Evening star., 1936-12-12
Labor's Program.

william Green, president of the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor, has presented
labor's program to the Council for In
dustrial Progress. 1t looks first of all
to careful planning to prevent un-
employment on large scale, such as fol-
lowed on the heels of the crash in 1929.
It looks further to more equal dis
tribution of the benefits Of the new pros
perity into which the Nation is now
pushing rapidly.
Mr.. Green enumerates four principal
recommendations. Involved in some of
these recommendations may be con-
stitutional amendment granting to the
Federal Government and the States
greater power to deal with working con-
ditions, with production, with hours of
labor, minimum wages and child labor.
Mr.. Green, however, made no specific
mention of such constitutional amend
ment.
The first of Mr. Green's recommenda-
tions calls for setting up in the Federal
Government a permanent advisory eco
nomic council, with an equal number Of
representatives of labor, management
and the public-the consuming public.
The duties of the council would be purely
advisory, but its recommendations are
expected by Mr.. Green to be translated
into legislation by Congress. His second
recommendation is the traditional de-
mand of organized labor that entire
freedom be guaranteed for collective
bargaining. This was written into the
old N. r. A. act, although in terms that
were sometimes confusing. 1t was later
embodied in the Wagner labor relations
act. What Mr.. Green demands is that
industrial workers be permitted freely to
organize and then proceed to collective
bargaining with the employers.
The third recommendation is for spe-
cific protection to labor through legis-
lation designed to establish minimum
wages for women and elimination of
child labor, to establish also other mini
mum standards essential to the welfare
of the wage earners and the economic
welfare of the Nation as a whole Mr..
Green's comment here Is interesting.
The legislation which he claims should
be enacted to carry out this recommend
alton should be $50 formulated as to
make possible the establishment of such
standards not by legislative fiat but by
collective bargaining procedure between
representatives of labor, management
and the public" Apparently he does not
propose that standards shall be hard
and fast, established by law, but that
labor be permitted to improve these
standards whenever possible, through
collective bargaining.
Mr.. Green's fourth proposal is for leg
islation putting into effect 30-hour
work week of five days with six hours
of labor each day. Here is the most con-
crete Of all his proposals. 1t is some
thing that Congress can sink its teeth
in. It is something that has been pro-
posed in legislative form for several
years. And it is something that is surely
coming before Congress for considera-
ton at the coming session-if labor can
have its way.
Only by the adoption of such pro-
gram, Mr.. Green maintains, will it be
possible to bring a balanced recovery"
He Is averse to return to conditions
such as existed in 1929 before the crash
came. The prosperity of those days, he
insists, was false prosperity, built upon
false values and false expectations;
prosperity in which but few really shared.
The program of labor will be strongly
urged upon the Roosevelt administration
and upon Congress, where it will receive
and should receive exhaustive considera-
ton. Laws which deal with labor and
employers should not be lightly written
lest in the end labor find itself worse
of than before, due to the operation of
economic forces which cannot be con-
trolled by law.