An Angry Public

Compulsory arbitration is one device which labor and management, whatever their other disagreements, are united in opposing. But last week Labor Secretary Willard Wirtz (who also doesn't like the idea much) warned both sides that if the present labor crisis does not soon end. the U.S. public might demand compulsory-arbitration laws.

Both labor and management have been playing "brinksmanship." Wirtz told the National Academy of Arbitrators, and "neither the traditional collectivebargaining procedures nor the present labor-dispute laws are working to the public's satisfaction, at least so far as major labor controversies are concerned."

Wirtz compared the current era of labor-management crisis* with the period just after World War I. the sitdown strikes of the 1930s. and the coal-rail-steel strikes of the late 1940s. Said he: "It doesn't matter any more, really, how much the hurt has been real, or has been exaggerated. A decision has been made. And that decision is that if collective bar gaining can't produce peaceful settlements of these controversies, the public will."

* For some of the costs involved, .fee U.S. BUSINESS.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.