Imperial Valley press., 1944-01-31
Talk
-by-
Peter Edison

answer it glibly with, "A difference
of opinion between management
and labor"
Strikes are caused by
Here you start looking under
more beds than an old maid in a
charity ward.
Sometime in February. the Bureau
of Labor Statistics will come out
with its formal report on strikes
in 1943. About the same time the
National War Labor Board and the
! National Labor Relations Board
will issue their annual reports, and
there will be some annual figures
to draw from them. None nor all
of these will tell the whole story.
! You must look, in addition, at re-
ports of the Army, Navy, War Pro-
i duction Board, Maritime Commis-
sion, War ManpoWer Commission
and Cancellation Service of the De-
partment of Labor reports on the
operation of the Smith Connally
labor disputes act, the experiences
of the British and few other SUM-
i dry and assorted bits of business,
such as talking TO experts" in
! labor relations.
TEN STRIKES DAILY
Preliminary estimates put the
number of strikes in 1943 at 5000
or better, the number of man days
lost through strikes at over 135
million. That averages 300 strikes
a month, 10 day, each losing $3.50
man-dayS labor.
/ 1t is considered impossible TO
make any division to show the
number of strikes affecting war in
dustrics. For 1912, the War Labor
Board made an estimate that 1863,
or approximately 46 per cent of the
1868 strikes in that year, were i'll
munitions industries. Using that
same percentage, it would mean APP
proXimately 1900 strikes against the
war effort in 1943.
No one will condone a single
strike, but from labor advisers to
the War Production Board, con-
firmed by War and Navy Depart
mentS, come frank admissions that
there has been no sizeable failure
to meet any production schedule
because of strikes
To consider strikes as ineScapable,
natural phenomena is however,
too easy. One of the facile fallacieS
is to say that strikes normally in
crease as industrial production
goes up. Take look at that for
a few selected years:
In 1880, there were 33 million
man-days lost through strikes. with
the Federal Reserve Board index of
industrial production at 81.
In 1887, there were 28.4 million
man-days lost by strikes, with the
index at 113.
In 1912, there was a drop to four
million man-days lost, while the
index rose to 1879.
For 1943 the estimated loss will
be 1875 million man-days, with the
index probably averaging 235.
COMPLEX FIGURES
The figures don't prove a thing
they are supposed to prove. The
large number of man-dayS lot in
l941 and 1943 can be accounted for
by the coal strikes of those years
The strike record of 1887 can be
attributed to just one thing. That
was the year the National Labor
Relations Act was declared con-
stitutional by the Supreme Court.
1t resulted in 4740 organizational
strikes. The law that was to i'm
prove labor relations resulted in
more strikes and more man-days of
idleness than the country has ever
had-all-ti records. A law, in
other words, can cause strikes in
stead of stopping them.
Think that one over a minute.
Then look at the experience of the
British, who have National Serv-
ice Act which makes strikes illegal.
In 1912, in spite Of their law, the
British had 1900 strikes, causing l.5
million man-days idleness. The
United States has about 3.5 times
as many industrial workers as
Great Britain, yet the United
States. without National Service
law, had only 27 times as many
strikes.
Bear in mind, too. that the
British have suffered direct bomb
ings, which are supposed to en-
courage labor loyalty and speed up
war production.