Evening star., 1937-12-13

The manufacturers, notwithstanding
their formal recognition that collective
bargaining is the law of the land, still
refuse to concede that rights Of union
ization and rights of employe self
organization are unilateral and hence
not subject to any advice, interference
or involvement of any kind from the
employer. The manufacturers state
in frank terms what the relations of
employers and employees should be,
but they do not suggest any means by
which even their own members can
be brought to accept some of the very
standards outlined in the report.
Suggest Laws Amendment.
Much of the report is taken up with
suggestions as to how Federal and
State laws should be amended, and
here is the prime inconsistency of the
document. Protesting strongly that
the Government should not have any
thing to do with the regulation of the
internal affairs of labor unions, the
manufacturers ask governmental au-
thority nevertheless through amended
Federal and State laws to permit en-
ployers to refuse to deal with unions
under certain conditions. How these
conditions could be determined except
by some machinery of Government
and the courts is difficult to conjecture
yet the manufacturers want no Gov
ernment intervention.
Similarly there is an insistence that
labor unions be made responsible
and this is by all means desirable
but there is no provision to make
employers responsible for unsocial acts
or high-handed tactics in dealing with
individual employees or unions Again
and again the report insists that
workers and management should CO.
operate, but when it comes to the
form of organization that the en-
ployes should have, the employer still
wants to be free to argue with his en-
ployes and interpose his will.
Here, OF course, is the fundamental
point Of cleavage, the rock on which
many discussion on labor policy is
wrecked and, it may also be noted,
here is the basis for more than half
OF the disputes now pending before
the National Labor Relations Board.
The Wagner law says and the Su-
preme Court has upheld the provision
that employees are actually to decide
for themselves what form OF labor
organization they want. This doesn't
mean the right Of the employer to
influence inside the plant such as to
fire a union organizer from among
his own employees or otherwise to pun
ish or discriminate against such work.
ers even though they are "agitators"
and may deserve all the epithets which
the employer would like to let loose
against them.
Abstractly and academically, there
has not been any quarrel with this
principle o. the law by many en-
ployers but in everyday practice there
are plenty Of violations Of it and, un-
til the Wagner Act was passed, COL
lective bargaining was less widespread
than it is today, ating clearly
that the protection afforded by the
law, while abused, no doubt, never
theless Is aiding in the present trend
toward legitimate self-organization of
workers.
AS for dependence on the voluntary
goodness or willingness of all en-
ployers to correct bad working con-
ditlons or to improve wage scales
when they can afford it, record of how
many employers have gotten busy
since the Wagner law was passed and
improved those conditions so as to
ward off outside unions is a conspicu-