Evening star., 1946-12-15

Union Monopoly Issue
ToFoce Next Congress
Senator Ball Considering Plan to
Revise Bargaining Procedure
By Gerard D. Reilly.
In two recent addresses, Senator
Joseph H. Ball Of Minnesota has shed
considerable light upon the Republican
program for labor law revision at the
next Congress. The immediate steps
he enyisages are far from extreme
legislation making collective agreements
enforcible in the Federal courts, ex-
cluding supervisors from the Wagner
Act, and amending the Norris-La
Guardia Act SO as to grant employers
caught in a jurisdictional or inter-
union dispute judicial relief against eco
nomic pressure. Since these are pro-
posals which have run the gantlet Of
both branches of Congress before un-
der the skillful parliamentary guidance
Of the Minnesota Senator. the chances
of these becoming law in. ls47 seem
better than even.
A more novel project, however, which
the Senator indicates that he will un-
dertake, is the curbing Of union nlonop-
oily. III his opinion, the unregulated
power In the hands OF labor organiza-
tions has given rise to the kind Of
monopolistic and restrictive practices
which the antitrust laws sought to elm
mate from the field of manufacturing
and marketing. Other than to say that
he will sponsor bill to abolish the
closed shop, however, the Senator was
not explicit in describing the way he
thinks Congress could remedy the situ-
alton.
Originally the antitrust laws merely
wrote into the statute books the old
common law Of restraint Of trade. I'm
der this doctrine, II two merchants
agreed with each other not to sell
goods below a certain price, or that
one would temporarily withdraw his
goods from the market for the ad-
vantage of the other, the courts deemed
such agreements Illegal BY strict an
dlO6y, dA dSl CCA3AC1V bNSWSSh WV ~
more workingmen for withholding their
services except for certain wage was
also q restraint of trade. 1t will read
lily be seen, therefore. that the whole
development OF trade unionism might
have been regarded as gigantic yio-
lation Of the antitrust laws on whole-
sale scale. But the manifest unfair
ness of judicial trend In this direc-
tion caused Congress in 1914 to include
In the Clayton amendment to the Sher-
man Act exemptions for concerted ac-
tivity by organized labor.
The Supreme Court, however, did not
treat these amendments as giving labor
complete immunity. In series of deci-
sions, including the famous Danbury
hatters' and Bedford stone cutters
cases, the court said that while strikes
by workers against their immediate
employers were not enjoined, secondary
boycotts against the products Of nom
union employer to compel him to sign
up with the boycotting union were con-
trary to law. These decisions, from
which Mr.. Justice Brandeis dissepted,
drew the fire Of the unions, causing
Congress in the Norris-La Guardia Act
to broaden the scope Of labor's exemp-
tion from injunction.
This in turn led to the kind OF sec
ondary boycotts to capture markets
for particular unions which impelled
a ~
mold to begin spectacular series OF
antitrust prosecutions against union
leaders. These were halted abruptly by
the Supreme Court in the Hutcheson
case which rendered the Sherman Act .
dead letter so far as most lines OF union
activity are concerned. Paradoxically
this decision occurred several years
after the passage Of the Wagner Act had
taken away all possible social justifica-
ton for the secondary boycott. That
statute makes an employers choice Of
dealing with union dependent on the
wishes of his own employees. An amend
ment outlawing the secondary boycott
would therefore curb this kind of monop-
olistic abuse and make the representa-
ton section of the Wagner Act effective.
Senator Ball indicated more concern,
however, with the national monopoly of
certain classes Of labor which the big
industrial unions have been able to
achieve. This is recent phenomenon.
Defenders Of industrial unionism say it
has merely paralleled the growth Of big
corporations. But so far as the impact
of the law is concerned, this comparison
is inexact. Both the United States Steel
Co. and General Motors are enormous
corporations Yet If either had attained
as complete control over production in
the steel and automotive industries, re-
spectively, as the CIO Steelworkers and
Auto Workers Unions have secured over
the labor supply in these fields, they
would surely run afoul Of the antitrust
laws.
With last weeks narrow escape from
national disaster fresh in mind few per-
sons can be found today who view the
monopoly possessed by the United Mine
Workers in the bituminous industry as
anything short of q continuing public
menace. Nor is it heartening to know
that seamen and stevedores have de-
valor,od s1,cf TIGHTLY Knit organisations