Newspapers / Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, … / Jan. 17, 1946, edition 1 / Page 11
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IpUP GETS JOB OF LOST HERO 'DUKE' HAPPY in his ASSIGNMENT to replace * hero, thl3 pedigreed 4-months-old Shepherd pup stops pawing Benny Goldberg, 10, to pose for a picture with his loving new master. Gift of a friend and as yet unnamed, the pup t had f0I his predecessor the illustrious “Duke” who died in action while saving Benny’s family from a New York fire. j_ (International) Today and Tomorrow by WALTER LIPPMANN STRIKES: ONE CLEAR THING TO DO The board in the General Motors strike has, it seems to me, made one thing quite clear. It is that fact-finding can be done effectively without the trimmings which unions and management have objected to in the President's proposal of Dec. 3. Mr. Lloyd K. Garrison and his associates found the facts that needed to be found without ex amining the company's books and without imposing a cooling off period on labor. These trimmings raise issues which have nothing to do with fact finding as such—for labor the right to strike, for management the right of privacy in a system of private competetive enterprise, They could and they should be sep arated out and considered - sepa i rately. For the purpose of fact finding is to induce labor and management to agree; the purpose of the trimmings is to coerce them into agreement. There is no certain reason for thinking that indirect coercion of the kind the President proposed would be successful even if it is des'rable. But there is no doubt whatever that the fact-finding, as Mr. Garrison and his associates have practiced it, is aesirame ana necessary. The trimnr'ngs call for a thorough debate whereas Con gress could without hesitation and delay give legislative approval to fact-finding as such—since that would mean only that it was giving its moral support to something which the President has the power to do anyway. Those who po'nt out that Mr. C. E. Wilson has rejected the board's recommendations and that the strike continues should ask themselves what reason they have for knowing that Mr. Wilson would have given in if his books had been opened or that Mr. Reuther could have kept the men cool if there had been a compulsory cooing off period. There is, in other words, no certainty that the trimmings would accomplish by indirection what no one would, in an industry like the automobile, think of doing directly —namely to forbid strikes and to subst'tute compulsory arbitration and the fixing of wages by law. Industries where interruption of service is intolerable to the com munity mav require this—for ex ample. utilises and communica tions. They should not be lumped together, as the President did, with “steel, automobiles, aviation, and mining,” where stoppages, though inconvenient andcostly, do not af fect immed'ately the health and security of the community. What would be sound public policy for the vital industr'es should not be confused with what would be sound Ior industries that are merely big and important. The railway labor act has work ed—on the railways, which are gov ernment regulated monoplies; it does not follow at all that it would work for automobiles and steel, which are privately managed and in considerable degree competitive. If is for these unresimented in dustries that fact-finding as such is the first necessary measurp to Promote industrial peace. Whai does. fact-finding do, as Messrs, garrison, Milton Eisenhower, and Stacy have practiced it? It does not unearth new and lr'dden facts « does not “find” facts. It takes ■ne facts, as they are alleged to be hy management and by the unions i tnen compares these partisan al legations, analyzes them, screens them, refines them, deflates them ®nd, if I may say so delcuses them hen :t measures them by estab 'shed standards of public policy and makes a public report whicl Says what these men, chosen he cause they are disinterested anc rstional, think would he the rea sonable settlement if all the ex aSgerat on and the propaganda ere squeezed out of the argument do not see how any one wh< wishes to be rational, who means to be fair, who prefers information to dope, and proof to demogoguery, cannot want fact-finding of this kind. It is indeed a necessity where collective bargaining involves great numbers of working men, stock holders, and customers. Mr. Wil son and Mr. Reuther might as well admit it, they are supposed to be bargaining. But let no one think that bargaining as they do it is like bargaining in a horse trade or over the sale of a piece of real estate. In ordinary commercial bar gaining the seller and the buyer make bids and offers one to the other, They do not buy newspaper advertising space, run high power propaganda machines, to convince Tom, Dick, and Harry that the horse is a thoroughbred and not a spavined nag, or that the seller is a hold-up man and the buyer a greedy monster. But in large scale collective bar gaining this is just what happens. