Evening star., 1943-05-24
Open Shop Drive
Attributed to NLRB
Spokesman for Metal Workers
Questions Motive Of Attack
On Kaiser Contracts

1
To the Editor Of The Star:
I regret that in your editorial OF May
10, entitled, THE Kaiser Case" you
evidently were imposed upon by rep
resentative of the National Labor Rela-
| tons Board When the deceit that has
been practiced upon you becomes ap-
parent, you will realize the tremendous
handicap under which We, who are try
ing our living best to maintain orderly
production, have to labor.
First, the proposal of the board that
they would drop their charges against
the Kaiser yards If we would forego the
union shop provision of our contracts,
is put forward to you as another step
in the boards long and laborious effort
to effect an orderly settlement. 1t is not
such at ALL From the very beginning,
the boards attack has been against this
provision. Manifestly, If at any time we
agreed to strike out this provision there
would be no case. This has been the
situation from the beginning.
| Now. we cannot do this. We cannot
change the provisions of these contracts
without calling together every ship
| builder on the Pacific Coast signatory
| to the same contracts and, OF course,
the many constituent organizations of
the Metal Trades Department which are
also signatories. These signatory ship
| builders are responsible for SO per cent
of the shipbuildng on that coast; they
constitute ali of the shipbuilders with
If oIo ~
smaller yards. These shipyards have
some 100000 workers.
All of these shipbuilders are sigma
tories to the master agreement which
was worked out early in l94l under
the watchful eyes of Government rep
resentatives, under their encouragement
and all of the provisions of which were
fully known to every phase of WASH
ington off1cialdom having any concern
with them. These are indisputable facts.
A representative of the Maritime Com
mission just today has testified before
a subcommittee of the House Com
| mittee on Merchant Marine and FISH
cries that the agreement had the official
blessing of DR.. Mills, the chairman OF
the NLRB.
The obvious purpose of the blanket
agreement was sterilization, to prevent
workers from moving from one yard to
another, to prevent shipbuilders from
enticing one anotherS workers away.
| The wage scale is uniform, the worker
| management relationships are uniform.
| Don't you realize the tremendous dis
advantage, in this setup, the Kaiser
yards would be placed in should an
open shop be imposed upon them, with
surrounding yards working under what
trade unionists consider more salts
factory arrangement. Don't you realize,
too that the Kaisers would have to spend
months and months building up an en-
ploye-relations structure to replace the
one we have established over period
of two years, There are 10000 men in
the Kaiser Portland yards.
I am submitting this picture to you
on the assumption that the open shop
would be declared and that would be
the end of the controversy. When a
board representative indicates to you
that this would be the case, as I gather
that he did from your editorial, he is
deceiving you. and believe Intentionally
doing so. The next step would be for
the CIO to put on an intensive organ
izing campaign and then move for an
election. More practical representatives
of the board than the one with whom
YOU talked. readily agreed this would be
the case as soon as the boards open
shop proposal was made.
To prove further the deception that
has been practiced upon you, You refer
to 700 aggrieved employees, denied en-
ployment or dismissed from their en-
ployment because of these contracts.
Why doesn't this spokesman for the
board tell you that since these charges
first originated against the Kaiser yards
we have heard much of these TOO mis-
treated employees, but the facts are
the board has concluded it's side Of the
case in the hearings before a trial
examiner in Portland, and not one of
these men has been produced? Further
more, that this examiner after exhaus-
tive hearings, has completely swept aside
all of this brush, that he has thrown
out the testimony Of the few witnesses
which the board did produce to show
they had been Disseminated against
because of their CTO Affiliations. There
| were five The trial examiner has ruled
out their testimony as unreliable and
not to be depended upon The only
thing left in the case, insofar as this
trial examiner is concerned, is a legal
one, the technical legal question of
whether when the contracts we're signed,
there was the appropriate" bargaining
unit. Surely, the representative the
board sent to you and who imposed upon
you knows these facts. And as man
dealing with the very practical and
realistic problem of Industrial Dor rela-
tions, he should know that invariably in
these jurisdictional fights. these "ag-
grieved' workers are plants of the raid
ing organization
Why has this astounding situation
come about after two years of unusually
good relations between employer and
employe? DR.. Mills, of whom it has
been testified that he gave his blessing