Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1944-04-07

Aio SopIdlilS Isl #
of industry Clayton w.
are running Fountain
up and down the land shout
ing words of good will. Their
fists are full of plans for a
capitalistic paradise on paper.
According to the utterances
of these spokesmen for bust
ness; we need not fear inse-
curity in the postwar world.
Everything is going to be hot
sy-totsy-that is if labor will
lay down and be quiet, and if
the state will keep its fingers
out of the economic pie.
Wall Street would have us
believe that is overfloWing
with good will and concern
for the common veal. Just
leave it all to US, boys and
girls, says the United States
Chamber of Commerce and
the National Association of
Manufacturers. We will turn
America into the promised
land, SO that milk and honey
will flow in the streets.
FINE STUFF
All this is fine stuff.
But what happens when you
grab one of these chaps with
his fist full of paradise on pa
per and the millennium running
out of his mouth-What hap
pens when you snatch one
such by the coat-tails, pull him
up short, and say: "Okay, bud,
we want to go to your prom
ised land; show us the way?"
We have an example of such
case in the demands submit
ted by the UAW-CIO to the
General Motors Corporation,
which are now being consid-
cred by the War Labor Board.
One of the demands submit
ted by the GIN workers is for
establishment of postwar
employment security fund to
be jointly administered by the
union and the company.
SHARE IN WAR EARNINGS
1t is the proposal of the
union that this postwar en-
ployment security fund be Gre
ated out of the fat war earn
ings now being harvested by
General Motors. The workers
are unable to share in the war
earnings now because of the
restrictions of the Little Steel
Formula.
The union argues, therefore,
that portion of these earn
ings be set set aside now; and
that, after the war, when con-
version will cause consider
able unemployment, payments
will be made out of this fund
to unemployed workers and
men and women returned
from the armed services.
In its brief supporting this
demand, the union makes
much of the expressed opposi-
ton of big business to govern
ment RECOMMENDATION and pater-
nalism.
Look here, now, the union
argues, in effect. General Mo-
tors, as one of the great
American corporations, has
been a party to the preach
ments of big business which
claim that we can have pros
perity after the war, if only
the government will let in
duStry alone.
PUT 1T IN PRACTICE
Let's practice that preach
ment, the union says. Let's
set up this postwar employ
ment security fund to take
care of the unemployed and
partially employed GM work
ers during conversion back to
civilian work.
If we work this thing out by
ourselves, the government will
not have to do it. AdminiStra-
ton OF the fund by the union
and the corporation would
tend to lessen bureaucracy and
reduce the tax levy.
You have been talking this
kind of stuff for long time
now, points out the union. We
think you've got something
there. So, lets dispense with
the adjectives and practice
what you preach.
And what happens?
The General Motors execu-
tives blow up higher than a
kite. That's socialism, they
scream. Why, it would ruin
us.
So it seems that the prom
ised land to which Wall Street
beckens us is tied on a stick