Evening star., 1946-12-19
Labor Leaders Stund
On Wagner Act Hit
Fight On Revision May Bring
Complete Repeal of Law
By Davd Laurence

By David Laurence
Not single labor leader HI come
forth with any suggestions for the re-
vision of the Wagner Labor Relations
Law.
Management has made gesture
against repeal OF the Wagner Act But
If labor unions are going 10 oppose
any or all changes, the natural ten
dency of many industrial leaders will
be to start movement for complete
repeal of the Wagner Law.
Certainly there is nothing more ex-
treine about such position on the part
of management than there is about the
a6amant attitude being assumed by
many labor leaders.
Possibly there has to be real dan
ger of repeating the Wagner Law be-
fore labor leaders will wake up to the
fact that revision is the milder of the
two courses.
Two Stands by Business.
There are among businessmen, two
groups-those who favor repeal and
those who favor revision. At the mo-
ment the revisionists are the majority.
The minority, however, are firmly con-
vinced that such compromising tactics
will get nowhere and that labor union
leaders mean to oppose any and all
amendments. This in turn, would bring
q solid front on the other side.
1t is curious thing that despite ths
attitude of administration officials, In
cluding members of the National La
Dor Relations Board, that some amend
ments to the Wagner Act are desirable,
no labor union leader has come out
with a program. In fact, the labor
leaders are girding their forces to fight,
inside and outside of Congress, all
amendments, on the theory that union
labor organizations will be weakened
no matter what steps are taken by
Congress.
The labor leaders are right in that
concept. They, of course, have gained
many of their advances as a direct
result of one-sided law. In some con-
,spicuous cases word has gone forth in
unionizing campaigns that the Govern
ment itself wanted workers to join
unions. The propaganda in soliciting
memberships has often transcended the
bounds of truth, but employers have
been powerless to refute such propaganda
without risking a. lawsuit and protract-
ed proceedings to learn, through hair
splitting decisions, whether or not they
were refuting Misrepresentation or dis
couraging unionization.
yolstead Act Recalled.
Because of the one-sided law and the
partisan Interpretation given the act by
the various members of the National
Labor Relations Board in the past 10
years, the economic system has been
harassed by more strikes than in the
days before the Wagner Law was en-
acted.
There Is a strange parallel in all this
with the way the public reacted to the
Volstead Act. The law was recognized
as containing worthy social objective
and repeated attempts were made in
Congress to amend it to correct abuses
but the "dry" forces stood adamant.
Finally the repeal method was decided
upon by the opponents of the bootlegger
era and after only few months of ac-
tive campaigning the Volstead Law
and the 18th amendment were re-
pealed. The labor leaders are in some-
what the same position as the Anti
Saloon League leaders were about Is
years ago when they refused to accept
amendments to the Volstead law and
fastened repeal.
Complete repeal of the Wagner Act
would be mistake, but today's labor
leaders may force such action some day
by their lack division and their appar-
ent determination to maintain selfish
controls through one-sided law.
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