Evening star., 1948-04-11
Low Protects Employers :
In Choosing Own Agents
Coercion BY Union Barred in Selecting
Barsainins Representatives
By Gerard d. Reilly

~& eNAA@A10 @N~PA ~S~AAsotANSS
By Gerard d. Reilly
This column ,cds icritten before the IN.
dicctions OF settlement OF the strtke.J
Not content with disregarding the manda.
tory Injunction issued by Judge Matthew r.
Mcclure, requiring him to end the strike In
the bituminous coal fields. John L. Lewis has
now embroiled the United Mine Workers In
further litigation by his adamant insistencs
on having voice in the selection Of the
representatives acting for the operators In
dealing with the union.
For many years collective bargaining In the
coal industry has been conducted on multiple
employer basis. The practice of the operators
has been to designate an association to nego-
tiate master contract at the Appalachian
conference. Since 1899 there have been two
principal employer groups-the Northern op.
orators headed by Charles O'Nein and the
Southern Coal Operators Association, Of which
Joseph E. Moody is now the president.
While this system has enabled the operators
to maintain some show Of unity in the face Of
Mr. Lewis demands. it has also helped him TO
preserve the virtual monopoly Of the United
Mine Workers in the Appalachian region.
Early In its history the National Labor Rela-
tions Board held that all the mines covered
ny IAiC fAppd1dCllldA CUiltIdCL CONSTITUTED .
single appropriate bargaining unit.
The practical effect Of this holding was to
render Mr.. Lewis union virtually immune from
raiding by rival organizations. During the
193os the Progressive Miners Union was maxi
ing considerable headway because Of wide
spread rank-and-file revolt against the Lewis
machine. Their organizers, moving into Ohio,
Pennsylvania and West Virginia, were able to
sign up majority Of the workers In several
companies. tf
When election petitions were filed with the
Labor Board, however, 1t turned out that these
organizing successes had been futile. Taking
the view that the individual companies could
not be treated as separate bargaining units
because Of the customs Of the industry, the
board refused to order elections. Thus the
Lewis power was consolidated In the coal-pro-
ducing States Of the East, and the Progressives
were ultimately contained In the Southern
Illinois coal fields.
Despite the benefits he has reaped from this
system, Mr.. Lewis in the past year or two has
displayed a growing reluctance to accept its
implications. When stalemates have developed,
he has occasionally gone over the heads OF the
association representatives to make private
deals with three or four influential operators.
In these endeavors, he has found the captive
mines Of United States Steel and some Of the
Pittsburgh operators whose entire output Is
absorbed by steel producers to be soft touches.
These employers do not have the problems
which confront the operators competing for
the open market when they have to pass on
wage increases to the consumer in the form Of
higher prices.
Mr.. Lewis is aware Of this. He achieved
an Inf ins~ay i,nr
q doubling of the tonnage royalty last spring,
by first getting the Pittsburgh group to
acquesce. The other operators were then
confronted with the unhappy alternative Of
repudiating their bargaining representatives or
seeing their mines closed for an indefinite
period. They surrendered and went along
The Wagner Act. however, protected the
Mine Workers from similar tactics on the
employer side. In the Medo-Photo case, the
Labor Board had laid down the principle
that an employer who disregarded the union
officials to make q contract directly with the
employees thereby violated his statutory duty
to bargain and was guilty Of an unfair labor
practice. The Supreme Court upheld this
decision. Consequently, the operators were
precluded from going over Mr.. Lewis head
to negotiate with more tractable groups Of
miners.
=
Since that time the amendments made by
the Taft-Hartley law to the Wagner Act have
become effective. One Of these makes the
duty to bargain collectively binding upon
unions as well as employers. Needless of this
change in the law however, Mr.. Lewis two
weeks ago informed Mediation Director Cyrus
Ching that he considered it pointless to attend
any bargaining conference with the duly desig-
fnI %nki -
unless certain employers named by him were
to be present.
Since Judge McGuire's order was signed,
Mr.. Lewis has been demanding that Benjamin
Fairless of United States Steel and George
Humphrey of Pittsburgh Consolidated partici-
pate in the bargaining Presumably these were
two Of the gentlemen with whom Mr. Lewis
did business last year. Neither of them, how
ever, have been designated by the manage
ment side of the table. At the same time, the
Mine Workers president has refused " sit
in with Mr.. Moody, the president Of the
Southern Coal Operators Association.
The operators finally overcame their SEEM
ing reluctance to avail themselves of their
remedies under the amended Laoor Relations
Act by fling charges of refusal to bargain
against the union. The charge also alleges q
violation Of a new subsection of the act, which
makes 1t an unfair labor practice for union
Ito restrain or coerce an employer In
the selection of his representatives for the
purpose Of collective bargaining"
It would seem to require little argument to
demonstrate that q refusal to end a strike
until the operators select representatives sstis-
factory to the union amounts to the kind Of
coercion which the statute prohibits. And
since Mr. evis has made his nosition a rnatte~
Of record, the general counsels ofice would
not have to make an extended investigation
before issuing q complaint and applying for
an injunction. Should these steps be taken,
the Mine Workers may discover that Mr..
Lewis has placed the Government In a more
effective position for curbing his recalcitrance
than the cumbersome procedures relating to
national emergencies.