The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington

ON THE WORLD TODAY

THE deterioration of industrial relations, the failure of the Railway Labor Act, the willingness of unions to use strikes to force changes in public policy, the failure of collective bargaining to produce settlement of disputes by the method of friendly negotiation, all stress the need for the country to reconsider its basic policy for settling industrial disputes.

Public policy, up to now, has consisted mainly of encouraging the formation of trade-unions and conferring rights on them which would build the unions up to equality of bargaining status with management. But in the railroad strike both labor and management were primarily concerned with sustaining their own position, and collective bargaining degenerated into the “collective impasse” which could be resolved only by Presidential intervention.

A body blow to good labor relations was dealt by the award of the arbitration board in the dispute involving eighteen of the railroad organizations. These unions had made a most constructive contribution to better industrial relations by agreeing to arbitrate. But the board awarded 16 cents an hour after the general pattern had become 18 or 18 1/2 cents. The fact-finding board appointed by the President for the other two unions, the trainmen and the engineers, also awarded 16 cents an hour, and some changes in working conditions. But the President overrode this board with his own proposal of 18 1/2 cents and postponement of rules changes for one year.

The railroad leaders who recommended to their rank and file that the dispute be referred to arbitration say that they will never again be able to make this recommendation. The board’s decision was an effective demonstration to the union members that “it pays to be tough.” Thus one of the most promising constructive developments for better labor relations was nipped in the bud.

The strike of the two railroad brotherhoods, the trainmen and the locomotive engineers, must be attributed in part to personalities — Mr. Whitney has a temperamental preference for playing a lone hand

— and to rivalry between two unions — the locomotive engineers feared the gradual absorption of their union by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen.

The railroad strike was easily the most reckless and irresponsible use of the right to strike in the history of the country. The demands of these two unions have been reviewed three times in six years

— by emergency boards in 1941 and 1943 and 1946. Each time, the recommendations of the emergency boards were rejected by the unions. In each case the unions, by rejecting the recommendations of the emergency boards, succeeded in obtaining more than was recommended by the public representatives who heard the cases.

Mr. Truman acts without reflection

President Truman’s recommendations show the absence of mature and careful consideration of the problem of protecting the public interest. Up to now, the basic policy of the government has been one of attempting to dissuade strategically situated unions from withholding essential goods and services by offering them more than the amounts called for in the prevailing pattern of settlements.

The government scrapped its wage-price policy of last October in order to stop the steel strike. Its offers to Mr. Lewis represented the scrapping of the revised wage-price policy of February, 1946. Can government offer nothing between special favors, on the one hand, and the extreme policy of drafting workers, on the other?

There must be a middle course. There must be an orderly way to protect the public interest when it is threatened by a strike in an essential service, and the government decides that such a strike would imperil the nation’s health and welfare.

Labor legislation needed

The eruption of labor difficulties has called attention to the failure of the country to give proper consideration and discussion to a number of other major labor issues: —

1. The right of unions to force workers to become members (a) by throwing picket lines around the plant; (b) by cutting off supplies to the plant; (c) by refusing to handle the product made by the plant. The Wagner Act protects the principle that workers shall be free to select their bargaining representative without interference on the part of employers. It does not protect this principle from being destroyed by economic coercion from other tradeunions.

2. The application of the Wagner Act to supervisory employees.

3. The safeguarding of so-called welfare funds from becoming union slush funds. Mr. Lewis, for example, proposed a welfare fund to be used in part for “cultural and educational work” among the miners.

The sudden precipitation of many labor issues promises that union participation in politics will be greater than ever. Mr. Whitney has threatened to work against the members of Congress who have supported the President’s proposals. Union attempts to influence the Congressional elections next fall will be greater and more abundantly financed than any previous efforts.

Recent events have called attention to two sadly neglected developments in industrial relations. First, the much praised Railway Labor Act has been steadily breaking down. This Act confers some duties on both labor and management. It imposes on both sides the obligation to make every effort to achieve and to maintain agreements.

The ritual of settling disputes on the railroads has gradually been losing favor, until now we have seen the rejection of the emergency board’s report by the unions, and the resumption of negotiations with the President as mediator and with the President giving unions more than the Presidential appointees have recommended. It looks as if the operation of the Railway Labor Act must be reviewed and its provisions amended.

In the second place, collective bargaining in many important industries is failing to develop along the lines which its proponents have envisaged.

Negotiations have been an exchange of threats and recriminations rather than a mutual exploration of problems for the purpose of working out compromises.

Competition among unions and union leaders has probably had much to do with this development. Never in the history of the labor movement has competition between unions and union leaders been so strong as it is today. This competition is partly a result of schisms in the labor movement and partly a result of the ambitions of labor and its new leaders. The new leaders wish to show that they are better at getting gains for the workers than the old leaders; some of the old leaders (Mr. Lewis in particular) wish to show that they are better than the new ones.

