Evening star., 1941-04-06
Experience Reveals Mediation
Success Requires Stern Stand
Men Who Tackled World War Labor Problems
Say Present Agency Needs Code of
Principles to Guide Decisions
By ". B. RaaSdale,
Associated Press Staff Writer.

Time after time the board refused to
entertain complaints from employees
while they were out on strike. In one
case it made an award where the men
had struck after submitting a complaint,
but specified that the award should not
take effect unless the strike were ended
promptly In the Bridgeport case Presi-
dent Wilson warned the strikers who
remained out after the board had
handed down its decision that their
draft exemptions would be waived if
they did not go back to work. In the
Smith & Wesson case the War Depart
ment took over the plant after the COM
pany refused to abide by the boards
decision.
Right to Organize Upheld.
The right to organize was stated and
restated in a long series of decisions.
Companies were forbidden to force en-
ployes to join company unions. On the
other side, although employees under Or
dinary circumstances were perfectly free
to wear union badges, they were for
hidden from doing so on duty if the
badge prevented cooperation with non
union employees.
Equal pay to women for work equal
to that done by men was ordered in
several cases, although in a few the
board established lower minimum wages
for women than for men. And in a Little
Rock case it ordered a laundry to pay
coloreo women pay equal to that re-
ceived by white women for equal work.
In set of cases from Waynesboro,
Pa, involving the workers of a series
of tool and machine companies, the
board set a minimum of 40 cents an
hour. This minimum varied elsewhere,
from 80 cents for common labor in San
Antonio to so cents for unskilled work.
ers in st. Joseph, Mo; IS cents for un-
skilled building trades workers in Cleve-
land and a usual 40 or AZ cents for
unskilled workers in industry.
In July, 1918. the board adopted a
resolution that:
The period of the war is not normal
period of industrial expansion from
which the employer should expect un-
usual profits or the employees abnormal
wages; it is an interregnum in which in
dustry is pursued only for common cause
and common ENDS.
"Capitai should have only such
reasonable returns as will assure its use
for the worlds and Nations cause, while
the physical Wellbeing of labor and its
physical and mental effectiveness in
comfort reasonable in view of the exi-
gencleS OF the war should likewise be
assured
Free Speaking and Fast Action.
Men like Mr.. Lauck and Hugh S.
Hanna, who also was a member of the
old boards staff and now edits the
Labor Magazine for the Department of
Labor, agree that the board tackled its
job in ali air of informality which
elected free speaking and fast action.
In its operations, the board assigned
cases to sections, a so-called section
consisting of one labor member and
one employer member of the board. The
men who worked with the board say
this method was extremely effective be-
cause the laboring man and the en-
ployer would try in every way to reach
an agreement.
The new board contains three panels
labor, employer and public representa-
tives. In the creation of sections, a
representative of each group would be
chosen. Here, if a majority governed,
the public representative would hold
the balance of power and there would
not be the same necessity for labor
employer unanimity as in the old board.
The old board was beSieged with a
series of traction company cases and
they were handled by Mr.. Taft. 1t was
in these cases that he proposed that trac-
ton companies be granted rate increases
if this were necessary to enable them to
pay their workers living wage.
Mr.. Taft, a former Republican Presi-
dent working then under his democratic
successor in a war emergency, wrote
many of the boards decisions. And
he did not simply call in stenographer
and dictate his opinions. He sat at his
desk with pen and wrote them in
longhand.