Newspapers / The Charlotte Labor Journal … / April 15, 1937, edition 1 / Page 1
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1 The ONLY REALLY INDEPENDENT WEEKLY in Mecklenburg Cwmty For a Weekly. Its Readers Repreaent the LARGEST BUYING POWER tai Qariotto Official Organ Central Labor Union; standing for the A. F. of |>. | €hr Charlotte labor Journal Patronize our Adver tisers. They make YOUR paper possible by their co operation. Truthful, Honest, Impartial AND DIXIE FARM NEWS Endeavoring to Serve the Masses Vol. VI.—No. 48 YOUR AOVIRTIIHINT IN TNI JOVMRAk 19 A IMVISTMINT CHARLOTTE, N. C„ THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1937 JOUNNAL ADVIRTIMM DUIRVt OONIIDIRATION ON ▼MB RlADIR $2.00 Per Y U. S. SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS WAGNER LABOR RELATIONS ACT BY DECISION OF FIVE TO FOUR WASHINGTON, April 13.—The supreme court upheld today constitutionality of the Wagner Labor Relations Act as applied to the Associated Press. The 5 to 4 decision was delivered by Justice Roberts. Justices Sutherland, Van Divanter, McReynolds, and Butler dissented: The tribunal affirmed an order by the national labor relations board di recting The Associated Press to reinstate Morris Watson, a New York edi torial employee. Watson contended he had been dismissed because of activities in con nection with the American newspaper guild. The Associated Press said he was discharged because his work was not up to his proven capability. i The guild charged the press association had violated the labor relations act by discouraging membership in a labor organization. It was contended by the press association that the legislation violated freedom of the press, and took property without due process of law. Both sides in the controversy over the President’s judiciary proposals conceded the ruling might have the effect of finally determining whether congress would approve the program. i Opponents took the position an opinion upholding the law would be proof the1 administration’s social legislation aims could be accomplished without any change in the court. Five cases involving the Wagner act—designed to guarantee to working men the right to bargain collectively with their employer through representa tives of their own choice—were before the court. In each the issue was the validity of an order from the labor board for re instatement of one or more employees. The orders were directed against the Associated Press, the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation Of Pittsburgh, the Fruehauf Trailer company of Detroit, the Friedman-Harry Marks Clothing C04 Inc., of Richmond, Va., and the Washington,, Virginia and Maryland Conch company. i The labor board won in the lower courts in the cases involving the Asso ciated Press and the bus company and lost in the others. SUPREME COURT DECISION AS SEEN BY GREEN, LEWIS AND PERKINS; EVERYBODY APPARENTLY HAPPY W ASHINGTON, April 13.—John L. Lewis, bushy-browed generalissimo of the recent sit-down strikes in the automobile in dustry, declared last night that the “instability” of the Supreme Go Art requires enactment of President Roosevelt’s reorganization bill. Commenting upon the court’s decisions todav upholding the Wagner labor relations act, the chairman of the’ Committee for Industrial Organization said: me qui outers oi ancient oreece were intellectual sluggards as com pared with our Supreme Court. Ap parently, the destiny of our republic and the well-being of its population depends upon the legalistic whims and cap''ices of one mania. VtfMerday the Guffey Coal stabilization act was struck down. -day the Wagner la bor relations act is sustained. If today the court is right, then yester day, forsooth, the court was wrong. “The court is a variable as the wind, and the people wonder how long they are to be the victims of its in stability. Obviously the situation needs change. The President's court plan is the immediate answer.” William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, from which Lewis and his industrial union aiues nave oeen suspenaeu lor insur rection,” hailed the court’s decisions as ‘‘a triumphant achievement” for the A. F. of L. Recalling that the federation fought hard for enactment of the labor re lations law, Green said: “Labor will now be free to organize without fear of discrimination and per secution. A new impetus will be giv en the organized labor movement. It means the end of company unions.” Secretary of Labor Perkins said the decisions “in the manufacturing cases are of great significance.” "They illustrate conclusively that the Constitution is indeed broad enough to give Congress power to deal with our most pressing social and industrial problems when the court is willing to recognize the statutory technique she added. Jrovisions Of The Wagner Labor , Relations Act i WASHINGTON, April 12. The Wagner labor relations act, on which the Supreme Court ruled today, states this public policy: "Kmployees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join or assist labor or ganizations. to bargain col lectively through representa tives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted ac tivity. for the purpose of col lective bargaining or other mu tual aid or protection." The act also states that it shall be an unfair labor prac tice for an employer: To interfere with, retrain or coerce employes in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in the declaration of policy. To dominate or interfere with the formation or admin istration of any labor organi zation or contribute financial or other support to it. By discrimination in re gard to hire or tenure of em ployment of any term or con dition of employment to en courage or discourage mem bership in any labor organiza tion. To discharge or otherwise discriminate against an em ploye because he has filed charges or given testimony under the act. To refuse to bargain collec tively with the representative of his employe. Act also sets up a Labor Re lations board of three members to enforce the act’s provisions and to conduct elections among as to which of two or more employes w hen a dispute arises labor organizations represent a majority, of the employes for collective bargaining. Act provides that the majority unit shall speak for all em ployes in collective bargaining. If a board order is ignored* the board may ask a circuit court of appeals to compel compliance. If a violator ig nores a court order, the court may hold him in contempt and impose fines or imprisonment. ubscribe for The Journal \ Sit-Down Strikes Not Likely In N. C. Says A. L. Fletcher RALEIGH, April 13.—There is no immediate danger of strikes, sit-down or otherwise, in the textile industry in North Carolina, despite the fact that the Committee of Industrial Organi zation, the John L. Lewis union, is already getting busy organizing the textile workers in North Carolina and other southern state, in the opinion of Commissioner of Labor A. L. Fletcher, back over the week-end from attending the world textile conference in Wash ington. The fact that a large number of textile mills have already increased the wages of their workers voluntar ily, are holding to the 40-hour week and that most of the employees are Well satisfied and working full time, is expected to prevent any strike trouble, Fletcher said. "The two most encouraging aspects of the outlook in the textile industry in North Carolina and the south are the declaration by the CIO leaders that they want to avoid strikes and that their only aim is the organization of the workers; and second, that the textile industry is not going to actively combat the organization efforts of the CIO,” Commissioner Fletcher kaid. “And there is every reason to believe that the CIO and the textile manufacturers are perfectly sincere in their positions, since both know the harm and damage that would be caused by Strikes ana both want to avoid them. The CIO knows tha ta strike or strikes would prove very expen sive and very damaging to their cause, especially in the south, since they know what happened following the unsuccessful strikes in the state in 1U29 and 1932. And the mill owners are just as anvious to avoid strikes as are the workers and organizers. * think the outlook is very hope DOMINION IS ASKED TO INTERVENE IN GENERAL MOTORS—C. I. O. DISPUTE OSH AW A, Ontario, April 13.— Mayor Alex Hall of Oshawa tonight sen; an invitation to Norman Rogers, Dominion minister of labor, to mediate in the strike of 3,700 General Motors of Canada workers. The mayor tel egraphed the minister after failing I to receive an answer from the company [ as to whether it would welcome Fed I eral intervention in the dispute. CHATTING f t I I ■ Y HARRY BOATE On June 1 of this year, according to announcement, the voters of Char lotte and Mecklenburg county are to be given the exalted privilege of decid ing whether or not liquor stores shall j>e legalized in this part of their state. It seems too bad, after having registered their disapproval of liquid re freshments that they are again called upon to render a decision. However, such is the case, and it is hoped they will decide the question definitely on that date. On this same question of liquor the following story in the Christian Century of a recent date, by Zona Gale, headed “Sophisticate,” may be of interest to my readers: The young and charming girl, in a shining cocktail jacket, sat having a cocktail, in the ornate cocktail bar, at the cocktail hour. Everything pleased her. The shining jacket was inordinately becom ing, the party was to her liking, this bar one of the busiest in town; and she herself felt at some apex of sophistication, of power to enchant, to assess her little world, to be at home among its standards. So the cocktail hour, that pause in the day’s occupation, she observed as a ritual. They had been saying Something about Paris—and every nook and cor ner that was mentioned, she knew. Left bank, studios, clubs, small