Newspapers / The Charlotte Labor Journal … / Jan. 1, 1948, edition 1 / Page 1
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WIRE or WRITE to Tour Coigressaei n Protest A’iiist All ANTI - LABOR Bills! CHAR LABOR J VOL. XVII; NO. 23 CHARLOTTE, N. Y, JANUARY 1, 1948 Subscription $2.00 Per Year Taft-Hartley Law Exposed! By J. ALBERT WOLIJ and HERBERT S. THATCHER (Members of the law firm of Padway, Woll, Thatcher. Glenn and Wilson, serving as general counsel for the American Federation of Labor) This is the fifth of a series of articles to be published by the AFL Weekly News Service ip refutation of an article appearing * in the Saturday Evening Post which praised the Taft-Hartley law to the skies. Author of the Post article wa^J. Mack Swi gert, law partner of Senator Robert A. Taft—enough said: -—. NO. 5—THE “SO-CALLED 14 PRIVILEGES” OF THE TAFT-HARTLEY LAW—(Continued) 4. “Relief front High Initiation Fees” The next alleged benefit is relief from excessive initia tion fees, which it is claimed run into hundreds of dollars. Were there evidence of any widespread abuse in this re ct, the power given the board to control and determine initiation fees in union-shop situations might have some excuse. However, the fact is that the average initiation fee of the vast majority of labor organizations ranges from $ 00 to $5.00, and those few organizations which charger higher initiation fees invariably bestow in return for such fees old-age benefits, unemployment benefits, sick and acci dent benefits, and the like. Surely, the very few instances in which a union may have charged an excessive fee does rot warrant wholesale regulation by government tribunals; the very existence of labor organizations depends upon tueir ability to adequately to finance themselves through fees prescribed by vote of the membership. Once the door :s opened to gov ernment regulation of such im portant matters, labor organisa tions can exist and effectively function only to the extent per mitted by government. Over the years, and particularly at present, we have seen many examples of exorbitant prices charged by em ployers and tremendous profits reaped. But it Has not .been sug gested that a government tribunal be set up vrti a permanent basis for the purpose of prescribing and regulating prices and profits. S. “Ban oa Compulsory Checkoff” The requirement that individuals must authorise the checkoff of union dues does not add a great deal to a privilege which em ployes possessed prior to the pas sage of the Taft-Hartley Act. The great bulk of checkoff agree ment« have traditionally provided that employes must submit indi vidual authorisations. (. “Opportunity to Present Own Grievances" The “Post” article deems it a great privilege that employes, un der existing bargaining contracts, be permitted to present their own grievances without the interven tion of the duly selected bargain ing representative. —A-— Here again, we see another ex ample of the law's ulterior pur pose of restoring individual rather than collective bargaining, and ef driving every possible wedge be tween employes and labor organ isations. Adjustment of grievances under collective bargaining agree ments is one of the most impor tant functions of any labor or ganisation. If an organization has been duly selected by a major ity of the employes and has there by achieved exclusive bargaining i rights, why should not its rep resentatives at least be present during the negotiation or settle ment of all grievances involving employes in the bargaining units* It is of vital importance that grievances be adjusted on a. con sistent basis and pursuant to es tablished policies. Encouraging individual adjustments can serve only to cause disruption within the union and to afford opportun ity for the employer to weaken or discredit a duly selected bar gaining representative by giving preference to the adjustment of grievances submitted by individ uals. 7. “An End to Jurisdictional Strikes and Secondary Boycotts The “Post” article asserts that the wholesale ban upon jurisdic- j tional strikes and secondary boy- j cotta contained in the Taft-Hart Iey Act is a boon to workers and to the public. Certain examples are cited, aa, for instance, at tempts by an uncertified union to dibitsarea a certified union, and refusal by members ef one aa tional organization to work upon goods made by members of an other's national labor organiza tion. The article does not mention the many types of boycott and so-called jurisdictional strikes which are outlawed by the act and which have every historical ftm economic jnstidoeMou. Tb* article does not mention the fact that there are good jurisdictional strikes and boycotts and bad jur isdictional disputes and boycotts, but that the act wseep all within its prohibition. The article does not mention that the broad and indiscriminate prohibitions of the law operate to negate and deny the entire principle of mutual aid and assistance so basic to the trade union movement and, in