Can Labor and 'The Professors' Work Toaether?
PERLMAN, SELIG
Can Labor and 'The Professors' Work Toaether? By Selig Perlman rVihuir mf lee*.. Itafv. •* Wr*a*e»ie •fcOfJNG the five or six years when the New P peal was truly militant, this country...
...ATTORNEY General Francis Biddle is a *¦ humane man...
...But FEPC regional branches could do a great deal in places north of the Mason-Dixon line if they had the money, the personnel and the power to investigate, to conduct hearings, and to eliminate discrimination...
...represent a majority - ; - a or not, can furnish notice for a strike ballot...
...TET the Labor leader, too, has shown ssxfsus 1 blind spots* He know, the mind ef Organized Labor end, en the whole, also of the employer with whom he bargain* and engages * an occasional tug-of-war...
...These critics have not, of course, understood, or have not wished to understand, that unions need a stable, not an ephemeral membership, end that Labor • thinks of unemployment as always just around the corner...
...True, the "social efficiency" Intellectual has always been a friend of trade unionism...
...ausleis virtually every amy—through surrounding them with en a tm ess am of concern and of, cfactiia service...
...Ported into the area arid speedily upSrjJW* better-paid jobs which are denied to 5*2...
...people still living -may remember the time when a traveller could go from San Francisco all tiie way to the Russian border without having to submit himself to humiliating and degrading inspections by uniformed men...
...Inequities and displsnt as well as tosfrnfca'ls''* ***** When some Board takes ever that union function, relegating the union leader to the mere role of petitioner end eepphVeed, it has it is its power to break him sea leaser...
...fifty per cent" figure is better than 3fcW seventy per cent would be...
...Wr*a*e»ie •fcOfJNG the five or six years when the New P peal was truly militant, this country re^ra4_de»f>ite an historic intolerance in tills social reform "medicine...
...VWalter White of the National Assoeia¦** the Advancement of Colored People, "T'ggsntal vacillation on the FEPC stands J^Pe of the causes of the Detroit riots...
...bet also in hs day te day ¦lahliisfshe k adjusting grievances...
...Yet the Attorney* GeneraTs opinion would encourage a minofHy of two, siz or ten to seek an sin ugaliiml 'si !\i uajoa-msnagewent contract at any Ssoiueet esff rvo* many persons snow wnat you are xaSnSng about when.you raise the issue of contract faw versus, status lew...
...A ur.ton-managpment agreement should have the force of contract end the fabric of a free economy denends on the honoring of contracts...
...But under the Wagner Act, the Nations* Labor Relations Board has the right to designa«raollective bargaining representatives...
...The Sun principle of segregation was never endorsed by the FEPC...
...TT continually amazes me to see just how lit* tie grasp of history many liberals actually have...
...Social science, inflaming the science of economics, has not as yet reached the perfection of astronomy, especially where human behavior, such aa rushing tb spend wage income to the last penny, is teskmrned...
...White, the conviction has .^•"""d that the FEPC is being quietly jjr-ri* Negroes who were already living in jr?** i" 1941 have seen hordes of Southern >Tr...
...And de¦ tST*-* stores and restaurants have been ac"ftfl^ufd hiring Negro women in large numthe first time...
...But it does set one federal law est against another...
...la truth, no one An accurately deduce tiie width of the "inflationary gapf merely from the figures of aggregate wages f^f^WtUflfcte consume) goods a MM Finally, the "Professors...
...Yet every so often the Attorney General comes forth with a recommendation or an opinion that makes one gasp...
...AH jj™wj" the Detroit Negro community of *«ys Mr...
...In Wk two years the Negro has gotten a few yjyyThe Brooklyn Urban League complains than fifty per cent of the war plants S^by its industrial department "still sug."PSjstrbnmatory pattern of employment...
...L) fifty years ago, when Samuel' Gompers oathemixed Daniel De Leon, he was hurling as eurses against the "determinist-revoluusMry" species of the intellectual, to whom fijr was not primarily an aggregation of vsrssrs longing after security and liberty on tsur jobs, but an abstract "Proletariat" sumssesdby "History" to give their all to the ass* of the Revolution...
