Evening star., 1939-10-21

The appearance of the ''slow
down" as the successor to the "sit
down" is new development in
labor management warfare. The
Wagner Labor Relations Act was
supposed to prevent labor strife by
insisting on collective bargaining.
But the Chrysler Corp, victim of the
new form of sabotage, has agreed
to collective bargaining and the
National Labor Relations Board has
held an election which was won by
the c. I. o.
Now, as contract is being nego-
tiated, coercion is applied in the
form of SLOW down" Is the "slow
down" a lawful weapon? Does it
differ from the "sit down." which
now has been denounced by Federal
and State court decisions so that it
may be proceeded against through
judicial channels?
Affects Commerce Flow.
The interstate commerce laws of
the United States are specific They
forbid any two or more individuals
acting in concert to interrupt or
impede the flow of commerce.
Plainly all the legal reasoning of the
last three or four years on the part
of the administration here has been
along the line of claim that strikes
and labor wars affect the free flow
of commerce. There is no doubt
that SLOW down" affects the free
flow of commerce just as much as
does a labor dispute. The right to
quit work altogether has been upheld
as lawful, but interference with or
impairment of the property of an
employer has not been held valid.
A showdown" is just as much an
impairment of property as de-
struction of needed tools For, in
the auto business, an assembly line
cannot operate efficiently unless all
concur in the schedules set. For
any group of men to attempt to in
fluence others to withhold from an
assembly line the work that must be
performed is to restrain trade and
commerce as plainly as if the ship
ments of the completed product were
held up at the end of the assembly
line.
A Remarkable Letter.
In many respects the letter which
has just been published from K. T.
Keller, president of the Chrysler
Corp, to the distributors and
dealers of the company, who at this
critical moment in their business
year are awaiting the 1910 models
is a remarkable document. Mr..
Keller says in part:
From August % through October
8, we had 80 separate discussions
with various c. I. o. officials, seeking
to get production up to normal, but
they failed to do anything effective
about it.
After the Labor Board elections
on September 81, the owdoWns got
worse and more widespread. We
could not mistake the fact that we
were confronted with an organized
campaign on the part of the G. I. O.
union to curtail production by
definite amount approximating Is
per cent.
"On the evening of October 2 a
union officer telephoned to the Office
OF the factory manager at one of
the plants and announced that the
next morning in the motor division
production would be slowed down
IS per cent. Promptly at the hour
he named output fell off almost
exactly as he had predicted"
"Strong- -Arming" Deplored.
Strong-arm methods have been
decried in the world as the wrong
way to settle disputes between ma
tions. The conference table and
the processes of reason are urged
as substitute. There is no inter-
national force, unfortunately, which
can require obedience from those
who insist on physical coercion, but
in America the statutes governing
interstate commerce can be enforced
by the Attorney General of the
United States, who, incidentally,
comes from Mich;Aan and had an
experience with Shutdown" strikes
before the Federal Courts declared
them unlawful. Today the Depart
ment of Justice again has q con-
spicuous opportunity to begin GRIM
inal and civil proceedings against
all those who engage in conspiracies
to violate the interstate commerce
laws of the Nation
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