The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-02-12

debate, with due
 respect to the
 sane tity of
 EdSOn d e m o era tic processes and with due disregard for dictators and their methods. But with everyone crying for more pro- duction in factories, lamenting strikes and yelling against the mis- takes of management, the fact re- mains that in some ways Congress itself is a bit of bottleneck.
 When congressman get up on their hind legs just to make un- listened-to speeches for the rec ord, votes are rarely changed. It's enough to make any farmer back home weep over the sheer waste of hog calling. No new arguments are made, and no new facts are brought out.
 The bottleneck in Congress is woefully apparent in its consider ation of what, if anything, should be done about modifying labor laws and regulations to speed up defense.
 While the lease-lend bill has been before the House, practi- cally nothing else has been con- sidered. A parallel case would be for the Douglas aircraft plant, now completing it's first super bomber, to say, "Whi1c we're do- ing this, we can't do anything else"
 THREE LABOR LAW
 PROPOSALS NOW UP
 If these matters of strikes in de- fense industries, change of hours and the kind of contract given the Ford Motor Company are important there should be some policy making action. Thus far, though the Pres ident has before him proposal to create a war labor board, the ad- ministration has given no mdica- tionS of leadership Cn labor mat ters, being content to ride on the statutes now on the books, sup ported by recent Sup; eme Court de- cisions. No one seems to expect leadership from the Department of Labor. Senator Wagner's plans for NLRB modification are dormant.
 Bright spots in the picture are the work of the Consolidation Serv- ice under John R. Steelman. and the licks put in by Sidney Hillman, to whom Secretary of War Stimson gives much of the credit for keep ing the number of strikes below the level of the last war. Also, the La Dor Board itself. under it's new chairman, Dr. Harry s. Mills, has put into effect changes which speed the boards operation.
 In Congress itself are at least three proposals for wartime emer- gency labor legislation.
 1. Howard w. Smith of Vir- ginia, his investigation of NLRB just completed and the report printed, has bill which would prohibit the closed shop in defense industries. What he is driving at particularly is putting an end to the practice of compelling work men to join union before they can get a job on a defense project.
 2. Clare E. Hoffman of Michi- gan has two bills which would make strikes unlawful and which would prohibit the closed shop.
 These bills are before the Ju- dietary Committee, which may, eventually, get around to hearings or investigation of labor relations in defense industries.
 3. Carl Vinson of Georgia, chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee, will probably swing into action first with hear ings on his own bill, which is modelled after some provisions of the railway labor acts, not pro- hibiting the right to strike, but providing for compulsory media tion in war industry labor dis putes, making strikes unlawful until 20 - then 30 - and then an- other 30 days after the dispute has arisen. In those 30 days, it is Vinsons belief that troubles can be settled and strikes prevented. LABOR SLACK STILL
 TO BE TAKEN UP
 Of the three proposals, Vinson's has the best chance of getting any place, but it will be weeks dIlQ lIlOIlIIlS Dc1OIc dLly Il14A1S 4CdAAy happens, unless the number of labor interferences with produc- ton increases. There were about 150 work stoppages in January, all of short duration.
 Defense Commissioner Sidney Hillman, asserting that actual strikes accounted for loss of less than a quarter of day per worker in 1940, firmly believes that no additional labor legisla- tion is necessary. And, says he, When the labor situation is good, don't meddle with it."
 A pretty good guess would be that there will be no further restrictive war labor legislation until all labor reserves are at work and there is no unemploy- ment. That will not come for at least a year.
 When labor slack is taken up, then agitation for lengthening the 40-hour work week, will get seri- ous, and further - the Priorities section of OPM may begin func- tioning in earnest, sidertacking normal economic production and concentrating all effort on pro- duction for war.
 
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