolved, that the Illinois State
Federation of Labor denounces the
labor board as unworthy of public
trust and unfit to perform the public
duties imposed upon it, so long as its
resolution of July remains upon its
records as a declaration of its unlaw-
full partisan policy and purposes; and,
be it further
Resolved, that the Illinois State
Federation of Labor reiterates its
heretofore often expressed opposition
to the legislative creation of tribunals
of arbitration which may be granted
power, or may extend powers granted,
to exert compulsion upon workers to
render service against their will. 1t
should be pointed out that in the labor
board, which was specifically denied
any power of compulsion, we find
cropping out an inevitable human
weakness, the craving for power to
compel, wherever there is an obliga-
ton to give advice. Yet, to grant that
power which the labor board is at
tempting to seize, would be to destroy
the most precious heritages of Ameri-
cans, their freedom from political or
industrial bondage, whether it be i'm
posed by the exercise of private or
public force, or for the benefit of the
few or the many"