Strong Medicine

Just as meaningful as the Teamster ouster at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention was the appearance of Labor Secretary James P. Mitchell. He had come to Atlantic City to lay out the Eisenhower Administration's program for labor legislation in the next session of Congress. It amounted to some strong medicine for an ailing patient.

Mincing no words about labor's bad condition--emblazoned on U.S. minds as a result of the McClellan committee disclosures of union crookedness--Jim Mitchell showed that he was determined, despite his desire to keep U.S. bureaucracy out of internal union affairs, to achieve a cleanup in labor through legislation by 1) laying down rules for democratic conduct of unions and 2) requiring periodic public reports on the financial doings of unions. The laws he described to the convention would prescribe:

P: Public reports on operations of all health and welfare plans--an area often dealt with darkly (and profitably) by corrupt officials.

P: Detailed statements on the handling of union funds, with provisions for permitting union members to sue dishonest officers--halting expense-account sprees, "loans," "gifts," and just plain thievery.

P: Secret-ballot elections of union officers at least every four years--ending a prevalent fondness for perpetuity in office.

P: Public reports of funds paid to each other by employers and union officers, embracing the no man's land of conflict-of-interest dealings.

P: Prosecution on felony charges for unionmen and employers who "make or receive payments to influence the actions of either."

Mitchell's reforms will require no elaborate system of enforcement or constant federal intervention in union affairs; they simply require reports to the Labor Department on union operations. But behind the paper work there will be muscle. Mitchell proposed the creation of the post of Commissioner of Labor, with power to subpoena records and individuals, and a change in the law to give federal courts jurisdiction in cases of embezzlement of union funds, which now fall exclusively to state courts. With this kind of added strength, the Labor Department could be certain of keeping all sore spots in union business under constant attention. And, where necessary, he added, union delinquency would be met by withdrawal of union tax-exempt status, and by cutting off offenders from the life-and-death services of the National Labor Relations Board.

On the bright labor side, Mitchell promised "that this Administration will not propose and in fact will vigorously oppose any legislation designed to bust unions . . . We will not recommend a so-called national right-to-work law and we will oppose such legislation if it is proposed." Neither would he support any attempt, he said, to apply antitrust laws to unions.

Conventioneers showed a cautious approval of Mitchell's program. Summed up International Electrical Workers Union President James B. Carey: "If the delivery in Washington is as good as the delivery here today, it will be a real contribution to labor-management relations." On the whole, George Meany and his colleagues grimly had to agree that Mitchell's program was the best possible cure. Faced with the fact that labor has lost a lot of friends, he could see, too, that the temper of Congress was even hotter than Mitchell's. Rather than face possible mass surgery from a congressional butcher knife--perhaps even an outcry in Congress for a federal right-to-work law--George Meany was prepared, however reluctantly, to take Physician Mitchell's prescription.

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