jolly cafes not yet much discovered, bright figures in the life of the town. There was mention of some unfrequented village on the French Riviera, and she knew it well; there was little of that smiling coast unfamiliar to her, and beyond, in the lovely hinterland of Grasse and Gourdon. London—shops, hotels, gossip—she had them all. She was not too defi nite about galleries, but she coula talk of them facilely enoungh if neces sary. Hollywood, the Miami race tracks; New York and its plays; new books of a sort; the clothes of tomorrow; tennis, golf, and the holders of titles; last year’s football, next year’s possibilities; even a smattering of politics she could call up, especially political gossip. She was alert, alive—she would have been crestfallen to be otherwise; not to be “up” on all the give and take and glistening surface of her world. And anything that she didn’t know, she pretended to know. Of those about her, some knew other and farther facts and implica tions, were at home in European intrigue, in research and the findings of technology and the physical sciences. And there were still others of them whose young faces carried that unmistakable mark of secret knowledge of thg ways of the mind and the spirit, both old wisdom and new perception —tyide areas of truth. Such things these young and charming folk in the cocktail bar dealt in, and all that might be expected of them they were au courant; they were, they liked to think, “on their toes.” Save to one set of facts alone. Now this transition will sound brutal and bald. It should sound so, for it is so. . •• j . They knew everything, there at the cocktail bar, save what they were doing, there in the cocktail hour. And if anybody had arisen and told them, writing perhaps on the bright gold wall, they would all have been as amused as at any other abrupt handwriting on any other familiar wall. They knew everything; they w^re sophisticates; but ask any of them the simplest facts related to this that they were so busy about, and the an swer would be a tolerant: “I wouldn’t know.” ...... Bad taste to know. Tiresome to know. And anyway, what of it?— their I. Q.’s rating at about ten years of age. What of it that alcohol is not a stimulant but a narcotic—that medi cine classe it with opiates, that with even a little taken, some of the biain goes to sleep% .... . . What of it that alcohol is rated by medicine as a toxin, decreasing re sistance to germ attack and undermining power to throw off disease? What of it that children to be born will have less vigor, less power to meet life because the mother or the father has done what “everyone else is Tiresome to know these things. Bad taste to talk about them. Yet Johns Hopkins and Harvard and Yale and the Mayos—they all will talk about it, if one asks them. Instead of asking, any cocktail lounge will cry, with one voice: But ol course we know when to stop.” , In that case, they must stop before they begin. For the young and charming Thing must remember that any amount puts some of the brain to Narcotic, toxin, resistance weakener, attacker of children—it is with these that the young and charming Thing is so occupied, in the cocktail bar, at the cocktail hour. ... • Sophisticate—and she knows practically everything but this! GREEN ASSAILS C. 1.0. HITLERISM IN TALK TO ALUMINUM WORKERS COUNCIL; ASSAILS MINORITY RULE By A. F. of L. News Service NEWARK, N. J.—William Green, president of the American Federation of I^bor, declared here in an address before delegates to the 2nd convention of the National Council of Aluminum Work ers, an A. F. of L. affiliate, that the only issue between the Ameri can Federation of Labor and the Lewis Committee for Industrial Organization is democracy and majority rule in the labor move ment. “Come what may,” he said, “I’ll stand to the bitter end with those who defend democratic procedure and democratic ideals in the settlement of our questions. “We’re not going to have a Hitler or a Mussolini in the labor movement in America," he declared. “We are going to have a free democratic union in this country.” ..... . . ' "The A. F. of L.,” he continued, “was not established to be the instru mentality through which any man may promote his personal or political wel fare. Those who believe in making it pqssible for one man to realize his con suming ambition, who believe in dividing and conquering, stand on the other Pointing out that “the C. I. O. is undemocratic.” he said the Lewis group has brought about the most abject surrender of union autonomy into the hands of one man by the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers and by the United Textile Workers. He charged that unions in opposition to the A. F. of L. had created “bitterness and hate” and in some places violence and predicted that if it continues it is going to get worse. “Those on the other side,” he said, “are responsible for splitting the labor movement, not only nationally, but in State federations and in local central bodies