The Wilmington morning star., 1947-04-14
Labor Bills

of settling down to corrective labor
legislation. In the House the Labor
Committee has drawn up a new draft of
it's bill and hopes to get it to the floor
this week. Broadly, it provides:
l. A ban on the closed shop.
2. Restrictions on industry-wide
bargaining.
8. Permanent authority for the
Federal Government to halt by court
action any strike that interferes with
interstate commerce and threatens the
public health and safety.
In the Senate, Senator Taft, chair
man of the Labor Committee and the
Republican Policy Committee, has a
separate bill so interviewer with
technicalities that not ven a Philadel-
phia lawyer could interpret it accurate
ly. Certain emergency provisions are:
{. l. Authorize the Attorney General
to seek-and the Federal courts to is
sue-injunctions hating strikes or lock-
outs which threaten the national
health or safety. But first, the At
torney General would be required to
name a fact-finding board and receive
its report of the "facts"-with no
recommendation-before he could ask
an injunction.
2. Require the disputing parties to
make every effort" to settle their
differences before a new Federal Media
ton Service proposed in the measure,
though neither party would be under
compulsion to accept any settlement
plan offered by the mediators.
3. Require the Mediation director
to report to the President at the end
of so days if no settlement had been
reached. Then, the National Labor Re-
%lations Board would take a secret ballot
of the employees of each employer in
volved on the question of whether they
wish to accept the final offer made
by their employer.
4. Direct the N.L.R.B. to certify re-
suits of the election to the President.
Upon this certification, or settlement
of the dispute whichever is earlier
the court would be required to dis
miss the injunction.
s.. Direct the President-if all these
efforts to settle the dispute failed-to
report to Congress and leave further
action up to that legislative body.
The regular provisions would have
a set of unfair labor practices for
unions; they would outlaw jurisdic-
tlonal strikes, secondary boycotts,
strikes in violation of work contracts
and the check-off system under GER
tain conditions, subject unions to
breach OF contract damage suits, ban
union shops unless at least half the
employees In each unit vote for it by
secret ballot, exclude foremen and other
supervisory workers from the definition
OF worker under the Wagner Act,
guarantee employers free speech in
their dealing with workers so long as
employers made no threat of economic
reprlsals, require unions to register
with the Department of Labor and
make regular financial reports, regulate
Industry contributions to union health
and welfare funds.
Desirable as most of these things
are, in the interest of production and
the national welfare, it is not difficult
to see what wrangling would start
the moment almost any one of them
came under fire during labor-employer
disputes.
And this is what draws attention to
the fact that in addition to heading the
Senate Labor Committee Senator Taft
also heads the G. O. P. Policy Commit
tee. 1t gives the bill he has prepared
a definite political tinge. One columnist
at least considers the bill has been
drafted with the purpose of inviting d
presidential veto.
In his Washington dispatch of Satur-
day, Marquis Childs writes: "You dc
not have to look very hard to see the
politics behind Taft's maneuver. If the
catch-all bill goes to the White House,
President Truman can be expected tc