deed, upon which the movement is founded. The act prevents organized em ployes in one industry from uti lizing the help of other organized employes in the same industry, entirely neglectful of the econom ic principle that wages and work ing conditions within an entire industry must be stablized if cut throat competition is to be avoid ed. The act requires organised employes to contribute to the de struction of their own working standards by obliging them to work upon materials or goods produced under non-union condi tions. Ir. doing so, Congress was not unmindful of the admonition of Justices Brandeis and Holmes in their dissenting opinion in the Duplex Printing Company ease that “Courts, with better appre ciation of the facts of industry, recognized the unit of interest throughout the union, and that in refusing to work on materials which threatened it, the union was only refusing to aid in de stroying itself” (a statement now accepted by the full Court—see Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88; American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, 257 U. S. 184; and Bakery A Pastry Drives v. Wohl, 315 U. S. 769). SENATE CONFIRMS MEN NAMED TO LABOR JOBS v __ Washington, D. C.—The Senate confirmed President Truman’s ap pointees to the National Labor Relations Board, Abe Murdock of ytah and J. Copeland Gray of New York. Favorable action was also taken on the appointment of Robert N. Denham as general counsel for the NLRB. Mr. Truman gave recess ap pointments to these men when the first session of the 80th Congress adjourned without taking action on his rscommedations. Hopeful For World Peace President Harry 8. Truman In a New Year's message to the people rf the United States President Harry S. Truman says that *he sees great prosper ty ft r the country throughout the year. The President also said that he is “confi Titly looking forward to a world peace on which all nations can agree.” ANTI-LABOR ATTITUDE OF AMERICAN PRESS EXPOSED BY MUSICIANS’ UNION JOURNAL New York City.--The American newspaper’s bias against organ ized labor was exposed in an art! ele which appeared reeeently in “Allegro,” official monthly jour nal of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians. Richard McCann, president of the local, pointed out the way in which newspapers suppressed the story of employers’ wholesale vio lations of the Wage-Hour law an nounced several weeks ago by the Labor Department. A full report of the shocking situation was car ried in the AFL Weekly News Service. Because it is of general inter est to all members of organised labor to be aware of and to make allowances for the anti-labor at titude found in the American press, portions of Mr. McCann’s article follow: “I raise the issue about the i. J. THOMAS President CkvMU Fireasa'a local greets Charlotte eaioa Member, with beet wishes the sew year. far American press double standard 'jecause of a little story which re cently came to my attention. It’s a little story, only l>erause our newspapers made it a little story. Actually it ig a big story and a shameful story, “Just think for a momemt of how our papers wotfld have sen sationalized a story* that 20,000 trade union leader had violated a law enacted by our Congress! Just think of the screaming head lines in the American press. Just think of what Pegler would have said if 20,000 unions had been proven guilty of violating a law which they had to Hire up to! “Well, 20,000 American busi ness establishments violated a law last year—the Wage-Hour law. They were guilty of violating that law and illegally withhold ing from their workers more than $1*4,000,000 in wages, money that belonged to the workers. You can dress up this violation of law in any fancy legal terms you want, but no matter how you slice it— 311.000 workers were cheated out of money they had earned. “In what American newspaper did you see a page one, big head line story about this piece of skullduggery? I doubt if there was a single one. And this story was r.o secret. It was sent out as a news release several weeks ago to newspapers and press as sociations by the United States Department of Labor. “But the press conspiracy, ope rating as usual, was too busy denouncing labor to publish this story and give it the treatment it deserved. The American press was very calm whan this swin dle was reported to them. It couldn’t get up enough energy to let the American people know (Planao Tws to Page 4) Additional appointment* con-; filmed by the Senate without ob jection included those of Cyrus S. Ching, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Serv ice; David A. Morse, Under-Sec-j retary of Labor, and John T. Kimetc, Asst. Secretary of Labor. HU MAN ECONOMIC UNIT SEES HUGH LIVING'COST AS MAJOR PROBLEM V ashim t >n. I). ( .—In .mtrial prices and profits will have to bo reduced and “gross imbalances" in the wage struc ture rectified, if the nation's economy is to be stablized, the Council of Economic Advisors declared. This was the main theme of the council’s second annual report to President Truman required by the Employment ■ - u In ..