Evening star., 1946-05-22
Mine and Rail Seizures
Won't Solve Disputes
Labor and Industry Must Find
Way to Compromise
By David La,Crence

BY David Laurence
| Seizure of the coal mines and the
railroads doesn't solve labor disputes.
| Some other method to persuade both
labor and management to agree will
have to be devised.
One school of thought says 1t will not
De accomplished by legislation. Another
| school says legislation is the only way.
| Actually the so-called prolabor group
| in Congress and the so-called anti-labor
| members are not talking about the
same thing. Neither side wants to
paralyze the Nations economy, but each
side is perfectly willing to use existing
law and existing governmental influence
to accomplish its ends.
| Thus the same group Of labor leaders
who argue that legislation Is Of no
avail in settling labor disputes overlook
entirely the preamble and provisions OF
| the Wagner Labor Relations Act with
out which organized labor could not
| possibly have increased its membership
or collected millions of dollars in dues
and initiation fees.
What the prolabor group is right in
| saying is that no man should be re-
| quired to work against his will. That's
| constitutional guarantee. But the con-
stitution doesn't give any man or group
of men the right to force fellow work
ers into union or to keep them from
| working
Desire for Privilege
| 1t is the absence of law that is rapidly
driving the American economic sys-
| tenn into chaos. 1t is the desire for
special privilege and immunity from
legal prosecution for injuring the public
interest which occasions such a We
hement effort today to prevent Congress
from enacting even the mildest of labor
regulation laws,
America is passing through critical
| period Some labor union leaders are
as blind to what is happening as the
prohibition leaders were during the
decade of laWlessness that followed the
enactment of the Eighteenth Amend
ment The chances for compromise
were numerous then as they are today.
But when a group has a powerful lobby
and thinks it controls Congress, it is
likely to reject compromise and learn
only when reaction sets in that 1t has
lost the battle.
Today the American people are not
yet aroused to the dangers that face
them from strikes and labor disputes.
The Senate is showing some signs of
waking up to the need for legislation,
but it may be doubted whether the
public will really insist on action. The
letters and kilograms to Congress thus
far are relatively small in quantity. The
people evidently want to be punished
further by more and more disputes and
more and more economic Illustration.
Congress never acts as a rule unless it
is sure the people want action.
The employers are vocal and insistent,
of course, but are the people as whole
interested? Do the rank and file Of
workers themselves want to continue in
the strait jacket in which so many of
them have been placed by closed shops
and union bosses? Apparently as long
as wage increases were being given, the
tide of union prestige ran high with
the members. But when prices rise and
production is stymied and the workers
feel the pinch of imitation. will they be
as complacent about their own leader
ship as they are today?
Main Cause of Imitation.
For the main cause of imitation is the
lack Of controls of wages as we'll as
prices. The theory that more wages
can be paid for less and less hours and
less production is one that must sooner
or later collapse, just as the theory in
1929 that stocks could keep on climbing
and never be tumbIed down to real
values had to be disproved
Congress has an opportunity to
restore law and order in the American
economic system. Illegal picketing, vio-
lence, coercion and intimidation of the
workers and the misuse of the strike
power by leaders are all the outgrowth
/ of the failure of Congress to amend in
single particular the Wagner Act
passed in l935-the law that was to re-
duce the number of strikes and give
labor its most useful device for the i'm
| proyement of its wages and working
conditions.
Management has been goaded to more
and more resistance to union demands
because the scales have not been held
even. A law that makes mediation
imperative and puts the public interest
/ above the right of any organized group
! to interrupt transportation or to de-
| priVe the nation of needed materials is
essential. But it cannot be a one-sided
| law that puts obligations on unions
without putting equal responsibility on
| managers In the end, a government
arbitration tribunal to prescribe settle
ments in certain industries necessary to
health and public safety will have to
be provided and it will be a sad day
when the present system of voluntarism,
which has been abused by organized
groups, breaks down altogether. Legis-
lott L.