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Reuther do not bargain only with each other; . they spend large sums of money and no end of ingenuity, talking to Tom, Dick, and Harry about the proposed deal. Why? Because they know perfectly well that their bar gaining power depends upon Tom, Dick, and Harry. Neither believes what so many ideologists and doc trinares pretend to believe; that without public support the own ers can in fact, though theoretical 1 it 4 Vi o sVlIlt HTh shop, or that the employees can strike indefinately. Both Mr. Wil son and Mr. Keuther hav* large constituencies, and their power to refuse to agree is, as they know perfectly well, dependent on how long and how enthusiastically they can keep their constituencies in line. That is why they do not mere ly bargain across the table but use the printing press and the micro phone to address the public. That being the case, It would be foolish for the public, including editors, broadcasters, and com mentators, to submit meekly to be ing deluged by unverified informa tion and prejudiced argument. They must have some protection aga'nst the fine art of bamboozle ment, and some way—since they have other things to do besides reading about General Motors— of not wasting their time trying to decide which public relations ex pert is pulling their leg. That is what fact-finding of the Garrison type can do. It is consider able. No doubt it is not everything that needs to be done before there is industrial peace and all men are brothers. But it is one thing that can be done at once which will at least introduce the element of rea son into industrial disputes, and en able men to act, if not as lov ng brothers, at least as rational hu man beings. rm _ •__ i •_. ...1. n4- ffroafoT XO I1U Ironing n - O wisdom we nrght not hope to a chieve once we decide that to be gin act ng rationally was the way to go about it. (Copyright, 1946, New York Tribune.) _ r Controller General Will Address Chamber ASHEVILLE, Jan. 16—IB— An address by Lindsay C. Warren, Washington, D. C., native who Is the nation’s controller general, will be the feature of thq annual Asheville Chamber of Commerce banquet tomorrow night. Several other speakers promin ent in North Carolina will be heard on the program which wm he pre sided over by J. Fuller Brown new president of the Chamber of Com merce. The stamping °f Resigns and patterns upon textile# was com mon in India and China even be fore available records place defi i nite dates on such arts and craft* . • HIGHER “TAKE HOME" PAY • / THAN WARTIME AVERAGE ' • ... but the world's largest Hr . electrical plant has no workers _ .. '* _ » . . HALF-FINISHED washing machines* i ' *-• 'r HALF-FINISHED toasters* HALF-FINISHED heaters* HALF-FINISHED roasters* | The UERMWA (CIO') has taken General Electric workers out on strike. Washing machines, refrigerators, heaters, a hundred things were on their way to you. But the strike stopped that. It was expected to hire twice as many workers as before the war. But the strike stopped that. ; ' Six new government plants were bought. Seven other new plants were being built. And land bought for three more. Increased production was planned in every existing works city. We are sorry they decided a strike was the answer. The strike will pinch the public with shortages. And take a million dollars a day out of the pockets of General Electric workers. G.E.’s PAY OFFER Many of our workers, from what they tell us and write us, do not know that we offered the union an increase of I __ 10$£ an hour for all those making less than $1.00 an houri and 10% increase for those who make more.** With the offered increase and the overtime that will be necessary to meet consumer demand this year, the average employee would have had more “take home” pay than during the war. j THE STRIKE IS PUZZLING Since 1935, average hourly earnings for men climbed over 51%. Over half of this was in the last five years. There has been no real labor trouble at G. E. in 24 years. We believe in collective bargaining. G. E. was one of the first large industrial companies to enter voluntarily into a company-wide contract with a national union. A million-dollars-a-day pay loss will strike every G-E community. And the real tragedy is that employees can gain nothing that they could not have gained while still at work. *Pictures taken between shifts be fore the strike represent the con dition of our factories today. **Those making $2,000 to $3,000 in salary would receive 10% increases, and those receiving between $3,000 and $5,000 annually would receive increases of $300. i GENERAL % ELECTRIC / . * - y \ )
Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.)
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Jan. 17, 1946, edition 1
11
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