Evening star., 1945-10-21
Diverse Agencies Present
Problem in Labor Issues
Unified Plan Difficult to Establish With So Many
Government Groups Involved in Wage,
Hours, Health and Other Programs
By E. B. MitfeIman

The Federal labor agencies have been
ministration for almost two years now.
All agencies have that problem, but
none is SO well suited for spotlighting
it as the labor agencies. They touch
on the interests of SO many people,
favorably. or unfavorably. that any,
thing pertaining to them attracts pub
lie attention.
Labor itself snapped on the light
toward the end of 1943, after wage
increase recommended for the nonoper-
ating railway employees by a railway
panel had been shaved down by the
Office of Economic Sterilization, be-
cause the Office thought the full amount
of the increase would have unstabilizing
effects. Mistaking the problem of
stabilization for a problem in adminis-
tration, labor attacked the entire fabric
of labor agencies. This attack was sup
ported with another, about the same
time, against the validity of the Bureau
of Labor Statistics cost of living index,
in an effort to break down the Little
Steel formula altogether, the formula
which had become the bulwark of wage
stabilization.
The very agencies which were created
to serve it, labor felt, were either
stymied by other agencies or were
working against its best interests. When
the President, who by law is given
an important place in settling railway
labor disputes, stepped into the breach
between the railway panel and the
Ofice of Economic Sterilization and
spanned it at a higher figure than
either proposed, labor was more Ger
tain than ever that not only were the
agencies working at cross purposes, but
that they did not know what they were
doing.
Labor's own solution was to put all
labor activities into the one depart
ment established to serve its interests.
What could be simpler as principle
in administration, not only from the
point of view of internal effectiveness,
but from the point of view of labor's
ability to bring it's own influence to
bear? The principle appealed to the
Republican party as an issue for the
1914 presidential campaign. Although
silent about it in the campaign, it also
apparently appealed to the Democratic
party, for its standard bearers in Office
have since been trying to do something
about it.
Forty Agencies Handle Labor.
But what are the facts of the case?
Ever since the Bureau of Labor Sta
tistics was first established back in
1884, to compile facts of interest to
labor, and certainly ever since the De-
partment of Labor was established in
1918, not to do much more than COM
pile facts, but. to provide labor with
seat in the cabinet. labor's inter-
ests have famed out far and wide
in the affairs of the Government This
occurred sometimes upon labor's in
it4ative, as in the case of the social
security agencies, sometimes upon the
initiative of nonlabor agencies which
sensed labor angles in their own prob
lens, and proceeded to establish labor
units to deal with them Gases of
nonlabor agencies in point are the
Army, Navy, War Shipping Admin
istration and State Department, to
mention only few.
Before the recent liquidation of
agencies began there were about 40
handling labor problems in one way
or other OF the 49, 9 were out-and-
out labor agencies, like the Labor De-
partment, the National Mediation
Board, the National Labor Relations
Board, the Federal Security Agency
etc. The remaining we're nonlabor
agencies having labor units Some of
these nonlabor agencies do only for
NAL type of job, like collecting en-
ployment and wage data in the field
over which they exercise general re-
sponsibility. A case in point is the
Interstate Commerce Commission. Some
do accident prevention work, like the
Bureau of Mines: some work in the
field of industrial hygiene, like the
Public Health Service; some do a
personnel relations job, like the Army,
not for their own employees, but on an
overall basis involving their contrac-
tors: some are concerned with foreign
labor relations, like the State De-
partment.