...and anarchy threatened to engulf the whole of Latin Europe, the distrait leadership of the times could think" of nothing better to do than to chain the peasant te his place of abode...
...Closer to the "ethical" variety than to the "determinist-revolutionary," the British Guild Socialists of the 'twenties attributed to the workingman their own rebelliousness against "wagery" as degrading to human dignity (a rebelliousness which even the British workingman hardly shared to that degree...
...The Fair Employment JP9^*s Committee was established to see to *3PP 8802 was carried out...
...It is 'entirely possible that a local branch of a reanimated FEPC would never succeed in getting to first-base in Mobile, Beaumont, Pensacola or Shreveport...
...1ETS look at some historical traditions...
...3** •neh-by-ineh advance, however, has |%'yulted in any real mitigation of a r...
...604-6—proposed that "in view of the difficulty of effectively maintaining it [the legal immunity] against legal ingenuity, the Trade Unions should forego their position of being outside the law and should claim, instead, full rights, not only of citizenship but actually of being duly authorized constituent parts of the social structure, lawfully fulfilling a recognized function in industrial organization...
...The "Experts" enforcing that Administration's policy veto wage increases which the employers are willing to grant...
...Yet this liberal, in his report on the race riots, can think of no better ameliorative recommendation than to suggest that Negro migrations he stopped...
...Furthermore, the union leader, bent ea raising wage rates so that his constituents might see the tangible fruit of his leadership, misses the effect of his achievement en tin, wpsto QSilar people, worried over the rising cost of living, and on tiie small employer watching his profit margin...
...When the Roman' Empire was breaking up...
...I am not one who thinks the Jim Crowism can be banished from Mobile, Alabama...
...every citizen should think and think hard about his duty to vote, both in the primaries and on election day...
...from one designed for Sreakzjf in dealing with the relations between litm9m\' groups into en instrument almost as tSS as the government of Britain, this •Lpf occurred when (as a defensive Stratagem Roosevelt's move for its drastic reconJJetion) the Supreme Court relinquished the SEts of states' rights and of untrammelled _SEi of contract...
...Tse "ethical" intellectual, like the Christian Socialist with +is panaceas of the "self-governing workshop" as the sole shop environment fit ior a true Christian personality, wee lees likely to rub against the grain of the tradeunion movement then the Marxian intellectual...
...I said I would be against any such law...
...THE "Professors" and "social worker crowd" of the American labor scene of 1843 are more of the stripe of the "social effideney" intellectual, of whom Sidney and Beatrice Webb are the glorified examples...
...But it IS an argument against compulsion...
...For the "experts" (the War Labor Board, OP A, et al...
...had enough...
...But recently the Alabama Drydock and Shipping Co...
...Again in 1917, in his Restoration of the Trade Union-Conditions, Sidney Webb argued that the trade unions, which had agreed to a shelving of their job-control rules for the duration, should recognize the inevitable demise of these rules at the hands of technological progress, and should consent te> hnve them commuted for a. comprehensive system of compulsory social hv ruranee...
...like all "soehw «*ciency" intellectuals end "planners" from tit* Webbs on, are likely to underestimate the greeting opposition to bureaucracy emend...
...The Hague and Tammany hoys know that if they pull anything that is too raw, the occasional voter may upset the apple cart by voting in incalculable force for the first reform candidate to be offered...
...To the Negro, the FETC is just 5?2r* ¦'ece of window dressing...
...What a boon it is for his demagogic rivals and what a threat ef a breakdown ef the union's internal structure through unauthorised strikes en ssaase...
...Biddle is a liberal...
...Otherwise there is bound to be chaos When due to faulty leedVrsnlp" the "House of Labor" had split in two, both groups for a while benefited...
...This calls, for an examination of the shortcomings of each for ah enduring common alliance...
...Under Mr...
...have been atalhnt these leaders for six- and ninenseu periods while statisticians round out thru- scientific investigations to determine whether s wege grant would be compatible etti "holding the line" against inflation...
