The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-02-24

Theory as nothing
more than a fantastic pipedream,
but the war mas given organized
labor leaders the opportunity to plug
the idea pretty hard. BY calling at
tention to every mistake that man
agement he's made in the defense
effort, criticizing business as usual
{! and high profits, the labor leaders
have promoted the idea further.
Today they have it up at the top
of the list of their principal objec-
tives along with national recognition
of the closed shop.
| 1t was, in fact squabble over
labor's participation with manage
ment in conversion Of the automo-
bile industry that wrecked the old
Office of Production Management
| organ ization, and packed William S.
Krudsen off to the army as lieu
tenant general. When the protracted
auto industry conferences at the
turn of the year failed to produce
any satisfactory progam for con-
version of the auto plants to war
production, OPM was knocked out
of the box and Donald Nelson and
the War Production were sent in
to pitch.
REUTER- PLAN AGAIN
The specific issue which wrecked
OPM was the so-called Reuther
plan, which was simply C. I. o.
labor's plan for pooling machine
capacity of the auto industry and
converting it to about war produc-
ton. 1t was a labor bid for a voice
in management. Management would
have none of the idea, ostensibly be-
cause management was convinced
it wouldn't work, subconSciously,
perhaps, because it was q suggestion
from labor.
Whatever the reasoning. OPM
fell. On Jan. 10 Nelson was called
to head WPB and on Jan. 20 he
announced his plan OF reorganization.
At that time Nelson stated he
would have one industry branch
chief, a centralized authority gov
eminent man responsible directly to
the WPB boss, but that each of
these industry branch chiefs would
have two advisory committees, one
from management and one from
labor. The advisory committees
would meet separately, but could
be callde together for joint met
ingS when necessary.
The formula seemed satisfactory
to both management and labor. At
any rate, everyone had confidence in
Nelson and was anxious to give the
WPB every opportunity to make
good. Nelson said he wanted con-
structive ideas from everyone, re-
gardless of whether they came from
management or labor.
A month or more of operation
under this policy has seen varying
Developments. 1t has taken Nelson
this long to name his planning COM
mittee, the WPB brain trusters who
will look at this war production
pogram in its broadcast phases and
advise on policy. At first, it was
proposed to make this a big COM
mittee, with representatives from all
degrees of management, labor, and
consumer interests. Then it was
changed to small committee re-
porting directly to Nelson.
VARIABLE PROCEDURE
There is as yet no definite policy
on how the labor advisoy commit
tees and the management advisory
committees are to work with the
industry branch chiefs. Procedure
ri nh ;,,I
The automobile industry, under
Branch Chief Ernest Kanzler, has
shown an inclination to work with
both the management and labor adj
visers and Walter Reuther sees Edsel
Ford to discuss a broad program
for standardizing the production of
tank engines.
In the wool industry, labor sat
down with management and helped
work out the program of allocating
production for civilian use. In the
pottery industry, the management
advisory group asked to have the
head of the union called in as
technical consultant, but the indus
try branch chief vetoed the proposal.
Policy on this point of ALDERMAN
agement participation, in summary
is still undetermined and perform
ance is spotty. Labor leaders are
meanwhile boring from within to
get a greater voice in the affairs of
management for all this war pro-
duction, using the labor advisory
committees as their vehicle. In in
dustries where they are not given
voice, they threaten to force
showdown and would apparently
be willing to wreck any industry
branch pr0lln inst &C thau rrracked