Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-09-17
People About to Have
Novel Experience
By wEsTBROOK PEGLER


decree or executive order and
freeze. or chain, him to his job.
II he is a farm hand at $50. a
month he must remain a farm
hand at $50 a month and can't
60 to town. $50 miles away. to
work on some other job in a
war plant OF war building
project paying S1.50 an hour.
We have been inching toward
this for a long time. although
attempts to mark the trend
have always been fiercely de-
nouneed as labor-baiting.
1t was not plain. but 1t could
be sensed, five or seven years
ago, that in establishing con-
trolls over private business and
in acting as the bargaining
agent for workers. through the
labor board, the government
was establishing control over
the workers.
If the government could say
what was fair minimum wage.
il could also establish a fair
maximum and il the govern
ment eventually became the
principal employer of labor, as
IL now is. II would then be not
only the bargaining agent and
arbiter, but the boss, as well.
EVEN IL there had been no
war, this probably would
have come about, for the gov
eminent was regulating bust
ness so firmly that eventually IL
would have been necessary
either to take over business by
foreclosure or establish maxi
mum wages based on the ability
Of private industry to pay.
We do not know yet how
President Roosevelt would 60
about fixing top-limits on wages
as he has promised to do, but
probably he would do 50 with a
bow to the big unions which are
under heavy obligations to his
administration and political &C.
cessories of the administration.
so as to create an appearance OF
willing cooperation.
When most civilian, nonessen-
tial occupations are gone, that
many more millions of Ameri-
cans will have gone into war
occupations or 60 hungry.
That will be an effective form
OF compulsion. And when they
60 into war jobs their pay will
be fixed by their bargaining
agent, who will also be their
employer in the real sense Of
the word, inasmuch as the pri-
vate firms doing war work are
not free agents but also operate
under many compulsions and
restrictions.
President Roosevelt was indis-
tinct, but We got the general
idea when he said in his message
TO Congress that because the
costs of production are now, tn
many cases. passed on to gov
eminent, and because so large a
percentage of profits would be
taken away by taxation, collec-
tive bargaining had changed "a
great deal from what IL was in
peace times"
WHAT was a way OF saying,
Il without really saying, that
having taken over control and
most of the profits of private
industry, the national govern
ment is now compelled to regu-
late its own labor problems in
the role of the boss boss.
II the enemy were ashore In
any force anywhere in the
United States civilians would
have to stand TO their jobs under
fire and possibly under martial
law and any who malingered or
ran might be shot.
The fact that the enemy Is
still being held far of doesn't
alter the case much, although
martial law and military punish
ments are not being considered.
One very important issue must
be met soon.
That is the question whether
citizens who are compelled to
work or fight or to work or go
hungry shall be forced to join
unions.
Unions would seem to have
lost their reason for being, their
role as bargaining agents, under
a system Of fixed wages and
compulsion, but. of course, they
will be kept going, anyway. as
a sort of front to balance the
representatives of industry In
consultations on pay. hours, rate
Of production and so forth.
But, as bargaining agents.
they can only plead, not de-
mand, and under labor compul-
sion their sacred right to strike
would seem to be gone.
Why. then, should any one be
compelled to join a union?
And why should any one VOL
unfairly join a union unless in
the determination that when
peace comes the united workers
will insist on the revival Of free
competition in industry, which is
the only system which provides
freedom from government con-
troll for the worker.