Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1947-08-29
Washington
LaborReport
BY PAUL SIFTON
LPA Columnist

by tAO SAE AON
LPA Columnist
Particularly this year, Labor
Day should be more than hot
dogs and cold beer. 1t should
be more than breast-beating
and defiance of labor's ene-
mics. 1t should be a day of
thought, of determination
and of re-consecration.
This liberty will seem easy
bye and bye, when nobody
dies to get it," Washington
says at the end of Maxwell
Anderson's play "V al ley
Forge" Labor is headed into
its own Valley Forge when the
summer soldiers and the SUM-
shine patriots" will fall away
and those with understanding
and determination will stand
fast.
Much is made of the fact
that labor unions now have
more than 100000 MEM
bers. That number is danger
ously misleading. AS M a x
Zaritsky points out in his
Labor Day statement for LPA,
too many members who pay
union dues do not have the
deep devotion that comes only
from understanding of the
basic ideals and purposes of
labor unionism.
BEGINNING
At the beginning of war
production, there was story
Of a great plant on the West
Coast where the management
was debating whether or not
to recognize and deal with the
union. The decision to sign a
union contract was based on
this argument made by a
member of the management
staff: We're going to have
10000 workers. Let's sign and
let the union have the head
aches"
And there's another story of
the new worker in a Michigan
war plant who was asked
what he got for his dues.
Gee, / dunno" he said. Asked
to figure 1t out, he finally
came up with this alarming
answer: well, / guess the
union keeps the toilets clean"
HARD WORK
Throughout the war and
postwar periods, elected lead
ers of the AFL and CIO have
supported and in many in
stances taken the lead in pro-
posing policies and programs
that, had they been adopted,
would have saved the nation
from the short supplies and
initiation that are now upon
us. They would have made us
strong enough, in terms of
production, to throw decisive
amounts of food, farm and
industrial machinery into the
contest with totalitarianism
now going on all over the
world.
Why were these proposals
for orderly transition from
war to peace production
brushed aside?
WHY?
Why were the NAM, the
Chamber of Commerce and
reactionary collaborators in
both and Republican and
Democratic parties able to
stampede the nation back to
normalcy?"
Why are we now in immi-
nent danger of repeating, step
by step, every mistake in the
boom andbust of the twenties
and thirties, but this time tele-
scoped into a few feverish
years?
If we face the answers and
act upon them, even at this
late adte, we may avert a new
depression and another war.
Basically, we are in the grip
Chamber of Commerce and
their of reaction because, all
through the war, the NAM
and the allies planned 1t that
way. They did their own
private postwar planning
early and often and at public
expense.
DIFFERENCE
On VJ-Day British Prime
Minister Attlee went on the
radio Immediately to ask that
the British people hold to-
gether for the great task of
peace. But, in Washington,
after announcers stated that
President Truman was ex-
pected to speak, they came
back to say that there would
be no statement and that the
President and Mrs. Truman
were out on the White House
lawn, smiling and waving to
the happy crowds outside the
fence.
Democracy has been called
the finest machinery of gov