Wages, Prices, Profits -And Labor Management Relations
STOUT, JONATHAN
Wages, Prices, Profits — And Labor Management Relations By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. C.-The Administration's opening gambit when the national Labor-Management Conference opens here Monday...
...But the vital difference m this: t)'Dwyer is a good man with two bad party organizations behind him, dominated by Ceatelln and Man anionic New bold Morris hi a good man with no party behind him...
...For management the unacceptable status quo is government control of pi ices...
...Management's complaint is that they cannot institute a high-wage policy if Government continues to "hold-the-line" on prices...
...But, unfortunately for his good motives, the compromise he suggests is based on a status quo which itself is unacceptable to either side...
...The Landlords Lobby succeeded in' getting the subcommittee to recommend that instead of the Government's "normal" appraisal the standard to be adopted should be the "reasonable" valuation of real estate speculators...
...Women in the French Assembly • Of the 258 women who ran for office in the elections of Oct...
...from a pamphlet published by Ante Defamation League...
...Truman's outstanding characteristic in fact is the simple honesty of the common man of America...
...Formerly vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, he is the author of Labor in America, first high school textbook on the subject, and of other books, lie hss been active in the Cooperative Movement for 25 years...
...Aqainst Peacetime Conscription Now The New York Committee Against Peacetime Conscription Now believes that compulsory military service is not tha way to national security...
...15, 1!)1'2...
...We cannot go back...
...ns the Stabilization Act of 1942 which ordered Ol'A to establish and keep prices nt the level of Sept...
...No Shovinq • Wife—Just suppose we wives should go out on strike ? Husband—Go right ahead...
...The AFL, in its 58th convention in New Orleans at the same time, unanimously passed a resolution which declared: "Racial and religious discord play into the hands of the enemies of organised labor who are trying to bring about the repeal or emasculation of the liberal social legislation added to the statute books and tear down the American standard of living...
...the patience of the workers who have been waiting four years now is worn too thin...
...Goldstein is a good man with the same parties behind him which won the victory for good government 12 years ago, and maintained it ever since...
...We ran no longer risk the romantic gesture** of liberal perfectionists...
...MARK STARR FOR NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL • An Independent Citizens' Commifte* for Mark Starr for City Council has launched a campaign to elect him...
...line" policy could not possibly function fairly and equitably unless the line was held equally on wage*, prices, and profits...
...It nrges deferment of any legislation for conscription until: 1—The full terms of the peace settlements are known...
...No law of the land not even the ill-advised Prohibition Amendment -ever was so completely violated in fact, in spirit, and with full Knowledge of those charged with administering it...
...For the worker it adds up this way: He was bilked of shar-ing fairly in wartime proaperity...
...Whatever comes out of the President's 1-abor Management Conference, it wont be a new "no strike, no lockout" agreement...
...Enjoying full suffrage for the first time, women Assembly members now outnumber their sisters in the British House of Commons and in the United States Congress...
...VOTE LIBERAL By Christopher T. Emmet We sre fortunate this year to be offered the choice between three good men, men of ability, experience, personal integrity and liberal political views...
...We must create and support political parties which function in the years between elections, or we will hsve no chsnre of winning the elections when they come...
...Did that prevent l.aGuardia from giving support to the New Deal Democratic administration on national issues...
...Real Estate Sharks and Veterans KEEPING up with the Landlords tabby in Washington is getting to be quite a fall-time job...
...and the Senate subcommittee last Tuesday off fered the helpless heads of the veterans on the chopping block of the real estate profiteers...
...The local Republicans in New York supplied the Urgent single Moc of l.aGuardia votes in all his elections...
...In applying for government loans, Govemmen appraisers ignored the real estate speculators' valuations and were prepared to authorize loam based on the normal value of the property...
...Labor spokesmen importuned Roosevelt at the atari of the »ar to recognise that a 'hold Hi...
...Hut that policy never was carried out...
...But that time was at the start of the war when Roosevelt first proposed "holiling-lhe line" on « H/res and prices...
...And neither management nor labor is satisfied by the President's proposals...
...I've got • peach Of a strikebreaker In mind...
...In this effort, as in all the efforts he has made since assuming the Presidency, Truman Is honest...
...Conditions appear completely against it...
...For Tammany was beaten then only by the united effort of the best of our liberal and civic leaders, backed by the independent inters who control our elections whenever their ranks are not divided...
