The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1946-04-26
Anti-Strike Bill Stalled in Senate
As Compulsion Is Raped in Report
Action Is Delayed for Weeks Months Because of Must
Legislation Before Fiscal Year Ends

Washington, D. C.--Action on anti
strike legislation may be delayed sew
eral weeks or even months in the SEN
ate because of the rush of "must"
legislation which requires considera-
tion before the end of the fiscal year,
June 80.
The Senate received report from
It's Education and Labor Committee
which threw out entirely the obnox-
ious Case Bill, approved by the House,
and substituted much milder medi-
alton proposal. However, AFL lead
ers withheld approval of the Senate
measure because of two or three objec-
tionable features
The committee report was note
worthy because of the sweeping way
it rejected any form of compulsion in
the settlement of labor disputes and
because of it's strong defense of the
right to strike
''The committees recommendations,
said the report, "are based upon a
widely held principle that successful
labor-management relations will not
be achieved by compulsory or repres-
sive measures, but can only be achieved
and preserved as the result of col
lective bargaining.
''In free society, therefore, the
function of the government with re-
spect to abor-management relations
is not to supervise and police, but to
cultivate in both labor and manage
ment that sense of responsibility to-
ward each other and toward the pub
lie that will lead to the making and
keeping of collective bargaining agree
ments and the resolution of differences
by means of their own devising.
"Most labor disputes are settled by
the parties with no outside assistance
at all. Those which reach the news
papers are, Of necessity, only small
and spectacular fraction of the total
number of disagreements which arise
between employers and employees
throughout the nation.
''There are, however, large seq
ments of industry in which for years
no strike has occurred and many in
dividual plants with similar enviable
records. Without compulsion, without
legal requirements other than those
which have been mutually agreed up
on and included in contracts, en-
ployers and the labor organizations
representing their employees have dis
covered for themselves that the best
and most economical method of doing
business together is through volun-
tary negotiation and conference"
Praising the record of conciliation
and mediation in labor disputes and
citing figures to show the effective
ness of such methods, the committee
declared that this record should not
be obscured by the minority of dram
atized instances" where strikes were
not prevented or promptly settled.
The report added:
"Many proposals were placed be-
fore the committee to impose limita-
tions upon the right to strike. These
suggestions have uniformly been re-
jected. The right to strike is one of
the indispensable democratic free
doms. Equality of bargaining power
between employers and employees is
achieved only through the existence
of such right on the part of the en-
ployes. Abridgements of that right
cannot be tolerated in free society
in peacetime, even though it may be
supported as temporary war
emergency measure.
'If this right is abridged, it is idle
to enact legislation to protect labor's
bargaining rights, for although en-
ployes may be entitled to organize
and negotiate with the employer they
will be wholly at disadvantage wher
it comes to securing good bargain
The employer has little incentive, ir
the absence of any threat of strike
to compromise, to concede or even te
persuade.
Moreover, men strike only as last
resort. Much emphasis has been placed
upon the fact that the public interes
suffers when work stoppage occurs
What tends to be forgotten, however
is that the persons who suffer mos
acutely as the result of a strike art