Evening star., 1947-02-04
|BaldaOi'a Speaks
Before G: Q. P.
Women's League
By Rnfh Dean

An Impartial attitude toward
labor management relations must
be followed by the new Republican
Congress if it is to enact legislation
that will surmount the old barriers
Of bitterness and remedy past in
adequate labor laws, Senator Ray
mond E. Baldwin, Republican, Of
Connecticut declared yesterday.
Addressing the League Of Repub-
lican Women at the Statler Hotel.
the former Connecticut Governor
said he believed the labor manage
ment relations issue the most seri-
Gus facing the new Congress, one on
which, he added, Il believe our sue
cess as party hinges"
Senator Baldwin said that though
there is not nearly as much public
concern for labor legislation as there
was a year ago when crippling
strikes endangered the Nations Sc
curity, the results of last November's
elections are regarded by many as
"a mandate from the people to the
Republican Party" to do something
constructively to permanently re-
ouce the number of strikes.
The speaker reviewed the past so
years of labor legislation which show
an acceleratedtrend, he said, toward
the development of freedom and
rights for laboring people He fur
ther pointed out how such legisla-
ton as the Norris-La Guardia Act
the Wagner Act and Fair Labor
Standards Act, which though chiefly
responsible for the increased collec-
tive bargaining strength of unions,
weakened the stand of labor by their
indefinite" provisions.
"Our tendency in the past to swing
from one extreme 10 the other in
regard to these relations has never
produced final solution to this
most difficult of our problems, I"
Senator Baldwin said. The Repub-
lican members of Congress are
therefore charged with the duty to
their country of providing the type
of legislation and the kind of prog
ress that will bring the greatest
satisfaction to the public and con-
sequently national peace and greater
production, he added.
"We cannot then accede to the
extreme demands of either side" he
stressed. 1--WE cannot afford to have
another series of stop-gap meas
ures," he added, with the accusation
that the Wagner Act and the Fair
Labor Standards Act are not only
too indefinite" but that they have
made possible abuses and misuses
by some unions who may choose to
ignore the common interest.
Senator Baldwin blamed the lin
deflniteness" of the Fair Labor
Act for the present
damaging portal-to-portal pay suits
and called for their immediate"
settlement.
Future legislation should carry
with it the double guarantee that
while, on one hand the rights of
labor to organize and to stop work
should be maintained, the strength
of labor unions cannot become so
great that it will be possible for any
man or union to 'bludgeon" man
agement or the Government into
granting any demand through the
threat of the strike weapon, Senator
Baldwin declared.
In conclusion, Senator Baldwin
urged his audience, women of the
Republican Party" to take an active
part in maintaining the principle OF
the party, advancing not only the
interests of any segment of society,
but the interests of the entire Ma
ton in demanding the reduction of
labor disputes by fair, equitable and
far r-sighted measures.
Mrs. Joseph H. Harrington, pro-
gram chairman, introduced Senator
Baldwin and Mrs. Baldwin, who
accompanied her husband. Mrs.
William S. Culbertson, president,
presided.