Evening star., 1939-07-23

as Gen. Ashburn. They do not wish TO
be quoted but their thesis is that when
the Government operates business en-
terprise it should treat its employees as
though 1t too were bound, like private
employers, by the National Labor Rela.
tions Act and the Walsh-Healy law.
T. v. A. Can Sue, Be Sued.
The Tennessee Valley Authority was
set up by Congress as a governmental
corporation. 1t can sue and be sued, and
has other privileges of a private cor
poration. BY special provision the
employees are not under civil service al
though civil service standards are used
throughout in hiring workers T. v. A.
officials say, however that they have had
relatively few labor disputes and these
have been settled to the satisfaction of
all sides. The possibility of strikes they
dismiss with the observation that most
Of their labor is engaged in the construc-
ton of dams and that within three or
four years only few hundred employees
will be required to operate the huge
plants.
A different situation obtains In the
Maritime Commission. BY an executive
order, all workers on the commissions
ships and terminals were blanketed in
the civil service under schedule A, the
classification of workers who do not take
the competitive examinations. Like the
T. V. A. employees, they are paid by Gov
ernment checks on the Treasury. The
commission officials have been unable to
obtain an official ruling on whether or
not these employees have the right to
strike, but have declared as commission
policy that no such right exists.
On the Eastern seaboard the commits
sion has had little difficulty oyer hil-
ing men. This is done from United
States shipping commissioners lists.
The commissioners are Federal officials
The question of union hiring halls has
not arisen on the Atlantic, perhaps be-
cause 80 to SO per cent of the men hireo
from the Federal lists belonged to
unions.
When the President was asked at a
press conference last week what steps
the Government could take against the
w. P. A. strikers in Minneapolis he told
his questloner to read the Constitution
OF course, there is no express provision
IN that document regarding strikes
against the Government, but there are
implicit provisions against attacks on
the sovereign power of the Nation.
Britain Has Statute.
Great Britain has a specific statute
against such strikes. In the trades dis
putes law of 1927, enacted after the 1926
general strike, it was provided that all
strikes are illegal that attempt to coerce
the government" Another provision of
this same law declares that no civil
servant can belong to any union except
union of his fellow workers.
Before enactment of this law, British
civil servant unions were affiliated with
the Trades Union Conference, just as
the American Federation of Government
Employees is an affiliate of the A. F. of
l.. and the Federal Employees Union be-
longs to the c. I. o. The leaders of the
American unions of governmental en-
ployes have repeatedly announced that
they recognize that they cannot strike
against the Government. But the Seattle
strike against the Maritime Commission
and the barge line strike against the
Inland Waterways Corp. show that this
view is not held by the local organizers
and leaders of craft and industrial
unions. Those strikes raised a difficult
question that was not settled by the
Presidents pronouncement on tho w.
P. A. walkouts.