Competition among the union leaders has been spurred by the strong demand for labor. It also has been stimulated by the large scale on which much of the bargaining (steel, electrical goods, coal, and railroads) has been conducted. The publicity given to labor settlements naturally makes each leader ambitious to get more than the other fellow.

A settlement which enabled a union leader to point to greater gains than those achieved by rival unions or leaders has been regarded as more important than a settlement which conserved good will between the parties and furnished a solid foundation for good relations in the future.

Protecting the public interest

The railroad strike compelled us to face squarely the question of how the public interest may be protected against strikes or lockouts in key industries, which threaten to shut down all production. In years past, the country has had powerful monopolies in oil, tobacco, glass, aluminum, salt, anthracite coal, and other industries. But never has the country had a monopoly which could force such sweeping curtailments in all industries as have the coal miners and the trainmen and locomotive engineers. These unions, with two or three others, represent an alltime high in monopolistic power.

The public realizes that negotiated settlements have great advantages over forced settlements — that a forced “settlement” is to a considerable extent a contradiction in terms. The public has had a wholesome desire to refrain from forcing settlements. Even employers have opposed forced settlements.

Nevertheless, the unpleasant fact has to be faced that the supply of a few essential commodities and services can be completely shut off by unions. The country has been extremely reluctant to consider this question. Even the coal strike, despite the curtailment it involved in railroad service, steel production, and automobile production, aroused little interest in the general question and evoked no proposal from the President.

The community must decide whether to permit any group to dictate terms to the community or whether to provide the government with effective instruments for defending the public right to a continuous flow of essential services. The seriousness of the issue is matched only by the country’s unpreparedness to consider what should be done about it.

Legislation is needed to prevent strikes in vital services from reaching national dimensions and to make unions and management behave in deference to the public interest first of all. It is at this point that the experts disagree on a solution. The dilemma is likely to continue.

Hemispheres of influence

When Secretary Byrnes took Senators Vandenberg and Connally to the Paris Conference of Foreign Ministers, he came in for some criticism, because the absence of the two solons meant the weakening of the group favoring the British loan in the Senate. It was certainly a risk. But the loan made the grade, and Vandenberg and Connally came back from Paris echoing Secretary Byrnes and eager to buttress in the Senate the stand he had taken.

Russia’s prime foreign policy is to try to run the world as a Russo-American condominium without regard for any other nation. This is the main division between Moscow and Washington. From time to time word comes from Moscow to the effect that since no other nations count but the Soviet Union and the United States, why not accept the reality and translate it into policy? But Secretary Byrnes is against a foreign policy which is alien to our institutions and an uncertain basis for lasting peace.

Streamlining government

The reform that would bring our oxcart Congress closer to the atomic age is embodied in the La Follette-Monroney bill, which is now being discussed in Congress. The business of Congress would be speeded up by the enactment of this measure. With the establishment, as contemplated in the bill, of majority and minority policy committees, the lawmakers would be enabled to fulfill party obligations. The gulf separating the executive branch of our government and the legislature would be bridged by a joint Legislative-Executive Council. These two provisions in the La Follette-Monroney bill would supply urgently needed modernization.

But the La Follette-Monroney bill is a compendium containing all manner of improvements. Perhaps the item that may bother the most people is the proposal to increase Congressional salaries to $15,000. Such an increase, however, is long overdue. One former Congressman remarked, “Congress is composed of two classes of people: those who are not worth the money they are getting and those who have to depend upon their private means to maintain themselves.” The increase in salary should improve the general level.

There are significant omissions in this bill for the streamlining of Congress. The filibuster, for instance, is left untouched. The Senate can maintain its prerogative of unlimited debate, which, added to the unlimited delays permissible in the archaic committee system, means procrastination and minority government.

Reorganization is not contemplated for Congress alone. A plan has come from the President for a house cleaning of the executive branch. The principal recommendation is the assembling into a Department of Welfare of all the Federal agencies that are concerned with “the conservation and development of the human resources of the nation.” Into this department would go all the government’s health, welfare, social insurance, and educational activities.

This would deprive the regular departments of many agencies and bureaus which have been set up since government turned social worker. Naturally they don’t like the proposed divorce, nor do the agencies concerned relish leaving their present departments. In particular the Children’s Bureau, which is in the Labor Department, is raising a storm of protest.

THE MOOD OF THE CAPITAL

The mood of the Capital, which rose to the challenge to national unity during the railroad walkout, has returned to its preoccupation with the claims of the pressure groups. These are more numerous and more insistent than ever.

Ways to keep the pressure groups in check were considered by the La Follette-Monroney Committee. The problem is difficult because the right of petition is involved. It was therefore decided that Congress should be invited to call for the registration of organized groups and their agents who seek to influence legislation and that such registration include quarterly statements of expenditures made for this purpose.

The President’s mistake in connection with the labor draft was realized as soon as passions had cooled off. What effect the Presidential intervention may have on his political future is problematical.