The Wilmington morning star., 1944-12-30
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
copyright, 1914 by King Features Syndicate

debatable but discussion OF the dispute between
Montgomery Ward and the War Labor Board
should help people to understand what t h
Roosevelt government has been doing to them
for it's own political purposes under cover of
the war emergency and with a pretense of
serving the national interest. The board order
&c. Ward to grant NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
and the dues check-off to a union claiming to
represent the workers.
The real issue here is whether the COMPANY
has a right, much less a legal duty, to coerce
its employees in their choice of collective
bargaining agent. The Wagner act forbids such
coercion and provides penalties for violation
There have been some grotesque interpreted
tons of the meaning and substance of coercion
If an employer recognizes superior ability
and effort in the of an individual worker
and awards that person raise at time
when a union is making a drive for recruits
in the factory, that may be coercion. His act
may be interpreted an attempt to ingratiate
himself with the worker and persuade this in
divdual that union membership is not nee.
essary.
The employer cannot even discuss unionisn
with individuals or harrangue group in his
own factory. He can argue unionism only with
accredited bargaining agents who may be total
strangers from some other city and, inciden-
contrary may be thieves and thugs avowed
communists.
Oddly, however, although the boss is forbid
den to discuss unionism with the help, in prac-
tise he is encouraged to do so if he speaks
in favor of it. Technically, this. too, is coercion
but all the Roosevelt agencies dealing with
labor relations violate or waive laws in the
interests of their political henchmen in the
union movement. So this sort of violation is
encoura ged.
Here in New York Russian communist pro-
ducing secret gear for the government and
pouring his large profits into communist rev.
dictionary activities, openly consortS with the
help and the representatives of the union which
is controlled by the communists. They all say
he is an emil ghtened, progressive employer and
model whereas, in fact, he and the union
agents are members of the same conspiracy
and working toward the same end, commun-
ism.
OF course the closed shop, in all its variants,
lis coercion, too, but nevertheless Is favored
by all the Roosevelt labor agencies and in
many cases imposed by order or pressure. 1t
lis coercion in several aspects. For example,
a new man coming to work is told that he
must join the union He has no choice of
bargaining agent here. He is coerced by the
boss in collision with the union.
For another example, a union man in a
maintenance-of -membe-shp shop obligates
himself to keep up his membership for GER
tain period. That is an affair between him
and the union in which t he boss properly
should have no voice But the war labor board,
in the Ward Case, in many others where
the employers have weakly submitted, insists
that the employer must lire any man VINO
drops his membership.
Wards says no, because that would be an
Illegal interference with the workers right TO
choose or discard a bargaining agent. The
company is fobidden by law to do as the
War Labor Board says it must and yet DR..
Frank P Graham, ostensibly public MEN,
Der of the board has the audacity to appeal
to the public with an inflammatory and pre-
judicial declaration that Wards obduracy in
respecting the law is serious assault on the
government home front war policies.
OF course it is that but the people reading
Grahams cunningly devised statement, may
not be in position to realize that those poll
cies are hostile to the American rights OF the
very workers whom they pretend to befrlend
Those policies are a great boon to the union
organizers. In millions of cases. by these poll
cies the Roosevelt government has done their
work fo- them by herding great groups OF peo-
pie into unions, subject to exactions, taxes,
ed individually by the organizers That IS their
job and naturally they are grateful and loyal
to an administration which does the trick for
them in multi-thousand lots. They just collect
the money and Of course, at campaign time
are generous with that money to the party
which suced it to them.
Ward objects also to the checkoff OF union
dues The company says it it not blll-collec-
tor, and, in effect, asks why it should perform
this important task for an organization which
is its enemy? Ward does its own bill collecting
and says the union also should do its own. The
board however would have the people think
that Ward is somehow disloyal to the nation
in this terrible time in refusing to take on the
expense and responsibility of collecting bills
for hostile group.
In all closed-shop controversies no unloneer
has ever had an answer to the fact that people
do not quit unions which serve them well.
Yet the board in many cases, in loyal execu-
tor Of the Roosevelt homefront war policies,
would fire men, subtracting just that much
more manpower from the war effort, for fall
ing behind in their dues and thus into bad
standing in closed shop plants.
So it will be seen that the Roosevelt govern
ment puts union interests above national in
terests even while crying. shortages of labor
and production. And hope 1t has been made
clear that union interests and the interests of
tho workers are not necessarily h same