where friends of long standing are now opposed to each other. “There is no more democratic organization in the world than the A. F. of L. That was shown at the convention in Atlantic City, where the other side received unlimited opportunity to present its case. “At that convention the administrative policy of the A. F. of L. was up held by a vote of two to one. Immediately thereafter the minority organized to force "the minority view on the labor movement.” Mr. Green declared that the C. I. O. unions tolerate company unions as rival bargaining agents in plants, and insisted that the A. F. of L. would never stand for such a condition. Instead of organizing the unorganized, C. I. O. men are “raiding” Federal unions of the A. F. of L., he charged. ‘We find the automobile unions going out and organizing workers in pickle factories,” he said. A positive denial that the isue with the C. I. O. was craft versus indus trial unions was made by Mr. Green. “All who know of the A. F. of L. know that it stands for the application of both forms of unionism as circumstances and condition permit,” he said. Referring to recent actions in city central bodies denying seats to dele gates from C. I. O. unions, Mr. Green declared: “They are going to remain A. F. of L. subordinate units. We are not going to permit designing persons to use any one of these to establish dual unions. Where we found some designing persons working under ocver, we have acted quickly and decisively and put them out. The second convention of the National Council of Aluminum Workers, before which Mr. Green spoke, consisted of delegates respresenting fifteen Fderal local unions of aluminum workrs of the American Federation of Labor. A. P. SUPREME COURT •DECISION” MAN GETS A LEAVE OF ABSENCE NEW YORK, April 13.—Morris Watson, reinstated as a reporter for the Associated Press by a 5 to 4 de cision of the United States Supreme Court, reported for work in the New York office today._ He asked and re ceived a week's leave of absence to wind up his affairs as managing pro ducer of the WPA project, “The Liv ing Newspaper.” IF THE CANADIAN “FLARE-UP” DOES NOT INTERFERE, ALL AUTO STRIKES ARE PAST HISTORY, WITH THE POS SIBLE EXCEPTION OF FORD AUTOS DETROIT, Mich., April 12.—The nation’s automobile makers, heading for peak production again, are ready to throw their giant industry into high gear this week. With recent strikes now labor history, assembly lines will be speeded up as some 90,000 employes—idle during the Chrysler, Hudson, and Reo strikes—resume full time work schedules. Governor Frank Murphy, who has been busy as industrial peacemaker sicne the General Motors strike, turned his attention to a State labor policy for his industrial legislative program. Still watched by observers were developments in the announced drive of United Automobile Workers’ union ofr members' in the Ford Motor Car company's vast factories. The automobile industry expects to assemble close to 1,750.000 cars and trucks during the second quarter of 1937 and still hopes to attain its original production goal of 5,000,000 units this year. Murphy disclosed he believes Michigan laws should recognize the rights of collective bargaining “the extent to be determined by the degree of mmber ship of the collective bargaining agency.” He also told newsmen there should be a State minimum wage law for both men and women, “adequate” social security, a liberalized occupational disease law, and legislation prohibiting espionage, discrimination, and company unions. About 1,000 “sit-downers” who marched out of the Hudson Motor Car company’s plant here last week after ratifying a settlement of their 33-day strike, will join the bark-to-work movement. Chrysler corporation and the U. A. W. A. obtained a dismissal Saturday of the petition and cross-petition in an injunction suit by which the company sought last month to evict and arrest 6,000 sit-down strikers in its eight major plants here. Henry Ford’s statement in Ways. Ga„ that, when “this strike mess is over,” his independent company would demonstrate “wages, production, and competition such as never seen before” brought this retort from Homer Martin, U. A. W. A. president r “Mr. Ford has for years paid wages much lower than either General Motors or Chrysler.” Martin asserted that if Ford raised his minimum w'age, now $6 a day, it would not “stop the unionization of his workers.” FORD SAYS EMPLOYES ARE “FREE TO JOIN ANY UNION;” DODGES CHALLENGE WAGNER LABOR ACT DETROIT, April 13.