The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-03-19

| Retef E0SD8 pEOuuCOiOtl 6t AiAe three Oregon shipyards, announced that he has been holding confer ences with the National Labor Re- lations Board and union leaders and could report progress in his l effort to have "a negotiated ad- justment instead of forced ad- justment," indicating that the case might be settled outside the NLRB complaint hearings, now recessed to March %.
 3. While NLRB officials them- selves are coy on discussing any undecided case still before the board. 1t can be stated authori- ! tatively that Robert B. Watts, NLRB general counsel, has been meeting with union labor leaders in exploratory conversations" on the Kaiser case. This is taken to mean that NLRB TOW realizes 1t has got hold of a hot spud and would like to let go if 1t could find some neat way.
 EXPOSURE MAY
 SPEED SOLUTION
 All three of these developments come close on the heels of exclusive NEA Service dispatches, first print ed in this newspaper few days ago, disclosing that the six top A. r. of L. and c. I. O. peace ne- gotiators had tackled a secret para graph onto their much-heralded unty agreement of Dec. 3, guaran- teeing each side protection of its legal rights.
 This under-t timetable agreement was interpreted by the 0. I. O. to be Q guarantee of its rights under the Wagner act to continue mem- bership organization drives and to refuse A. F. of L. offers to negoti-' ate no-raiding agreement. Bring ing out into the open this secret deal of the peacemakers is now believed to have facilitated a solu- tion of not only the Kaiser juris- dictional battle itself, but of all similar disputes interfering with the war production effort.
 Kaiser sees today a real oppor- tunity to adjust the labor situa- ton to the war effort. He has assurances from o. I. o. President Phil Murray, A. F. of L. Metal Trades Leader John P. Frey and NLRB representatives themselves that they all want to improve the present bad situation.
 Kaiser is approaching the prob lem with his typical it can be done" attitude. He says he can report progress in these I1egotia- tions, and he wouldn't be making statements about 1t if he did not see hope for settlement within few weeks.
 FREEZE" ON
 UNION MEMBERS
 Kaiser's solution for the problem of jurisdictional disputes is to freeze labor conditions as they are at present. A step similar to this was taken at the beginning of the last war, but the Kaiser idea of today is to freeze union membership as it now exists. Workmen in one union would stay in that union for the duration or as long as they kept their present jobs, workers not in any union would stay out, new work CTS would have the choice of join ing whatever union they like, or none.
 Such solution would undoubtedly be considered by the union pro- posal for an open shop, or substitu- tion of maintenance of membership for the closed shop, but Kaiser makes it clear that this is not his problem, but the province of the National War Labor Board and the unions themselves. All Kaiser is interested in is getting the dis putants together and negotiating. Truman committee hearings of the next week or so should do much to hasten a settlement. Four union leaders who will be called to testify are c. I. o. President Phil Murray, A. F. of L. President Bill Green, A. P. of L. Metal Trades Council President Johnny Green.
 The committee is primarily in- terested in getting the greatest pos- sible production out of the existing labor force, but will tackle the juris- dictional muddle as one of the prin- cipal causes of interference with war production.
 As pointed out by Truman Coun- sel Hugh Fulton in recent examina- ton of MT. Kaiser. what a union jurisdictional fight amounts to in final analysis is determination of which union a workman must pay his dues to. As far as winning the war is concerned, that wouldn't seem to make much difference.