Evening star., 1943-01-30
Hobbs Bill
Marks Shift
In Congress
Labor Rucketeerinq
Question Has Been
Evoded Seven Years
By DAVID LAWRENCE.

BY DAVID LAWRENCE.
The bill proposed by Representa-
tive Hobbs, Democrat. of Alabama
to stop racketeering and violence
whether in connection with labor
disputes or any other kind OF coer-
cion, brings up cardinal principle
that the Congress now has evaded
for seven years.
1t is whether under the guise of
collective bargaining strong-arm
methods can be used to force a
citizen to join union and whether
violence can be applied to prevent
employers from receiving ship
ments of goods unless they pay
tribute to a labor union.
The whole subject of violence as
an instrumentality of collective bar
gaining will be up for Congress to
pass upon sooner or later and the
chances are that in the final analysis
nothing will be done about it. For,
while the House of Representatives
may pass the measure, there are
enough rubber-stamp votes in the
Senate either to keep such bill
In committee so it will not be voted
upon or enough votes to amend 1t
30 as to weaken its force.
Law Passed in 1884.
The so-called anti-racketeering
statute was passed in 1884 and was
designed to stop the vicious prac-
sices of certain gangsters who had
gotten possession OF few labor
unions. The law specifically said
that it could not be utilized to
curtail the right to strike, and when
the Supreme Court of the United
States interpreted the statute in
such way as apparently to sane
tion violence as means of getting
certain advantages for a labor
union, the need for amendment
was realized.
The national labor union leaders
will. of course, fight the proposed
legislation to their utmost. They
will insist that it is just means of
reaching indirectly into lawful and
legitimate strike activities. They
will insist that the relatively small
amount of racketeering can be taken
care of by State laws.
Actually, however. ever since the
Lindbergh kidnapping law was
passed, it has been clear that con-
spiracies that are begun across State
lines cannot be reached by the au-
thorities of the States in which the
conspiracies are consummated.
Labor politicians have insisted that
the police power should remain in
the States, however, and that is the
principal ground on which they
fought the inclusion in the original
Wagner labor relations law of a
phrase that would prohibit coercion
from any source" either when
emanating from employees or the
employer. -..s
The States, on the other hand.
have been slow to intervene In labor
disputes and the labor unions have
further entrenched themselves not
only behind the Federal anti-injunc-
tion law known as the La Guardia-
Norris Act, but behind a couple
dozen OF similar statutes passed by
the States and modelled after the
Federal law.
Injunction Abuse.
1t Is true that the use of the in
junction to break lawful strikes con-
stituted an abuse that led up to the
passage of the La Guardia- Norris
law. but the Supreme Court of the
United States, under the domination
Of New Deal justices, has so inter-
preted the law as practically to
irnmunize any union or group of
employees from doing anything they
please to interrupt and restrain in
terstste commerce.
The advice given by Supreme
Court opinion a few years ago that
the remedy for unwise legislation
was not in the courts but at the
ballot box was theoretically correct,
but there seems to be no remedy
against the rendering of legislative
opinions by members of the judici-
AIRY so that statutes plainly con-
eeived to reach a certain objective
must be rewritten and specific words
included II indeed this Is at all pos
sible in a Congress dominated by
fear Of labor union reprisals at the
polls.
The Southern Democrats and
those Republicans who come from
districts where the labor vote is rela-
lively small seem to be willing to
form majority to pass legislation
curbing the extremes of labor
unions, But Congress members from
big cities, both Republicans and
Democrats, and the Senators from
States with large union votes are
hesitant. The struggle against the
use of violence in the collective
bargaining" process has been going
on for several years but it may we'll
be wondered why Congress is being
asked to act when the several States
seem to have been ignoring the use
of violence in labor disputes right
along
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