Montana labor news., 1935-03-07
HEADS
DENOUNCE EDICT
KNITTING SEC. IA

PHILADELPHIA.-The heads of
two national declarations and a state
leader led labor leaders here today in
denouncing Federal Judge J. P. Nields'
decision that Section Ia of the NRA is
unconstitutional.
At the same time, all organized labor
renewed pressure for passage of the
Wagner Labor Disputes Act outlawing
the very company unions Judge Nields
branded okay.
Internationals, state declarations and
local bodies also stiffened opposition
to administration efforts to enact a
work-relief program paying less than
prevailing wages. The popular enthu-
siasm for low wages, which the admin
istration apparently expected to deluge
the Senate with demands for passage
of the work-relief bill unamended to
protect wage rates, failed to material
ize. Senators who voted for prevailing
rate Of wages, reported that most Of
the communications received by them
approved their stand.
Labor leaders saw in both the
Nields' decision and administration op-
position to the McCarran wage amend
ment Of the Presidents work-relief bill,
a growing anti-labor tendency in ma
tional affairs that must be tramped on
before it spreads further.
Emil REEVE, president of the Amer
lean Federation Of Hosiery Workers,
said
81 am confident that the Supreme
Court will reverse Judge Nields' de-
%oision, which is clearly sixteenth cen
fury in its intellectual and legalistic
conception.
Judges such as this are a danger
to the social order, because they fail to
recognize the fundamental and sweep
ing changes which society has under
gone in the last 100 years. The Weirton
decision is an invitation to strike by
labor all over the country. 1t will re
quire very able leadership to prevent
wholesale walkouts within the next few
months.
Congress and the Administration
must act Immediately to reaffirm labor
right to organize and bargain collec-
lively. The last vestiges of feudalism
must be swept out of our judicial and
industrial systems in order to make
possible the sterilization of peaceful
and constructive relations in our mod
ern economy"
George Baldanzi, president of the
Dyers' Federation, said:
"This gauge Of battle thrown down
by Judge Nields will stiffen the morale
of the labor movement, whose militancy
had been somewhat sapped by the feel
ing that the Government would do its
job.
Must Use Economic Powers.
Labor must rely on its economic
power to secure the right to organize
irrespective of what the Constitution
or the statutes may say. The courts
have always sided with Judge Nields.
but have seldom been as candid as
he is.
Labor must take a leaf from the
books Of employers and see to it that
it is so strongly organized as to be able
to ignore attacks from any quarter"
John A. Phillips, president Of the
Pennsylvania Federation of Labor
said
IF United States courts hand down
more decisions like those issued by
Judge Grub in the IVA case and
Judge Nields in the Weirton matter
President Roosevelt may have to ap-
peal to workers of this country to use
their economic power to accomplish
those things which the New Deal anc
the NRA have failed to do for the
country.
"Steel workers in Pennsylvania have
been brutally and ~flagrantly robbed Of
their elementary constitutional rights
If the courts deny protection to these
workers their only curse is to cease
work and force the industry to terms
The steel barons have defied the Presi-
dent Of the country by refusing to dea
collectively with the employees of the
steel industry.
president Roosevelt should cal
upon the steel workers to strike to en-
force the collective bargaining clause:
of the NRA, if the Government cannot
enforce the law by any other means"