Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-02-02
Former Board Head
Urges Changes in
Wagner Labor Act
Garrison, q Witness for
N. l. R. B., Defends Law
And Praises Agency
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those of any one on the National
Labor Relations Board?"
"Yes." said Mr.. Garrison, II wish
to make that very clear"
In recommending that the Labor
Board be relieved of deciding C. I.
GA. F. of L. quarrels, Mr.. Garri-
son said:
Whether peace within the ranks
OF our labor movement will come
about through some agreement by
the two warning camps upon rules of
the game, or whether it will come
about through their reuniting into
one organization, no one can proph-
esq., but while the struggle continues,
my conviction is that attempts to
lay down formulate by law will fail.
No formula that this board has laid
down has proved satisfactory TO both
groups, and none which any future
board could lay down will be any
more satisfactory.
1.-THE attacks on the present board
by both the A. F. of L. and the c. I.
o. have injured its capacity to adj
minister the substantive guaran-
ties of the law and have encour-
aged the opponents of the law to
come forward with proposals for
revision which would not have been
considered a year or two ago. In
suggesting that the board be re-
lieved of the duty of determining
units in cases of open conflict, my
motive is not to save the present |
board. Despite my personal friend
ship for its members am not con-
cerned with their fate, for they
can take care of themselves, but I
am concerned with the fate Of the |
act itself.
Courts on Law Won't Help.
ITO attempt to deal with the prob
lem by subjecting to court review
the boards decisions on collective
bargaining units would make mat
tiers only worse. These decisions |
turn not upon legal questions. but
upon the most delicate considera-
lions of industrial and labor policy,
requiring an expert knowledge of |
the labor movement and the history
and ms and outs of collective bar
gaining. The judges do not possess
this knowledge, and to give to them
the final say in these matters would
simply multiply the confusion and
the difficulties.
Nor, in my respectful judgment,
Is Congress itself equipped to settle
the matter by legislation. You SIM
ply cannot write into the law a
formula which will be workable and
acceptable to both sides. Whatever
formula you construct you will be
intensifying the strife"
Defends Wagner Act.
Mr.. Garrison defended the Wag-
ner Act in strong phrases, declaring
it was passed largely because the
freedom of workers to organize was
widely denied, despite the fact that
employers, on their side, were
strongly organized into powerful
associations for the purpose of COM
batting unionism.'
He added:
The act was passed, however, not
merely out of sense of justice to
workers who were being discrimi-
mated against and who had no ade-
quate means of redress. There was
a positive philosophy in back of the
act. In the first place, it represented
the conviction that industrial peace
could in the end be best achieved
by freedom of organization and by
the process of collective bargaining.
All experience in this country in
the collectively organized industries
and in Great Britain and elsewhere
had pointed this way. The impulse
toward unionism is not accidental
or artificial, but responds to a deep
seated desire on the part of workers.
Unions Not Built by Coercion.
Unions are not built by coercion,
although coercive acts may and
sometimes do occur occasionally in
connection with organizational
drives. But coercion cannot explain
the results of the elections in favor
of unions held by this board, in
which each man marks his ballot
in secrecy. Nor can coercion ex-
plain the rise of the labor union
movement in other countries. If it
is true that this movement responds
to deep-Seated human desires, it is |
also true that aggressive opposition
to it simply breeds strife"
In response to questions by Chair
man Smith, Mr.. Garrison said as
he would revise the law the Labor
Board would hold elections only in
cases in which conflicting unions
agreed to abide by such a decision
and otherwise would decline to i'm
terfere. Mr.. Garrison contended
that neither a Government board
nor the courts properly could decide
such disputes as have ragged between
the G. I. 0. and the A. F. of L.
Mr.. Garrison said there were those
who found fault with the Wagner
Act because the complaints of I'M
fair labor practices which it enter
tanned were filed by its own agents,
rather than by the unions COM
planning. But the board, he added,
like other administrative agencies,
had to be "a self-starting mech
anism." He added:
This is so because administrative
agencies are created, not to sit back
like courts and await such disputes
as parties ltigant may bring before
them they are created to see to it
that particular laws are carried out
in the public interest. Under most
regulatory measures, individual COM
plainants are either afraid or I'M
willing to come forward and con-
duct proceedings themselves, or are
unable to bear the expense of doing
so, or are unequipped to do the job
properly in the public interest.
"The small shipper complaining of