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Show V, j ;tn. It !i u-'.i juf.eu'.y C.'.e ef l..e fj.ii!-fl:!jl f lil-Uat-n I ' 1 cf 0. -The People crate g.vernme:.'. Lose '-v--lt :-cre a c.-.c r.y '. cr privilege Ii ace ri. i, t. pcrs.r.s who are IC.-utiei ..! r.gi.ti necessar.'.y have 3- me d-'y to p-.-rf rrn under tia". ve r.j.'.'.s. It is well established, f r exa::.j le, t at workers may or-g or-g ip.lze n. to uii.or.s; that th"e uniuru have the right to bargain c llectvely, which means that a committee rei relenting the members mem-bers cf that union may speak for it in dealing with the employers, and it is a right undoubtedly of unions to call its members away from work on s'.r.ke. I think there can be no debate concerning these three premises. But since these rights have been granted to workers and accepted by them on the same inalienable in-alienable bas. as the right to vote, the obligations that go with these rights necessarily have been accepted accept-ed by the workers. We have just seen a settlement of one of the great strikes of this decade and the return of more than one hundred thousand workers to the plants of the General Motors corporation. Immediately after Governor Murphy of Michigan had announced that General Motors and John L. Lewis and his Committee for Industrial Organization had reached an agreement, efforts surged and swelled in a movement on the part of each side to claim victory in the settlement From all sources I have been able to tap, from every trustworthy observer of national affairs, I have obtained virtually vir-tually the same story about the General Gen-eral Motors C. I. O. strike settlement. settle-ment. As far as I can see after digesting all of the opinions within my reach, it seems to me that neither General Motors nor John L. Lewis won. What is much more important im-portant is that the American people lost by that strike and they are in a fair way to lose much more. The General Motors strike was one of the costliest in history. I am told that the workers alone lost something like one hundred million dollars in wages, and, of course, the stockholders of General Motors likewise lost because during all those days, forty-four of them, that the plants were closed, no new cars moved into trade. That means that all the thousands of dealers and salesmen of General Motors automobiles auto-mobiles earned no income. The truth about the settlement seems to be that each side was willing will-ing near the end Truth About to accept Gover-Seff?emenf Gover-Seff?emenf nor Murphy's proposition for settlement as a face saving proposal. pro-posal. It is undoubtedly true that John L. Lewis would have been sunk without a trace and his movement move-ment to break up the American Federation of Libor and take control con-trol of labor for himself would have been utterly ruined had there not been some iconcessions by the General Gen-eral Motors officials. He apparently attempted to break up the A. F. of L. before he had sufficient union men weaned away frora the parent ! organization and that is the reason why his position in the General Motors strike was so precarious i from his personal standpoint On the other hand, it is quite evident evi-dent as well that General Motors was forced into a position where it ! had to make concessions or be i charged by the federal government with responsibility for bloodshed and destruction of property in riots. Governor Murphy acted throughout the strike negotiations under the flag of President Roosevelt, Roose-velt, saying his movements were at the wish of the President General Gen-eral Motors did not dare attempt j to run counter to the President's I commands because it could not J withstand public sentiment that could and probably would be built cp against it should it be publicly criticized by the President And to support my statement that the settlement is a face saving ' agreement and that neither side won in it it is necessary only to consider that this agreement will j run just sue months. It contains no elements of permanency nor does it show any signs of a basic ' understanding which will swing pub-; pub-; L;c sentiment to the Lewis faction of organized labor as distinguished from the American Federation of Labor. Thus, there are many observers ; who feel that another crisis will : T arise alor.g about Ar.ctner the first of July Crisis a::d in the 1 meantime W i 1- l:am Green, President cf the American Amer-ican Federation of ILabor, will have built up a considerable amount of strength on his side of the factional fight What the future holds, there-. there-. fore, is ciff.cult to guess. It can be said enly that in the recent strike j and in the controversy that seems certain to lie ahead. General Mo- t.rs tiaiu w.i: be the S-'-t and the p-tl.c w.ll lay. 1 have teen .-r.dering whether mai.v j-tfv s le recogt:.-e how they are g.irg to m? f the cost of th.s s:r.ke. I have mentioned ways in which tl.ev have lost by it and it seems eqaa'.ly clear that when the Lewis unions get through with , ths u?e of furce, it is l.kely to bring about an increase in the cost cf the , automobiles they produce. It is likely like-ly to go farther titan just automobiles. automo-biles. There is a move on now to af.en-.pt something of the same sort of labor attack on the steel manufacturers. manu-facturers. If that materializes, it 1. easy to see how widespread the increased costs will be and how consumers will pay in the end. This may seem to be an argument argu-ment against increased wages. It may seem to be a defense of steel boots that used to be worn by industrialists in-dustrialists and with which they trod upon defenseless labor. But it resolves itself into a question of justice and a consideration of the problem as it concerns consumers as well as workers. If there is anything in the theory that labor is entitled to a fair wage, there must be likewise some merit in the contention that the public which consumes the product of labor is entitled to an equal amount of con- i sideration. Political leaders have been quick I at all times in recent years to sit astride the neck Federal of business, es-Charters es-Charters pecially big business. busi-ness. Corporations were held up as something to be despised, especially if they were large corporations. Lately there has been quite a definite movement for legislation in congress that would force corporations to have federal charters; that is, charters issued by the government at Washington which, therefore, could control such corporations with whatever regulations regula-tions were deemed necessary. This legislation, it is true, has not approached ap-proached the stage wherj a prediction pre-diction of its passage can be made. The point is, however, that it represents rep-resents the thoughts of a certain percentage of the people. The question ques-tion of legality of such a statute obviously remains to be determined but it is to be noted that this proposition prop-osition is simply another step in the movement to cast a stigma upon business, a move to make business appear immoral or criminal or generally gen-erally infamous. Business has found it advantageous advan-tageous to incorporate. It removes certain responsibilities from the individuals in-dividuals joining in a corporation and adds certain commitments at the same time. Here again are the rights and counter obligations arising aris-ing with those rights and I mink no one can dispute the fact that our nation has moved forward more rapidly because of the use of the corporation as a business entity. But I have been unable to find an answer to the question why the federal government should take control by law of business corporations corpora-tions without at the same time taking tak-ing control of labor organizations. Now, it is to be noted that labor unions have steadfastly avoided taking the step of incorporation. It is not true abroad where many la-tor la-tor organizations hold corporate charters just as would a business enterprise. The fact that labor unions have not incorporated leads one to the presumption that the unions have felt such a step would hamper their activities. And, indeed, it might. For example, there have been scores of instances where labor unions, through their authorized officials offi-cials or bargaining committees, have signed wage contracts with their employers only to ditch that contract subsequently without regard re-gard for its binding force. As labor unions are now organized, or-ganized, they are very loosely knit associations and there is nothing by which the individual members are bound except their own will to perform. per-form. In the case of a business corporation, for example, the stockholders stock-holders have invested money and obviously when the corporation is sued in court or accumulates any kind of liability the stockholders' money in the corporation is available avail-able to pay whatever obligations develop. Hence, the lack of a corporate cor-porate organization on the part of a union removes all responsibility insofar as law is concerned from tie unit into which the workers have organized themselves. The point is, after all, that the General Motors strike has demonstrated demon-strated beyond the peradventure oi a doubt that tie national labor policies pol-icies are utterly ineffectual and contain con-tain no consideration for the consuming con-suming public. Labor, as represented represent-ed by the John L. LetTis faction has shown its willingness to back its demands with force in disregard ol law an . it has failed to answer the responsibilities which it seems tc me accompany the rights and priv iiees the nation accords it Western Newspaper Union. |