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Show Serious Labor Situation Hinders Defense Effort Members of Congress Also Demanding Facts On Charges That Big Business Plays Favorites in Defense Contracts. Bv BAUKHAGE km National Farm and Home Hour Commentator. tered here and there in all the mines. But full 100 per cent membership mem-bership in many mines and none perhaps in a very few small ones. The National Defense Mediation board voted down Mr. Lewis' demand de-mand for a union shop and pan-dora's pan-dora's box flew open. One of the things that emerged was a highly paradoxical and highly painful situation. situ-ation. For the board, by taking this rare anti-labor step, had virtually left the operators in the position that if they had yielded in the later negotiations they would be in the . position of supporting Lewis against the government. Still the situation might have been saved if something had not happened when the President Presi-dent called the operators and Lewis and Secretary-Treasurer Kennedy of the United Mine Workers to the White House. When the men came in the President Presi-dent did what his labor advisors hoped he would. He made a briei appeal to both sides to get together and settle the question, since a strike must be avoided. If he had stopped there all might have been well. But he went on and said .what Lewis felt was prejudicial to his case. This not only woke all the smouldering anger in the breast ol John Lewis but when the committee commit-tee of 200 C.I.O. advisors heard about it they were just as mad. His feeling was reflected when he turned down the President's later proposals. President on the Spot And the President was on the spot. Congress was insisting on strike legislation. Speaker Sam Rayburn had promised it. Others were demanding that the troops be WNU Service, 1343 H Street, N-W, Washington, D. C. The explosion in the defense setup set-up in Washington foreshadowed in these columns two weeks ago is about to take place. At least, as this is written, the fuse is being laid if not lighted. Senator O'Mahoney of Wyoming and Representative Coffey of Washington are both demanding de-manding facts connected with charges that big business is playing favorites in the defense contracts. But an equally amazing story lies behind the way labor has been dealt with in the defense program. Part of the facts have leaked out piecemeal, piece-meal, some are still very much under un-der cover. Put together they make an amazing revelation of what was behind the President's delay in taking action in the captive mine strike and also how bungling all along the line forced the administration adminis-tration into the worst labor situation situa-tion that has arisen since the defense de-fense program started. The trouble began when it was decided to take the settlement of certain labor disputes out of the United States Conciliation Service and place it in the hands of the Defense Advisory commission with branches headed by William S. Knudsen and Sidney Hillman. Up to that time from 95 to 98 per cent of the labor disputes were settled by the Conciliation service. But the remaining 2 to 5 per cent were slowing slow-ing down defense and it was decided that Mr. Knudsen' s staff representing represent-ing industry and Mr. Hillman's staff representing labor could settle the recalcitrants. The theory was that Knudsen' s men would crack down on industry and Hillman's on labor. But it didn't work that way. Each favored his own kind. Mediation Board Founded So the National Defense Mediation Media-tion board was founded. All went along smoothly for awhile, although more and more criticism was heard that the board was exceedingly pro-labor pro-labor and achieved settlements by the simple process of conceding to labor's demands. Then the board made a mistake. It handed down one decision which opened the way for the United Mine Workers union shop demands which smashed the board, threatened the administration's foreign policy and created the worst labor crisis that the country has faced in many a long day. The decision I refer to was in the case of the Bethlehem shipbuilding plant in San Francisco. The A. F. of L. union demanded a union shop, that is, that any man working for the company a certain period would have to join the union. The board granted this demand, thus forcing 20 per cent of the plant's non-union workers to join the A. F. of L. One member of the board, Cyrus Ching, representing industry, held out against the decision. He foresaw that it would create a precedent. When the decision was announced sent into the captive mines at once. That, wiser heads who knew the temper of the miners believed, would mean a strike in all the mines and the army would have to beat its bayonets into pickaxes. So the President paused, wrote a conciliatory better to both parties. 'Meanwhile, congress could stew but the President was pretty sure that its members would not take the initiative of alienating the labor vote with primaries coming up in the spring and elections next fall. The prospective candidates for reelection re-election wanted the onus to be placed squarely on him. , Whether the Conciliation service could have handled the captive mine strike as it is still handling the other 98 per cent of the cases of labor disputes no one can say. But it is clear that it was mishandled by the Mediation board and it is likewise clear that if critical congressmen finally crack down on Mr. Knudsen's dollar-a-year men for showing favors fa-vors to business they have plenty ol grounds for cracking down on Mr. Hillman's stalwarts who created the pattern of labor partisanship that came near severely injuring not only the defense program but the administration's foreign policy as well. A Rip-Snortin' Texan Comes to Washington Another Texan has come to Washington Wash-ington and the moment of his arrival arri-val was an historic one. We have had a lot of rip-snortin', ringtailed wildcats from all parts of the country, coun-try, some human, and some not quite. Now we have something that will make even the Texas delegation in congress sit up and take notice, for this unwilling delegate from the Lone Star State is the wildest of them all. He" is a Texas long-horn. A steer with an eight-foot spread of horn. He is 12 years old. He weighs 200 pounds and he is admittedly wilder than anything in the zoo where he it was stated that it should not be taken as a precedent. This pious statement was like giving the baby a piece of candy "if he won't ask for another." Once the A. F. of L. had received this concession the C.I.O. stepped up and said: "I want one. too." The result was the famous Federal Shipbuilding Ship-building and Dry Dock company case of Kearny, N. J., this time a shipyard on the East coast. Against the vote of the members of the National Na-tional Mediation board representing industry, the union was given "maintenance - of - membership" which is a diluted union shop. The company refused to accept the decision deci-sion and the navy took over. Another Precedent Here was another precedent, whether the board meant it or not. And it didn't take long for John Lewis to take advantage of it and put in his demand for the union shop in the captive coal mines. If he had planned it that way he could not have been provided a better opportunity to vent his ancient grievance against the President and set himself right to the middle of a national issue. If the case of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Ship-building workers was good, Lewis' was far better. C.I.O. has a 95 per cent membership in the captive coal mines. But not the kind of a 95 per cent that most people think it. Not 5 per cent non-union workers scat- nas been given tne place of honor right up near the entrance. Most people do not know that the Texas long-horn is rarer than the buffalo which he once displaced on the Texas plains. He is a direct descendant from the wild cattle which the Spaniards brought to America when they came. Those cattle could walk endless miles to water. They were bred and developed de-veloped to meet conditions that existed a hundred years ago in the great Southwest. Then water was piped and ditched into the great ranches and the fatter, easier going go-ing Herefords were introduced. The long-horn had the muscles and the endurance but he did have the meat, so he began to disappear. George Stimpson, a Washington correspondent from the Middle West, who is also a correspondent for Texas papers and a keen devotee of America's flora and fauna, started start-ed out three years ago to get a j Texas long-horn for the Washington zoo. He had his troubles. He simply could not get hold of a real, simon-pure simon-pure long-horn. There were semi-domesticated semi-domesticated beasts but none of the real, wild-eyed, rip-roaring variety that have made the long-horn as much a symbol of America as the ! eagle itself. |
