The Daily Alaska empire., 1949-09-24
THESE DAYS
GEORGE E. SOKOLSKY
STEEL AND TAFT-HARTLEy

The more one ponders the find ings of the three-man board ap- pointed by the President for the Steel Industry, the clearer, it be- comes that all that this board did was to throw the case back to col lective bargaining under the Taft Harley law. For this is what the board said
 "(a)" The subject of pensions is not bargainable at this time under the terms of the reopening clause providing for the right of either party in 1949 to negotiate for a general and uniform change in rates of pay and /or for described social insurance.
 "(b) However the subject of pensions is bargainable under the law as interpreted by the National Labor Relations Board as to all the companies. Pensions are not in- cluded in the written agreement and with respect to terms dealing with wages, hours and oth- CT terms and conditions of employ ment, the obligation remains on both parties to bargain continuous ly.'"
 Avoiding the name of the law, to suit the politics of the President, the board nevertheless says that the subject is bargainable under the Taft Hartley Act. Such an opinion, as the two lawyers on the board must know it ultra wires The board has no legal status. It is not a court. It cannot establish the applicability of any act to a set of conditions. Only Congress may determine the applicability of an act by specifying it's relationship to conditions and circumstances only the courts-and the Supreme Court finally-can interpret the intent of Congress and the validity of it's acts under the constitution. The National Labor Relations Board, administrator of the law, also has the function of application and in- terpretation.
 All that this three-man fact find ing board, or any other appointed by the President, can legally do, is to make recommendation which cen be accepted or rejected by the parties at issue. No recommends ton can be binding; in fact, the board should have stated the facts and clarified the issues and let it go at that. And all that they did do was to throw the entire issue back to collective bargaining under the Taft-Hartley Act, each party enjoying such remedies and such redress as the Act provides. Phil Murray does not like that and therefore threatens strike.
 I am not, in this article, dis cussing the recommendations of the three-man board, nor does it mat ter whether Ben Hairless and Phil Murray come to terms, as reason able men should. The important, the permanent fact in this situa- tion is that the three-man board proved to be a useless instrument which did not save time, or the country from disaster, but which rather increased the confusion and in the end went right back to the Taft-H Hartley Act. It should never have been appointed.
 The law should not have been by-passed. It ought not to hap pen again, and the Taft-Hartley Act should be fortified to prevent our current or any President from pursuing his ipse dixit in industrial relations. The law of the land should always prevail, not the poli- tical necessities of an elective offi- cial.
 That this issue was handled poli- tically is obvious from the cores pondence between Phil Murray, head of the union, who accepted l the boards recommendations as binding, and Ben Hairless, President of the United States Steel Corpora ton, who sought collective bargain ing. Hairless wrote Murray: United States Steel appeared be- fore the Presidential Steel Board relying upon the express assurance given by the President of the United States on July IA, 1949, that the recommendations of the Board would not be binding upon either party. In our telegram of accept ance of the Presidents proposal we referred to this assurance by him.