...11 is understaffed and quite without •htft^S?*"*7 40 c"rry itB ideas into pracm*,*EPC has been utterly unable to cope with events...
...twerslry...
...e - • THE "Professors" must learn that the Labor movement is a living and evolving body, not a structure to be erected from an architect's brand-new blueprint...
...Inasmuch as the Northern Negro is not going to take things lying down, inanimation of the FEPC would be a wise political move as well as an act of elementary justice...
...in a day...
...Already in the early years of the present century, in the discussion as' to what was to be done to counteract the Taff Vale Decision (which had, robbed the unions of their legal immunity under the Act of 1871), the Webbs— they expressed it modestly and anonymously in their History of Trade Unionism, 1920, pp...
...A whole feudal cede...
...psychosis among Negro job-hunt5% *"» Negro stiU expects to be turned ¦"gMfla matter where he goes...
...Terminal, we may be sure that the new feudalism, the new social system of states, is' here...
...When Negroes aye promised s new desl in industrial relations only to be bilked within a couple of 'years, the effect is much worse than it would have' been if no promises whatsoever hsd been made...
...Years ago, when he was a young man, he wrote a novel, "The Llanlear Pattern," which expressed his disgust with the sentiments of the more reactionary dwellers among the Main Line set of his...
...Tb* revolt by the German trade unions in Mf against the Social Democratic Party's isscness to adopt, under the prodding by Rosa Lsxsnwurg, the Russian use of the mass strike (tits its sttending danger to the trade unions hen government reprisals), was another such Mfdsg against the "determinist-revolutionary" unite I mil This revolt resulted in the soaW Mannheim Agreement giving the trade asm a veto power over "new weapons" by fAjMal Democratic Party...
...But it must be clear that unity could have avoided greater crises...
...Under Executive Order 8802 discrimiJto# against Negroes in war industry employ*M wu outlawed...
...the code of status, grew up on the presumed right of an overlord to immobilize she individuals who offered themselves to him for protection...
...The Labor leaders oatrsy against into War Labor Board and the ftsgfadv ups in the Administration is only one of a kmc end a voice in a swelling national chorus...
...Shades of the Middle Ages, and ef all the Czars of all the Ruasias...
...The shotRfgf ¦»* of Executive Order 8*02 has *** dissipated by the events ef the past ™****s...
...It » not alone in the dramatic union pats itaeii ever wita u»e messeersnip...
...Unions would have become nothing else but Civil Servants' Associations for Private Industry...
...This is being done in bland disregard of (esse hewers* precarious position on the I* of the cauldron of rank-and-file discontent...
...Bat until w.ha^4t«sMsfc fixed m our minds that contract lew ie ikfWmof freedom and status law is the way of akeehesr we won't be able to deal with so-called "Tfleldflr ^'^L^J^^^^^'^^P gad Aanctoen Civil War...
...Add to that the WPA wages aad wafindustry wages—both Influenced tm-^smism pressure—lif ting the wages of farm labor and of small-town plant labor...
...of Mobile set aside four ways for the construction of ship hulls by Negro workers, and the FEPC, feeling itself powerless to prevent the war-time creation of Jim Crow yards in Alabama, acquiesced in the arrangement...
...In the, scheme of things of the social administrator or social engineer, unionism is a "pwofie unionism...
...The Negro's place of abode shall be fixed...
...It took hundreds of years, hundred* of ware, hendieda of inventions, pies a few assortod revolutions and the discovery of ah entire hew hemishpere, to break down the fabric of feudal society...
...The other day a prominent New Deal supporter came to me and asked, "What would you think of a law snaking it...
...The "bold the line" policy on wages, for instance, should be administered not with dogmatism that poses as infallible science but with an intelligent flexibility...
...These outcries, however, are merely l latter-day manifestation in ultra-pungent American surroundings of the historical tat more universal absence of eye-to-eye teilook between Intellectuals and Labor...
...ij# y«srs have gone by since the issuance ¦JW order and the creation of the FEPC...
...The Attorney General's opinion on the SmithConnally Act is not as vicious as his suggestion that the Negro hs immobilized...
...compulsory for a citizen to vote at every election...