...Wages, Prices, Profits — And Labor Management Relations By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. C.-The Administration's opening gambit when the national Labor-Management Conference opens here Monday will be in the direction of obtaining n new no-strike, no-lockout agreement such as existed through the war...
...And he is being tossed only a bread crumb now...
...3—The relation of the discovery of atomic energy to future world security has been established, 4—The million* ef our service men and women have returned to civilian life and had ample opportunity to study all aspects of the question...
...Mark Starr, a frequent contributor to The New Leader, is educational director of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union...
...But management sees in this government incursion into the field of profit-control a principle of the highest importance to it and one on which it is prepared to make a last*-ditch light...
...The latest effort to force inflationary values of real estate made a substantial gain in the Senate this week when a subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee recommended that Government appraisals of the "normal" value of real estate be Invalidated for the purposes of veterans' loans under the GI Bill of Rights...
...The latter allegation is true in principle, even though the degree is so slight as to appear negligible...
...There was a time when such a plan as the President proposes would have been acceptable to labor...
...5—It is possible in seme measure to gauge the effectiveness ef the United Nations Organisation as an instrument of international peace and security...
...The same labor baiting forces will find group prejudice directed against Catholics, Negroes, Jews and other minorities an even more effective weapon to use...
...That nrgument never got anywhere with President Roosevelt, and the net result was that the line was held only on wages...
...Scratch an anti-Semite," said the resolution passed by the CIO at its seventh convention in Chicago, "and you will find a labor baiter...
...For labor the unacceptable status quo is the fact of government control of wages during the war...
...Their complaint with the President's proposal is that it means government control of profits...
...Wages were restrained under the strait -jacket of the "Little Steel formula," but prices continued to increase throughout Hie duration of the war...
...LABOR'S ENEMY: ANTI-SEMITISM B()TH AFL and CIO are on record against racial and religious hatred...
...The pressure of the workers' demands is too great...
...The workers no longer can be held in restraint and every labor leader knows this...
...to smash the unions in the postwar period...
...21, Metropolitan France has sent 31 to the Constituent Assembly...
...Representatives of management have been urging the compromise of government withdrawal from control of both wages and prices...
...And under the Roosevelt policy, war-profiteering zoomed to such unprecedented heights that today "Honest Man" Truman is sufficiently shocked by the result to demand that management do today what it should have been doing from the beginning of the war—ahare part of that enormous stockpile of undivided profits with the workers who created them by their patriotic efforts in increased productivity and overtime...
...2—Aa over-all plan ef national security has been form a la ted and presented to the people for thorough consideration...
...Rut that kind of compromise Is no longer good enough...
...It is fantastic to charge, as Kussell Davenport did hist night, that a local vote for Goldstein, an independent Democrat, is a vote for Dewey bee a u He Gold stein in endorsed by the Republican Party...
...The speculators promptly cried bloody murder...
...the Landlords I>obby went ino quick motion...
...Moat of the organized elements which defeated Tammany and kept it defeated are supporting Judge Goldstein...
...And, of course, m der Roosevelt there was no effort made to control profits, as was in • <•• si'nllv done in Britain mill Canada...
...The fact is that labor leaders cannot give Truman their consent to his compromise proposal...
...We cannot leave good government to brilliant individuals and the enthusiasm of volunteers at election time...
...This was underscored as an unspoken objective in the approach adopted by President Truman in his enunciation of hia wage-price policy last Tuesday...
...who are, in the main, America'a workers and are industry's most important customers...
...At the present writing, there appears no chance that such sn agreement can be obtained...
...Spokesmen for important segments of industry have been spreading the line that management is not opposed to wage increases, that, in fact, management is in favor of a high-wage policy in order to keep up the purchasing power of the American people...
...The answer in that Judge Goldstein is barked by the same groups which supported Mayor l.aGuardia when President Roosevelt himself backed I-aGuardis...
...Communists sent 16 women, Socialists 5, and the MRP 8. Throe of the women elected are professors, four are schoolteachers, and two journalists...
...This was the outstanding scandal of the Roosevelt Administration...
...Many veterans, taking advantage of the loan provisions of the CI Bill of Rights, in order to acquire farms, etc., found the real estate speculators way ahead of them and the rising prices way over their cash assets...
...The President's approach to the problem is that of the "reasonable and unbiased" man of good faith who proposes s compromise between two opposing viewpoints...
Vol. 28 • November 1945 • No. 44