—Henry Ford said today his employes were “free to join anything they want to. They have always been free to join any church, any lodge, or any union they want to,” he said in his first interview after the Spreme Court decision uphold ing the Wagner labor relations act. “Of course, I think they are foolish if they join any union. They will lose their liberty, and all they will get is the right of paying dues to somebody.” He said the safeguards given labor by the Wagner act had been Ford Motor company policy for years. To a question of whether he would confer with a union committee on de mands or grievances, he replied, “Ask me that when the time comes.” Last'Week, at his Georgia plantation. Ford %aid the Ford Motor company “never will recognize the United Automobile Workers’ union or any union.” “Is there any possibility that some day you may sit across a table from John Lewis as Walter P. Chrysler and William S. Knudsen did?” an inter viewer asked. There was a quizzical smile, but no reply. Asked what the Ford company would do in the event of a strike at the Rouge plant, Ford said, “We don’t anticipate trouble of any kind, and we are not prepared to say what we would do.” THREE M1LL1UJN DULLAK FAY BUUST WON BY FOUR FILM UNIONS; COST NOT TO BE PASSED ON TO PUBLIC NEW YORK, N. Y.—A ten per cent increase in wages for 15.000 viotion picture industry employes, amountoing to $3,000, 000 a year, was approved by officials of the producers and the un ions at the film trades annual conference here. The increase be comes effective May 1. It was stated that the present wage advance lifts the total wage increases in the last two years to 21 per cent, or approxi mately $6,000,000. The'unions receiving the S.3,000,000 increase this year the the Inter national Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes and Moving Picture Machine Operators, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, the Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stable men and Helpers. Officials representing the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Musicians were at the conferenc but did not ask for wage increases, all being affiliates of the A. F. of L. Pat Casey, producers’ labor relations counsel, denied persistent reports in trade circles that the increase would lead to higher admission prices at box office.’ He claimed that a box office increase was impractical because half of it would go to the Government in taxes. On the employers side the conference included major executives of Twen tieth Century-Fox, Paramount Pictures, R. K. O.-Radio, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, Universal Pictures. Keith-Albee-Orpheum, Warner Brothers, Edu cational Pictures and United Artists. Labor leaders participating in the conference included George E. Browne, president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Emploves and Moving !i .U|T. Mach,ne Operators of the United States and Canada; William L. Hutchinson, president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America; Daniel W. Tracy, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; John M. Gillespie, representing the International Bro therhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stablemen and Helpers of America; Jo?«p!LWeber’ pres,dent of the American Federation of Musicians, and Ken neth Thomson, executive secretary of the Screen Actors Guild. All of the national and international unions are affiliated with the American Federa tion of Labor. * unanimous »oteof the producer and labor representatives at the conference the Brotherhood of Painters,, Decorators and Paperhangers of America was invited to participate in the industry’s labor agreement under the terms which existed when it withdrew in 1922. President Lawrence P. Lindelof of the brotherhood objected to this “half recognition because it did not include make-up artists, art directors, draughts 5*2’ “nd hairdressers, who he claimed come under the brotherhood’s juris diction. Because of the limited terms included in the invitation to participate in the conference, he threatened to call a strike of Hollywood workers inthe A. F. of L. And C. 1.0. Leaders Are Pushing Drive For Elec. Workers PITSBURGH, April 13—The In ternational Brotherhood of Electrical Workers—strengthened by a charte -ushed from Washington by plane— intensified yesterday its drive to en roll 8,000 empolyes of the Westin*' house Electric & Manufacturing plant in East Pittsburgh. The new local prepared to open of fices about a block from the offices of its opponent in the drive to unionize the Westinghouse plant, the United Electrical Workers of America, affil iated with John L. Lewis’s Commit tee for Industrial Organization. A. R. Johnson, assistant business manager of the brotherhood, an nounced the charter for the East Pittsburgh local had been hurried to him from the American Federation of Labor. He claimed his union had already netted 1,600 membership ap plications. But titian-haired Margaret Darin, aggressive young secretary of the Lewis group, countered with the claim that her union had enrolled a majority of the Westinghouse work ers. Her organization demands a conference Friday with the firm’s management to negotiate a contract. IF YOUR SUBSCRIPTION *S *N ARREARS SENn IN A CHECK
The Charlotte Labor Journal and Dixie Farm News (Charlotte, N.C.)
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April 15, 1937, edition 1
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