Evening star., 1949-02-03
Fair Deal Principle
Declared Abandoned
In New Labor Bill
Would Place Mediation
Service Under Prounion
Agency for Supervision
Bv David Lascrence

" x<UbI0 AUk6F bCC
Mediation-which, when success
full, means that the parties are
brought together into voluntary
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS for its ef1ec-
tiveness On absolute trust In the
fairness and impartiality Of the
mediators. especially in labor man
agement disputes.
That's why President Truman's
conspicuous abandonment of the
most vital principle in any so-called
fair deal program has caused
astonishment. For he has author
ized his Secretary of Labor to re-
quest Congress to turn over the
Mediation and Cancellation Service
to a prounion and biased agency
for supervision and control.
The draft of the new bill which
would abolish the Federal Media
ton and Cancellation Service as an
independent agency and put it
into the Labor Department as just
another bureau contains the fol-
lowing:
The United States Cancellation
Service shall be administered under
the general direction and super
vision Of the Secretary Of Labor.
General policies and standards for
the operation Of the service shall
be formulated and promulgated by
the director of conciliation. with
the approval Of the Secretary Of
Labor. ."
The director and the service
shall be impartial. ."
skeptics Unconvinced.
Nothing is said about the need
for impartiality by the Secretary
of Labor who is to administer
the cancellation service and who
must approve the general policies
and standards for the operation Of
the service"
1t Is not surprising that Cyrus
Ching, present head OF the Media
ton and Cancellation Service, who
was appointed by President Truman,
testified this week before the Sen
ate Labor Committee that the pres
ent and preceding Secretaries Of
Labor almost without exception"
have sided with labor unions on
legislative and administrative pro-
grams on which employers and
unions differed. He added that 1t
was generally accepted and under
stood that the two new Assistant
Secretaryships of Labor, recently
created, were to be hlled by AFL
and CIO men. respectively. He
declared that this had "sddened
the convictions OF many employers
that the Department Of Labor, in
issues arising between employers
and unions. would favor the unions"
He asked
How Is the Labor Department to
convince the Skeptical employers
that 1t holds no brief for the unions
with which they must bargain3"
Mr.. Ching said 1t was q mistake
TO place q mediator In IN organ
Rational environment which MAY
possibly throw q shadow on his dis
1nterestedness." He might have gone
further and pointed out that it 10
a mistake TO select mediators who
have political pull or the backing
OF labor unions and who are planted
In the conciliation service to see TO
1t that they do what iabor-union
leaders want them to do.
Mediators Prounion.
One OF the main reasons why the
Nation suffers from strikes Is that
employers have no confidence in
the mediators. The President. who
is 50 anxious to relieve labor unions
of the restrictive features of the
Taft Hartley Act, would have been
on solid ground had he insisted that
coercion was less and less desirable
and that he believed reliance on
voluntary processes would be even
more desirable in the future than in
the past. But when Mr.. Truman al
lows the mediation service to be-
come an adjunct of a prounion
department he destroys the effec-
tiveness of his argument for a re-
turn to voluntary processes.
The men chosen to mediate who
are prounion are not dishonest.
They merely have become so imbued
with the union viewpoint that they
cannot really be impartial mediators.
The selection of personnel for medi-
atlng services is the most important
of all factors involved in the con-
troversy. That, in truth, is behind
the seemingly innocent attempt
merely to put the conciliation serv-
ice into the Labor Department "for
housekeeping purposes" As Mr..
Ching rightly pointed out, whoever
controls the purse strings can con-
troll the agency itself. Here are his
words:
"A poor housekeeper can make it
awfully uncomfortable for you. The
housekeeper who controls the budget
and the personnel pretty well con-
trolls the whole service"
Mr.. Truman has made q mistake
IN yielding to the bureaucrats who
want to grab the United States Con-
ciliation Service and put it where
1t could be controlled by labor
unions. This issue represented a
very good opportunity for the Presi-
dent to make his slogan, "A Fair
Deal" mean something disinterested
and nonpolitical. AS it is, the cpl
sode throws suspicion on the entire
administration bill as an effort to
deal with labor management rela-
tons on one-sided basis and not
in accordance with the pledge in the
Democratic platform for a balanced