Evening star., 1948-06-15
Strikes and the Atom

It is gratifying that an agreement has
at last been reached in the protracted
labor management dispute at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory. But though the
settlement does away with the possibility
of a strike at this time, it does not do
away with the possibility OF strikes in the
the basic question whether the law should
empower unions to stage walkouts in
field as unique and vital as our atomic
energy project.
In itself, the Oak Ridge dispute was not
spectacular. It's points of argument were
the usual economic ones and it involved
only about 875 members of the Atomic
Trades and Labor Council Of the American
Federation of Labor What made it excep-
tionally important, however, was that it
it had developed into strike, it would
have deprived the laboratory of electrical,
plumbing and other types of maintenance
essential to research and development. In
other words, by walking out, relatively
small number of workers would have been
able to shut down key operations
The why's and wherefores of this have
not been explained in detail But our
Atomic Energy Commission, though speak
ing in guarded generalizations for reasons
of security, fatty declared during the dis
pute that work stoppage would "impesil
the national safety" That is to say that
if strike had taken place, it would have
forced the suspension Of activities indiS-
pensable to the production of fashionable
materials, and in that way it would have
weakened the United States in the effort
to strengthen itself defensively.
Happily, this particular threat has now
been removed, but the fact remains that
we have no assurances against similar
threats in the future or against the danger
that such threats may be carried out to
the point of paralyzing our atomic enter
prise. Apparently the AFL union at Oak
Ridge chose to stay on the job because it
got the most it could hope to get and
because it could not overlook the warning
be "unthinkable" But next month or next
year will other unions in this field show
similar restraint? Will they, too, act as
if they realized that when men work on
the atom they cannot stage crippling walk
outs without endangering the Nation?
The truth is that nobody can do business
as usual in this field. The private enter
priseS operating our nuclear -fssion plants
are not free agents. They are merely
contractors functioning under strict reg
ulations Though they are charged with
management responsibility the Govern
ment is the real boss. Similarly, the
unionized atomic workers are not quite
like workers unionized in nongovernmental
industry. They are more like Federal en-
ployes, who are not allowed to strike, but
they are still in class by themselves. In
fact, as far as labor relations are con-
cerned, the atom has created kind of
twilight zone, where the exact status and
rights of worker and manager alike have
yet to be clarified.
Certainly the settlement Of the Oak
Ridge dispute does not offer the necessary
Qualification. There are likely to be similar
disputes in the future in our revolutionary
and vitally important atomic project, but
there is no custom, precedent or law for
bidding them to develop into strikes. At
the moment, the only deterrents are COM
mon sense and a patriotic regard for the
safety Of the Nation. The question that
still needs to be answered is whether Con-
gress can or should act now to ban such
strikes before one of them occurs and
creates a crisis