...But to the Negro it promised for a time to ?fWjU» P'*ce beside the Emancipation Proclahgn...
...Inasmuch as only 60,000 of |?W,000 recent in-migrants...
...Yet an American liberal, sitting in his capacity of legal adviser to the President, can lightly suggest that the fruits of the CromwelHan, the American and tiie French revolutions be tossed away over night...
...If Tweedledum is opposing Tweedledee^ why should Citizen X be forced to choose between them* As Professor Pendleton Herring has said, the existence of e ms'mlii i ef voters who express their disgust at times by remaining away from the nolle in droves has a salutary effect on machine politicians...
...In Chester, Pa., the Sun Shipbuilding Co...
...worst of all...
...to the Detroit JJ^"* Negro, Attorney General Biddle's sugtsT/"Jh*t the movement of Negroes to demTS^V' 08 halted has only served to deepen ^qrtXJ,m ro tne co|ore<j community everybitst...
...The "Professors'' on the National Labor Relations Board in December, 1937, when re-union was blocked by or* labor leader alone (and he did so because he was certain that he stood to get NLRB aid against those who had stayed in the "House of Labor"), should have quickly disabused him of that notion, thus bringing pressure upon him and upon the others concerned- to re-establish: labor unity...
...1 Surely "social planning" has not too wssenr friettds in the America of 1941 to anWcslb luxury of throwing lnhor back to the Perth** Declaration against bureaucracy.* oy the ceoveution of the American Federation el iaher in IMS...
...WssMbSja intent of the draftsmen of the Smith-CospnfBy Act to permit en interim attempt et eesaaa^j| union members from the terms of a oollmrti-ve bargaining agreement made between an accreflited union end aa employer...
...In the early thirties, when-labor bed been quiescent and big business in undisputed essitrol, the "anti-Monopoly" mind- bed eheese Wall Street for its bite noire...
...aB ehapUB of the eMnsssmky...
...In the concrete administration of any governmental policy, however crucial, it is only proper that the shock from frustrated expectations should not be made to be borne by one group alone—the Labor leadership loyal to the Adn-.^n»Mxa:ion...
...Bat thesi particular "professors" imagined Jehovah had Sixth Day of Creation—to shapf 'the American labor movement fa the proper image..'- .. e,_^_ t sxt» enrafw fan mrae* __ —• le\e>mTSmf1 tanal imWaaT*i ¦"sre ¦ ivi s> sesmeS—nxv^ sesn jr W- imw%.um^m weej snmi ez a^ r nation te recognize that a union must "resell" itself to He...
...Yet their slogans of "workers' control" and of "ever encroaching control" did not hamper in the least the trade unionist's quest for "Job control...
...His report oh the Detroit race riots, which traced the unrest to deplorable housing conditions, lack of transportation, and wholly inadequate recreational facilities, was a first-rate piece of analysis...
...By JOHN CHAMBERLAIN JO the casual newspaper reader, "Executive .Jfrtsr 8802" means nothing...
...This was in marked contrast wits Sir Walter Citrine's program of confining vsr-ume reform to abolish the injustices and issmelities ef opportunity, which were made •Mhw by the dispersal of the evacuated slumtveflsn through the English countryside...
...The herd en placed thereby seen the union lender becomes well-nigh insupportable...
...Hisjr dues and startling initiation fees in some unions nave furnished the enemies ef unionism with telling anti-Monopoly ammunition...
...for there have been times when I Could properly express my opinion in no other'way than by ostentatious abstention from the polls...
...i After the Riots — What Are the Liberals Doing for Negro Rights...
...the Teamsters' Union's reaching out to unionize the inside employ at ¦ of e farmers' ewoperetive cresineiy—with all tins, the asirlnfa^lflst.- tfK action becomes a veritable mine, set to exptajs under MM labor movement And this is wholly independent of whether or not the economic or statistical expert has succeeded in infecting the public with his own fear Of a runaway inflation Will the "Professors" end the "Social Worker Crowd" he able to divest themselves Of tile mantle of scientific infallibility and begin to view with genuine sympathy the Labor leaders' difficulties in "selling" the national policy to their memberships ? , ,: Will tiie Labor leaders find a way to abeMh the shock of rank-and-file indigation at belrtg heW beck for the duration in the interest of a more orderly economy as well as of a maXinsdA salvaging of the achievements of the New Deal 1 That is the central problem...
