Evening star., 1941-08-26

mas dnQ-plCkeu k
seven out of the 'S.'55
nine justices David Lawrence.
from administration supporters who
conform to his own views that the
way to amend the Constitution here
after is not by the manner provided
in the Constitution itself, but by
judicial Interpretation.
Americans are living under this
strange form of government in Au-
gust, 1941, while billions of dollars
are being spent and untold sacrifices
are being asked for to preserve this
conception of democracy-a concep-
ton that is beginning to approx
mate totalitarianism because scarce
ly month goes by that the system
of private initiative and private
property isn't being circumscribed by
the administration in power.
Compulsory arbitration of labor
disputes was never voted on by
Congress. 1t could never pass. 1t
can be established only by executive
usurpation of power, and that's
what is happening.
End of Two Years.
The compulsion is being applied
by a combination of two edicts.
First, President Roosevelt set up the
National Defense Mediation Board.
The country accepted 1t as an emer-
gency instrument which in the ira
ditional manner of mediation boards
throughout labor history would use
its good Offices to bring the parties
together and to appeal to their
patriotism to effect agreements.
Then the President went a step
further and announced that deci-
sions of the National Defense Medi-
alton Board were binding on the
parties. So far as enforcement of
its decisions upon unions was con-
cerned. the President, in the North
American Aviation Co. case on the
West Coast. merely ordered that the
force and power of the Govern
ment should be used to permit work.
ers to work who wanted to work.
This is an admission, of course,
that workers had received no pro-
lection against mass picketing and
violence and that neither the Fed
eral or State government had done
its duty irrespective of national de-
fense situations.
AS for the employer, the leverage
used upon him was to threaten to
take over his plant. There is a
statute passed by Congress in 1910
which gives the Government power
to seize a plant where the owner
refuses to execute defense con-
tract. This has been and will be
used to imply that when a strike
occurs and union leaders refuse to
allow their men to work unless the
employer does their bidding, this
somehow becomes a refusal to exc
cute defense contract.
Warning to Employees.
Actually what the President de-
cided by his proclamation over the
last week end was that he will seize
plants wherever the National De-
fense Mediation Boards decisions
are not obeyed by employers. This
is presumably because the employer
is held to be doing something I'M
lawful. Yet only last week the Ma
tional Labor Relations Board in the
Western Printing Co. case handed
down a decision which says it is law
full for an employer to refuse to
accede to the demands of a union
for a closed shop-and it is the
closed shop issue only which was in
volved in the Kearny, N. j., case.
No question of wages or hours or
recognition of a union was in dis
pute.
So it boils down to the fact that a
new law has been written by the
President whereby in his own dis
cretion he can seize plants under a
statute which relates solely to re-
fusal of companies to agree with the
Government on the price of terms
of defense contract-something
wholly unrelated to labor disputes.
Employers in America never knew
till last week end, nor did labor
unions generally, that they now are
operating under a system of COM
pulsory arbitration. As for union
leaders. however, they need have
little concern. The C. I. o. defied
the findings of the same mediation
board last May in the coal strike
and the members of the board and
the President and the administration
issued no orders and made no COM
ment to the effect that findings of
the board were sacred and had to
be obeyed in the name of national
defense. Today as a consequence OF
the arbitrary exercise of power by
union leaders in that coal situation
the United States is behind in Its
shipbuilding schedule and in steel
production. The~loss in tonnage
has never been replaced. Time lost
cannot be replaced.
If the presidential edict require.
compulsory arbitration for employers
only, they at least might demand
fair minded and disinterested per-
sonnel or else decline to allow ab.
stract issues of closed shops and
compulsory unionization ever to bt
submitted again to the mediation
board, leaving 1t wholly to deal with
disputes over wages and other work
ing conditions in defense industries
Reproduction Rishts Reserved)
The British use transport planes
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