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Show THE Decision Protects (Continued from preceding page) pre-construction agreement that denied workers a choice of bargaining agent. The alleged collection of multiple dues from welders by various AFL erafts, and the desire of the welders to come together in one organization and run their own show, are important questions. But those questions are transitory and in all probability cannot be solved before construction is completed at Geneva. ‘They are of secondary importance compared to the issue of the rights of union work- ers to have a voice in their own bargaining affairs. There was no need for the AFL to get into such a compheated and doubtful position. The welders have been trying for several years to cast off purported discrimination and obtain autonomy. Undoubtedly the Building Trades Department of the AFL could have worked out a satisfactory arrangement with them had it chosen to heed their complaints. Instead, the ALF let matters drift from bad to worse. By its negligence it convinced a substantial group of workers that justice could not be obtained in an AFL setup. The question of multiple dues and extra initiation fees should have been settled by the AFI many years ago. Ignoring a problem never solves it. Any AFL card should entitle its holder to transfer from one eraft to another without new fees than one and without union. The paying dues into more longer a basic solution of such questions is put off the greater the turmoil will be in the entire union movement. And labor is made more vulnerable to the attacks of its outside enemies. The procedure of obtaining bargaining rights should be re-examined immediately by the AFL. ‘That organization should voluntarily renounce collusive pre-employment contracts with employers. It should refuse to accept agreements in advance of employment when a question of bargaining rights is involved. *Already there are threats of political reprsals rumored against the Utah Labor Relations Board and particularly against Chairman Eldred M. Royle. If a closed shop SEARCHLIGHT agreement is made with an employer betore construction begins and employees are hired, or before production begins, workers are denied the right to choose their own bargaining representatives. Somebody else selects the bargaining agency for them. Such Utah’s procedure ‘‘Little is not only a violation Wagner Act’’, as the of Utah Labor Relations Board rightly says, ‘but it also violates the American concept of no taxation without representation. From any viewpoint such tactics are unwise, unenforceable, and undemocratie. And the advantages they gain for the union entering into agreements of that kind are illusive and unsubstantial. For instance, in the Duchesne tunnel case, an affiliate of the AFL, had a_ pre-construction contract—a closed shop agreement—with the Utah Construction Company. But when tunnel work was begun the workmen were overwhelmingly CIO—about seven to one. That CIO majority refused to abide by a contract governing wages, conditions, and representation it had no voice in naming. The result was trouble and annoyance all around. The AFL gained nothing but expensive litigation. The same thing occurred at Basic Magnesium, Incorporated, at Las Vegas, Nevada. The AFL and the corporation entered into a pre-operating closed shop agreement. ‘The workers refused to tolerate such an unfair over-riding of their rights and appealed to the National Labor Relations Board for an eleetion, which the CIO subsequently won. Today the CIO is the bargaining agent at Basic Magnesium, Incorporated. At Geneva there was no occasion whatever for a pre-construction closed shop agreement. By no stretch of the imagination could the CLO have won bargaining rights in an election in- volving building and construction crafts. In any contest in that field in this area the AFL would have won hands down. It has the available craftsmen. The CIO hasn’t. The strength of the CIO is in operational and production phases. So the AFL would have run no risk had it let the workers themselves elect their own bargaining agency. Moreover, had an. election welders undoubtedly (Continued would on been have been page 11) held, the outvot- |