The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1948-01-01
Scholars Sh0W French Interest
In Relation OF Labor Industry

Washington (LPA)- Economists
in universities and research insti-
tutions are paying a great deal OF
attention to the dynamics of union
management relations. They are
not all first rate by any means,
but the fact these problems are
considered of sufficient Importance
to be studied seriously is, on the
whole, a good thing. 1t is evidence
that our institutions of learning
are beginning to recognize, perhaps
belatedly, that unions are here to
stay and that it might be good
idea to find out how on this basis
employers and unions can live in
permanent peace.
Illustrative Of this current trend
are three books which have been
recently published, two under the
auspices of universities and one
under a research foundation. From
a new angle, the volume sponsor
ed by the Brookings Institution =
Union Management Cooperation
($3)-and written by Kurt Braun
of it's research staff is most in
teresting. Mr.. Braun's study con-
Germs itself with the functioning of
unions and arrangements in the
clothing industry. For the most
part, he deals with the Amalga-
mated Clothing Workers-ClO and
the Int'l Ladies Garment Workers
AFL.
There is nothing about the char
acter of Braun's research that
makes his book particularly out
standing. The studies by Slfchter
in Union Policies and Industrial
Management and by Mills and
staff in How Collective Bargaining
Works have largely covered the
field which the present volume COW
ers.
What is significant is that it is
Brookings Institution product.
Within the last several years the
Brookings Institution, under the
guidance of President Moulton, has
largely been the "brain trust" of
the Republican Party. It's two re-
cent publications on labor relations,
by Metz and Jacobstein, were the
intellectual sources of the Taft
Hartley law. Now Brookings comes
out with a book which indicates
that, in the clothing industries, the
unions have been chiefly respon-
sible for whatever economic stabiI-
ity the industry has been able to
achieve; that the unions on the
whole have been the most construc-
tive force in the industry.
Why didn't the Brookings lnsti-
tuition tell this story at the time
that its minions were paving the
way for Taft Hartley?
1t is unfair to saddle the sins of
Brookings on Braun, who only
works for them. Braun's job is a
workmanlike description of how
unions and employers get along in
the clothing industries. For the
most part, he has gotten his ma
terial by talking with union and
employer leaders, and reading. He
has not, as far as | can make out,
made much of an attempt to see for
himself the process of collective
bargaining in action on the shop
level. 1t is a defect worth noting.
The Catholic University of Am
erica in Washington has within
recent years been stimulating it's
graduate students to think con
about labor problems.
The current example is The Role Of
i'm Labor Management
Production Committees by Doris
Duffy. Miss Duffy's dissertation is
a competent survey Of the wartime
labor management committees
sponsored by the War Production
Board.
The essential facts in the devel-
opment of the War Production
Drive Committee are there. AS an
student, Miss Duffy
could hardly have done more than
that. An appraisal of the War Pro-
duction Drive based on more de-
tailed probing than Miss Duffy has
been able to command, is still in
order.
OF the three books which are be-
ng reviewed here, the most stimu-