...I am not enough of a legal scholar to, know just, bow many constitutional clauses or amendments the Attorney General's proposal would violate...
...approach, can the "Professors" and Labor work together...
...Their "homegrown" job-control ru}es (ef obligatory apprenticeship, of anti-dilution and of union demarcation or "jurisdiction" in American terminology) would have been cut down t* the pattern of the Webbien "common rule" (e-g, the standard rate for the degree of skill required by the new process, the standard working conditions, and with the employer's full freedom to hire from any stratum of skill...
...But I do believe that when promises are made there should be at least s fullhearted attempt to live up to them...
...Bet when an American citizen has te carry a card certifying hie right to line up in front ef the ticket booth in Washington's Union Station or New York's Grand Centra...
...But to him the unions' supreme reason d'etre in our state of "advanced social thinking" is to fit themselves willingly into his own "planned economy" and to jettison, without'remorse'or regret, any pert that the moid will refuse to admit...
...The union leader, any, has pieced his stakes with the Administration...
...Nevertheless, the Employers Association of Chicago has been quick to leap .to the conclusion that segregation of Negro workers from white employees is "not necessarily a violation of the anti-discrimination Executive Order 8802 so long as the FEPC recently approved such a solution of a racial controversy at the yards of the Alabama Drydock and Shipping Co...
...With it 2Ts radical reconstruction of the mechanism Tj^rernment...
...Under American conditions especially,' without class-consciousness to hold' unions beck from injuring one another in their mutual rivalry for members, the Labor'movement must be a single body, controlling: and allotting "jurisdictions...
...With such a divergence.o...
...More reeentiy, however, with the gigantic advances of the labor movement, the "anti - Monopoly" ntind he* been seeing in trade-unionism the same menacing gigantism of economic power as the earner massing of the power of capital...
...has a segregated yard for Negro workers...
...But certainly it is discrimination against 12,00© 000 American citizens because of color and previous condition of servitude...
...Simultaneously the New nasi helped to exPand 10 commanding size the ^fciel "job governments" of the labor jytpresent, however, with smashing reaction v path radical changes only temporarily held S by the War crisis, it is imperative to surge the Fighting Front of Progressivism—es-yUtrf in the critical area of organised Labor BBSs New Deal intelligentsia—functioning M^sssly as "White House Janissaries," as eaehtrs of government administrative boards, mum specialized experts, iyehe eatery by American trade-union %?mw$ in IMS is against the "professors" Wm is "social worker crowd" on the Qrrernment boards...
...Biddle's ruling, any" group of employes in •ggLyfJNfc *******-the...
...H has the newer also to hamstring a union through a combination of remote control and of delayed decision...
...Even the Christian Socialist's violent brother, the Anarchist, with his terrorism against the privileged classes, evoked lest hostility than the "determinist-revolutionary" intellectual in the Anglo-Saxon lands...
...He does, not however, know the middle classes the fiiwWM,eV» white-c&llsr group, the struggling retailer Thus he rarely encounters nt first hand'the deeply-rooted American philosophy of "entilyooopoly...
...9ft jrssterdsy and in shallower Marxian •shrt, Harold J. Laski insisted that British labor must utilize the war situation to force^ As socialization of industry upon an uncounted country...
...In such s radically revised set-up us Webb had contemplated...
...This is net an argument against political activity...
...native Philadelphia...
...Other people may circulate through the forty- - eight states of the union, seeking to employ their talents as best they may, but if a man's skin is black, brown or cafijteu-lait hw^ mall not be allowed to buy a railroad ticket to get out of Mississippi or Alabama...
...Father Haas, Chairman of the FEPC, has argued that acquiescence doesn't imply approval...
...A world in which individuals have to have passports to cross • imaginery lines is...
Vol. 26 • September 1943 • No. 36
