FROZEN FORMULAS IMPAIR THE WAR EFFORT

Follette, Sen. Robert M. La Jr.

Frozen Formulas Impair The War Effort By SEN. ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE, Jr. ECONOMIC STABILIZATION has become a fetish with the powers-that-be in our national administration. They have become so...

...I don't like Washington today," Murray declared...
...Yet the current administration of the economic stabilization program, by its rigid insistence upon the sanctity of the Little Steel formula and the other technical concepts of the various executive orders on the subject, discards completely any such consideration...
...Drive Gains Momentum ABELATED OFFER by Economic Stabilization Director Fred M. Vinson of a four to 10 cents-an-hour increase for non-operating employes was rejected this week by B. M. Jewell, chairman of the rail employes wage conference committee, as "entirely unsatisfactory" and by George M. Harrison, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Clerks, as "unacceptable...
...It is the Exhibit No...
...well as the justice of a rigid "freeze".program to accomplish this end...
...1 of the basic unfairness of the way in which the stabilization program has been administered up to the present time...
...In some manufacturing industries the wage rates increased over three times as much as on the railroads...
...Meanwhile, labor's attack on the Little Steel formula gained new momentum...
...question the feasibility as...
...They have done all this because they have faith in the ultimate justice of the processes of the Railway Labor Act which has covered collective bargaining between management and labor en the railroads since 1926...
...Any other course will result in major strikes and a serious interruption of essential war and civilian production...
...This great record of achievement gives those men a right to demand that they be dealt with fairly in return...
...A Great Record These facts have a significance beyond the question of justice for the railroad worker...
...Exhibit No...
...Compare this with a minimum wage of 78 cents an hour in the steel industry for unskilled common labor...
...Increases Warranted An analysis of the statistical data presented to the Emergency Board in the voluminous record taken of the hearings shows why the Board came to the conclusion that wage increases were warranted, both to correct "gross inequities" and to "aid in the effective prosecution of the war...
...Murray, whose reelection as CIO president was unanimous, denounced the failure of Congress and the Administration to keep the cost of living in check...
...They have observed all the rules that the most punctilious critic of labor dares prescribe...
...1 This tendency has been apparent in the treatment accorded the great mass of farmers on the subject of farm commodity prices, the treatment of small business caught in the jaws of federal bureaucracy, and more recently in the treatment of labor in the consideration of legitimate complaints over wage inequalities...
...Railway employes are working on a 48-hour week at straight time rates as compared with a 40-hour week in other industries...
...The credit goes to both management and labor, but in the last analysis it is the competence, the loyalty, and the patriotic willingness to give that extra full measure of performance on the part of the men in overalls that have made these achievements possible...
...They also have an important bearing upon the ability of the railroads to keep their employes from going into more remunerative industries...
...They have calmly and laboriously assembled and presented a great mass of expert, technical data to support the justness of their claims...
...To sidestep their legitimate requests and plead the technicalities of iron-clad formulas and hold-the-line orders, threatens to demoralize one of the most vital industries this country has in an hour of extreme need...
...The CIO Steel Workers Union voted to demand the reopening of wage contracts with the avowed purpose of smashing the formula...
...Everyone familiar with the transportation problem concedes that they have done the job and done it well...
...The men and women who have thus proved themselves patient, fair, and reasonable even through the desperately trying times of the early 1930's are entitled to sympathetic understanding at the hands of the public in this current controversy...
...A Strong Case' In the case of the non-operating employes, the Emergency Board recommended an increase of eight cents an hour all along the line to every employe affected...
...Some of this increase was due to a wage increase in December 1941, and part was due to longer hours of work...
...Over a million railroad employes represented by the 15 non-operating railway labor organizations, the clerks, the telegraphers, the shop mechanics, the main-tenance-of-way men, and the others, have been waiting for more than a year for action on their wage demands...
...The prosecution of the war depends to a great extent upon maintaining the peak efficiency of our transportation system...
...Read the conclusion of the Emergency Board in this second case...
...They have been patient...
...He asserted he was "in no mood to deliver the CIO lock, stock, and barrel to any man or.party in the world...
...The story on the operating employes is much the same...
...The operating employes have been waiting since last January...
...Considering only the basic hourly wage rate, the increase for all manufacturing industries from December 1940 to December 1942 was practically double the 10-cent increase granted the non-operating railroad employes during that period...
...The railway brotherhoods represent the finest type of organized labor...
...It is to be hoped that through them the public can be brought to see the need for readjusting the stabilization technique employed at Washington...
...The railroads are being called upon to do almost superhuman feats in getting the men and supplies of victory across the country...
...Philip Murray, who was reelected president of the CIO last week, said similar moves would be taken by all other CIO unions...
...It has always been good American doctrine that when an individual, or a group of individuals, has a fair and legitimate claim or complaint, he is entitled to a fair hearing and appropriate redress...
...They have become so obsessed with the idea of freezing the economic status quo and holding the line against inflation, that they have completely lost sight of the old-fashioned but still important con-siderations of simple justice and American fair play...
...But the increase in weekly earnings of factory workers over the same period averaged over 40 per cent...
...No one denies the dangers of inflation...
...Instead of trying to freeze the economic status quo for the duration of the war, the federal government ought to use the controls it has over wages and prices to achieve a fairer balance between them and correct such gross injustices when they arise...
...it is the opinion of the Emergency Board that the employes involved in this dispute have made out a strong case for a wage increase to correct gross inequities and to aid in the effective prosecution of the war...
...They have been reasonable...
...Under these circumstances the Board admitted it could not do justice to these railroad employes on the merits of their case in view of the terms laid down by the Director of Economic Stabilization...
...It stated, "On the basis of the entire record...
...In the case of the operating employes the Emergency Board made its recommendation after the Director of Economic Stabilization had torpedoed the eight-cent increase recommended for the non-operating employes...
...They have stayed on the job...
...In view, however, of the order of the Economic Stabilization Director of June 22, 1943, and his memorandum opinion of June 30, 1943, in the nonoperating case, this Board is compelled to conclude that . . . the operating employes may be granted such increase only as may be justified under the Little Steel formula...
...The prevailing minimum wage on the railroads is 46 cents an hour...
...For 20 years they have kept the railroads operating without any significant work stoppage...
...Coastal transportation by water has been seriously curtailed, and the railroads have had to take on the added burden diverted from that and other normally competing forms of transportation...
...There is no excuse for the way in which the railway wage question has been kicked around in the last six months...
...The average wage of the non-operating railroad employes is 73.8 cents an hour, including skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled classifications...
...This statement followed logically the action of the CIO convention in Philadelphia last week when a resolution demanding abolition of the Little Steel formula was adopted...
...But the Director of Economic Stabilization stepped in and vetoed it on the grounds that it violated the letter of the various requirements of the "hold-the-line" policy, and the Little Steel formula in particular...
...They negotiated with the management, they secured the mediation of the National Mediation Board, they considered arbitration, and finally, in accordance with the requirements of the Act, they submitted their cases to impartial emergency boards appointed by the President...
...But there are many who...
...The administrative organizations are throttling every labor organization in America...
...No one disputes the need for a stabilization program to avert serious inflation...
...As the Emergency Board reported to the President, "The profound significance of this record can best be appreciated when it is contrasted with the work stoppages in the non-railroad field that have marred the defense and war effort of the past three years...
...From January 1941 to October 1942 the monthly earnings of train and engine and yard service workers increased 22.7 per cent...

Vol. 7 • November 1943 • No. 46


 
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