\t.on. the. high cost of living, and a threatened re vision v.cr > singled out in the rejxjrt as present economic 'roblerrs v/hich must be attacked vigorously before the eend u in 8. ’.FI LABOR PRESS liUDEt FOR PART IN PUBLICiZINC COMMUNTY CHEST DRIVES New lfork City. • Individua AFL members, the -AFL laboi press, and affiliated unions gav generously of their time, efforts and money to push the Coratmin tty Chest campaigns to an all time peacetime record, the Com munity Chests and Councils, Inc. of New York City, announced. The AFL labor press was sin gled out for special thanks am praise in a special edition t»f tht newsletter published by th*t na tional organization. The newslet ter said: * ; ‘ •’ “We, extend our whole-hearte* appreciation for the splendid co operation that you gave us in th» recent Community Chest cam paigns. Never before has suet splendid publicity been given bj III* labor press to t)wM cam of th«t National and International Unions and the State Federations of Labor, for devoting covers to Red Feather symbols at well as editorials. To the editors of of ficial weekly AFL papers we ex press our sincere appreciation for their stories on the progress of the campaigns, editorials, and page advertisements. “We had hoped to reproduce some of the displays in this issue of the newsletter but the vol ume was too great and each dis play was of such superior qual (Continued on Page 3) Greets Charlotte Labor CLAUDE L. ALBEA President of Charlotte Central Labor Union Sends New Year gro^tai* to all members of orgaa nixed labor ia Ckarlotto and vicinity. He is Joined by all tbe officers and members of Cbarlotto Central La bor Uaiea ia extending M wishes to aU members of the affiliated crafts. Devoting itself to the thesis j that sustained maximum produc tion could be achieved for the ben j efit of more Americana than ever before, the council asserted that real price competition waa the most essential single factor need ed to restore the economy to prop er balance. Fix-using on what it regarded as the heart of the situation, the council said: “In any composite of salutary policies, none is so significant as the achievement and maintenance of^real price competition, which means the lowest price consistent with a fair return in a stable economy rather than the highest price that the traffic will bear in an unstable economy.” i The council* disagreed with “prominent leaders m business and public life (who) have pro posed that the standard work week be lengthened from 40 to 44 or even 48 houra." The report said many indus tries were oft a continuous-process 4MMm.atp2 fears mufckjUho adds* to tMtr^-JHlng day, while In aomo industries afflicted by a shortage of materials longer hours would aggravate the amount of unproductive time. The council stood firm “for the present” for the 8-hour day, 5 day week, and 2-week paid Mon. In contrast to high production ! abnormally sustained, the coun cil pleaded that maximum produc tion could be maintained indef j initely if properly balanced. It [suggested that a major factor in striking such a balance would be ta make it possible for the ‘bot tom quarter or third” of the peo ple who have been "subsisting' on skim milk" to enjoy more of the goods from the flow of a great production." In stressing "maximum produc tion” the council relegated to sec ond place the idea of “full em ployment,” explaining that the “inadequacy” of “mere number of jobs” had been demonstrated. The report added: “For we were astonished to find, after the country had reached the idealized figure of 60,000,000 Jobe, that the volume of production still was disappointing. And with production shortages, we al so found that abundant monetary purchasing power confronted us with inflationary dangers rather than calling for adequate produc tion." The economist* stated that near-maximum production today was due to “abnormal circum stances” such a* military ex penditures, foreign and, tempor ary crop shortages and war-time backlogs of orders for consumer good* and durable goods. In view of the abnormal stimu lation of production,, the council stated that mere acceleration would not solve the problem. “It (acceleration) will simply advance the time when we shall have to face the problem of what price, income, and property value adjustments have to be made to strike an internally consistent or stable equilibrium.’' the report went on. '"It seems clear that in reaching! this equilibrium many industrial prices must come down at least in relation to other prices. “Many rates of profits must subside while reasonable profit ability In established in other arena. Groas Im balances in the wage si ins tine must be rectified (Please Tin to Peg* D
The Charlotte Labor Journal and Dixie Farm News (Charlotte, N.C.)
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Jan. 1, 1948, edition 1
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