Montana labor news., 1939-02-09
Butte Men DEFEND
STATE WAGNER BILL

A public hearing was held on
House Bill 48, the Labor Relations
Act, on Wednesday evening, Febru-
airy End. The meeting was held
under the auspices of the labor COM
mittee with Mike Mulholland of
Butte in charge. The persons ap-
peared in opposition to this bill were
almost identical to those appearing
in opposition to the Wage and Hour
Bill.
The Helena Independent, by the
way, lent its columns to the defeat
of the measure by reporting the re-
marks of the opponents of the bill
almost in full while those who were
in favor of the bill were hardly
noticed by this paper. It may be a
good thing to remember that quite
a number of the states have passed
a Wages and Hours measure and
also a labor act or what is generally
termed a little Wagner act, both of
which are copied from national
legislation. It appears that Mon
tana should not be less liberal than
the Congress at Washington which
passed both the wage and hour
measure and a labor relations act.
Spiegel in talking before the
group defended the state labor rela-
tons act as follows:
Gas one of the proponents of this
measure, I am not in. any way
ashamed of this legislation or of the
legislation which appeared a week
ago in the form of the wage and
hour bill and which was introduced
by the committee of which l am
chairman. 1 have belonged to A. F.
Of L. labor unions for approximately
30 years. It is unfortunate that
labor is not financially able to ap-
pear here in the same numbers as
their employers, or officers of the
various Chambers of Commerce or
associated industries.
II want to say that to refute the
statements made by the opposition
that labor does not want this legiEa
ton, that I ran on a platform deal
ing with this sort of legislation and
the vote which I received both at
the primary and general elections
exceeded that which I received two
years prior by about 1900 votes. I
received approximately 1880 votes.
I wonder if any Of the gentlemen
opposing this bill have ever asked
their employers for a raise in wages
or shorter working hours or a
change in working conditions and
was told in a polite manner to go to
hell? I wonder if any of these
gentlemen were ever locked out of
his position and was not given an
opportunity to sit around a table
with his employer and endeavor to
adjust these differences?
"This bill is not as bad as it is
painted by the opposition. It merely
delegates power to some outside
agency to force arbitration, but again
we are faced with business refusing
to see the handwriting on the wall
and refusing to grant labor the same
privileges which they have always
reserved unto themselves. They are
coerced more or less into proposing
certain legislative measures by the
managers of the larger enterprises
which also un%successfully attempted
to oppose similar national legisla-
ton. Without this interference there
is no doubt that labor and small
business could work together under
this legislation and in time suspicion
between both parties would be suffi-
GENTLY allayed so that such legisla-
ton would become unnecessary. In
my observation l find that there has
been very little industrial strife be-
fore the associated industries was
organized in some of the counties,
but since their organization it has
been continual turmoil. If these
gentlemen who oppose this sort of
legislation think that their ideas
meet with the approval of the aver
age citizen Of their community, it
might be well for them to run for
the legislature and see if they could
be elected"