Evening star., 1941-02-16
SteeImon Discounts Occasional
Strike as Grave Danger
Cancellation Chief
Opposes Forced
Arbitration
By JAMES FREE.

induStry-even a national defense
industry-is not nearly so dangerous
as many persons think"
The speaker was John r. Steel
man, director of the United States
Cancellation Service, who Is in a
position to know more about the
good and bad symptoms of the Ma
tions labor health than any other
man. Every year his organization
handles thousands of difficult labor
situations involving millions of
workers. Disputes, threatened
strikes, strikes and lockouts - his
men see the worst ones. No citizen
in the country has any right to
more headaches from strikes than
John R Steelman.
And Mr.. Steelman thinks there is
undue alarm in many quarters over
the relatively few" strikes in de-
fense industries.
Ever SO often" he explained, in
an interview, some one will call
me and say: I've just read about
the strike in the Blank Factory.
This is terrible. Can't you do some
thing to make the union and the
company settle this thing. There
ought to be some way to force those
men to go back to work
No Dictator Methods.
Then I say: Whoa, wait a min
ute. Let's think about this a mo-
ment. This. is a Democratic coun-
try and we don't try to make people
do anything except obey the laws
I don't like strikes any better than
you do, but they are legal, you know
And any one with experience in
handling labor disputes would not
automatically decide that strike
is necessarily the workers fault.
( There aren't very many strikes: if
/ there were, they wouldn't be news.
And suppose we did decide to do
like a dictator country and deny
workers the right to strike. Sup
pose we put guards at the plants.
If necessary, to force dissatisfied
employees to go back to their jobs.
Do you think we'd get more goods
produced under that system of COM
pulslon than we are getting under
our democratic order in which the
Workmen have some say about la
Dor conditions and are free men
working because they want to?'
Most callers will agree with me
that we are better off as we are
continued Mr.. Steelman. But once
in a while one will protest that
at least the plant involved in a
strike would be producing if the
strikers were forced to go back to
work. The answer to that is that
dissatisfaction would spread if men
were forced to return to their jobs.
And if any one thinks production
goes ahead at full speed when dis
satisfied men are manning the
plant, he doesn't know human
nature.
Delay of Seconds Mounts.
Take a production line of I'M
willing workers, for example. They
would all be on the job, all right.
And they could do their work in such
way that it would be almost i'm
possible to fix responsibility for
delay. But one man could slow
down the often-repeated task of
tightening a bolt by two seconds
each time Another could manage a
five-second delay in a subsequent
process. With several hundred men
teaming up like that-and any labor
man knows it can be done-you
might as we'll close down the place
NO, just having men on the job,
if they don't want to be on the job,
doesn't mean a thing"
How about compulsory arbitra-
| ton?
Il am unequivocally opposed to
it, asserted Mr.. Steelman. There
might be difficulties of enforcement,
and, even if enforced, it would make
a dubious contribution to efficiency.
You can't legislate peace, or pre-
scribe harmony or decree co-opera-
| ton"
What about the railroads plan,
involving 30-day advance notice
with provision for mediation and
arbitration?
ut has undoubtedly worked fine,
but you should remember that the
railroads are old, established busi-
nesses and both the management
and the brotherhoods have had a
lot of experience in labor relations.
Most of our trouble nowadays is
in comparatively new, fast-expand-
ing industries. Some of the unions,
as we'll as companies, are new in
the business. Naturally they can't
get along as well as they could if
they had been working together
for years.
Notice Easy to Give.
"And I don't know that the 30
day advance notice would mean a
great deal, necessarily. There are
some States that already require
f1ve-day notification of intent to
strike: And, as often as not, a
union anticipating trouble will give
notice simply to cover itself If it
later decides to strike. The union
| could just as easily arrange . pre-