Wagner Charta

No man likes to have his ox gored, least of all A. F. of L. Counsel Joseph Padway. Last February in Madison, Wis., Mr. Padway bellowed as though he himself were on the horns. The Legislature of his home State, in step with the rightward trend of U. S. politics, was considering bills to amend Wisconsin's famed, liberal State Labor Code of 1931 and its Little Wagner Act of 1937, which Joe Padway helped to draft. Having yet to emasculate Mr. Padway's State Labor Relations Act, Wisconsin's newly conservative Legislature last week made over the Labor Code, curtailed the right to strike or picket, and reopened the way for court injunctions in Labor disputes.

Joe Padway was too busy in Washington to bellow last week. He was hard at work for A. F. of L., goring the National Labor Relations Act.

Daddy on Horns. Lawyer Padway and his boss, A. F. of L. President William Green, denounce any suggestion that they are doing for the Wagner Act approximately what farm and industrial conservatives are doing to Wisconsin's labor laws. To Green, Padway & Co. the Wagner Act is pretty much all right but the National Labor Relations Board is all wrong. So saying, they last week urged Congress to rewrite the Act.

Fourteen of their amendments would all but abolish NLRB's powers of discretion, and substitute in effect a set of rules for the elastic administration provided when NLRA was passed in 1935. Another would abolish the three-man NLRB, replace it with a five-man Federal Labor Board whose membership possibly would be more to A. F. of L.'s liking.

A year ago, such avowed foes of the Act as Nebraska's Senator Edward R. Burke, Michigan's Representative Clare Hoffman, the National Association of Manufacturers could get nowhere toward amendment. Since then A. F. of L.'s leadership has plumped for change. Now Clare Hoffman approvingly quotes A. F. of L. to the considerable embarrassment of Bill Green, who strenuously opposes even more drastic alterations proposed by Hoffman, Burke, N. A. M., the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. John Lewis' C. I. O. resists any change, on the ground that once the Wagner Act is opened up for amendments, Labor's enemies may have a field day.

Why Green, Padway & Friends dare to take that risk, William Green explained when his amendments were introduced in the House last month:

"We regarded this law as the Magna Charta of Labor. We so regard it now. That is why we are so deeply disappointed by the failure of the National Labor Relations Board to administer this law satisfactorily. . . . We believe the Act, properly administered under these amendments, will promote industrial peace."

That a portion of A. F. of L.'s rank & file prefers to leave its Magna Charta alone, William Green indicated last fortnight. He thought it necessary to appeal publicly to Federation unions and members to trust their leaders, back up the amendments. Undivided support was essential to Messrs. Green & Padway, for their battle was about to come to a crisis.

Looming in their way was Utah's solemn Laborcrat Elbert D. Thomas, chairman of the Senate Education & Labor Committee. "I am opposed to revision in any way that will interfere with the proper working out of this law," Elbert Thomas had said. Convinced that A. F. of L. revision would seriously interfere, he proposed to save the Wagner Act by postponing hearings on their proposals. His excuse: since amendment is a prime issue between A. F. of L. and C. I. O., hearings should be delayed for the duration of Franklin Roosevelt's negotiations for Labor Peace. Twice he succeeded. Last week, noting that the negotiations seemed hopelessly stalled, Green & Co. compelled Chairman Thomas and his committee to set a date--April 11, soon enough to take testimony, get the amendments on the Senate floor for action.

First witness: New York's Senator Robert F. Wagner, daddy of the Act. Whether he will stand pat, publicly voice a belief that NLRB has gone astray but that the statute is as good as ever or offer some compromise amendments of his own, Bob Wagner refused to say. Last week the Administration, which generally looks to Bob Wagner for advice on Labor matters, significantly omitted the Wagner Act amendment from its list of ten "preferred" items on the Senate calendar.

Bargaining Technique. A majority (66%) of the U. S. people as polled by Gallup think the Wagner Act needs mending. Yet few of them understand why A. F. of L.'s executive council, which William Green represents, should want to have its Magna Charta and change it too. The reason A. F. of L. is so angry with NLRB Chairman J. Warren Madden and his two Smiths (Edwin Seymour, Donald Wakefield) is in the Wagner Act itself.

Avowed purpose of the Act is to see that workers who wish to bargain collectively with their employer may do so through a union of their own choosing. To accomplish this, the Act: 1) forbids employers to interfere in any way with the workers' choice, even if the interference benefits a supposedly bona fide union, and 2) gives the administrators discretion to make sure that when a group of workers wants a union, they get the one preferred by a majority.

Labor did not expect employers to like this, but soon after the Wagner Act was passed a large section of U. S. Labor discovered that it did not like this either. For Labor does not always practice the kind of collective bargaining called for.

A. F. of L.'s late, great Founder Sam Gompers and his colleagues (including Bill Green, John Lewis) long ago perfected what Mr. Green now calls the Federation's "bargaining technique." Mr. Lewis' C. I. O. is not above using it, but it is A. F. of L.'s particular pride and asset.

Under this technique a union representative on occasion may try to "organize" an employer before his workers are organized. If the employer is "sold" before his workers accept the same proposition, the resultant agreement may or may not meet the preferences of the employes concerned, therefore may violate the Wagner Act. Many a Federationist, raised in this concept of bargaining, resents any hint that it should be suspect.

A. F. of L. now proposes to insure its technique against interference by the present or any future U. S. Labor Board. Important among its ways of doing so:

> Freeze into the law mandatory recognition of "any existing craft" as a bargaining unit--whether it includes one man or 100 in a plant, whether or not a majority of the workers in the plant want craft unions. (NLRB now has discretion to determine which type of bargaining unit seems fairest, in practice has decided in favor of A. F. of L. a majority of disputes directly involving this question. But precedents for deciding otherwise exist, hence bother A. F. of L.'s craft-conscious leadership.)

> In future permit NLRB to set aside agreements only if they: 1) are with an outright company union; 2) grant a closed shop to a union which does not exclusively represent the employes covered; 3) deny a union exclusive bargaining privileges.

> Forbid NLRB to order set aside an existing contract with one union in favor of another merely because the membership has shifted unions (as has sometimes happened to the Federation's distress).

> Modify the present absolute ban against an employer's expressing his preference for a particular union, allowing speech but not overt acts or threats.

> Empower U. S. Circuit Courts of Appeal to review NLRB's findings. (NLRB frankly doubts that many judges are competent to scent the innumerable subtleties of Labor warfare, is already worried because the U. S. Supreme Court has in effect given lower courts the power proposed by A. F. of L.)

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