The Kennedy Cabinet-Three Articles : Labor-Management Peace Challenge to Goldberg:
BROOKS, TOM
Labor-Management Peace Challenge to Goldberg By Tom Brooks The appointment of Arthur J. Goldberg as Secretary of Labor has given rise to talk that the White House is now wide open to the...
...he is pro-labor, but not blindly so...
...This leaves industry free to take on strikes of three and four months duration...
...Donald C. Rarick, president of a McKeesport, Pennsylvania steel local, has charged that acts of intimidation by supporters of USW President David J. McDonald have blocked his efforts to secure the nomination to run against McDonald in the union's quadrennial election next February...
...Technically, it protects the rights of candidates to union office...
...But no ipso facto case can be developed here...
...Goldberg will probably seek to develop the pattern of cooperation already established as a result of the McClellan hearings...
...Its goal, says Goldberg, would be "to restore a desperately needed sense of common purpose...
...His own work on labor legislation and his service on the Senate Select Committee on Improper Practices in the Labor or Management Field, headed by Senator John McClellan (D.-Ark...
...Unfortunately for the unions, industry can take strikes...
...But if, as seems likely, Rarick's USW supporters file complaints of undemocratic practices, Goldberg will be faced with the delicate choice of slipping through the legal loophole or moving against his old client...
...In oil in 1959 and 1960, several key strikes lasted eight and nine months...
...At least the nation can take some comfort in the fact that it also is the one that Arthur Goldberg is most eager to tackle...
...Perhaps no man in the United States, unless it is his brother Robert, knows labor's faults, weaknesses and strengths so well...
...Labor-Management Peace Challenge to Goldberg By Tom Brooks The appointment of Arthur J. Goldberg as Secretary of Labor has given rise to talk that the White House is now wide open to the influences of, and pressure from, organized labor...
...Big industry is not likely to give up the edge it has in collective bargaining for the sake of exchanging pleasantries with George Meany at the summit...
...The path of least embarrassment, however, isn't so readily at hand for the enforcement of the so-called Bill of Rights provisions of the LandrumGriffin law...
...Enough autos can be produced in a comparable period...
...Medical care for the aged under Social Security, aid to depressed areas, the $1.25 an hour minimum wage, Federal standards for unemployment compensation, the general improvement of benefits and a liberalization of the application of social welfare legislation—all these Kennedy is expected to push, and the expectations for achievement are unusually high in labor circles...
...He knows the recently passed Landrum-Griffin Act better than most, which is surely one reason why he wanted Goldberg and not someone out of labor's executive suite...
...While the council would be an advisory group, he feels it could "recommend bold and imaginative programs to encourage the nation's economic growth and health, and . . develop programs for reconciling the great benefits to be derived from automation with the great burdens in human terms that result from the impact of automation...
...He was instrumental in getting the unions to work with the committee in exposing corruption and will probably use the same approach, so far as the law permits, to Labor Department activities in this field...
...Indeed, it can be said that he thrives on them...
...Most industrial relations experts are rather sanguine about the prospects for improving the labor relations atmosphere...
...The International Union of Electrical Workers is on the run, and GE's formula for bringing this about is attracting wide attention in business circles...
...White House labor-management conferences, similar to those now held in the fields of education and Social Security, are also envisioned by Goldberg...
...The new Secretary, for example, did not have undivided AFL-CIO support for the Cabinet post...
...But the challenge he looks forward to most is in the area of collective bargaining...
...Goldberg's talents, however, are certainly up to such challenges...
...Franklin D. Roosevelt had intuitive sympathy for the plight of the unorganized worker and clearly recognized the need for unions, but even he was moved to say "a plague on both your houses" at the height of the CIO's 1937 conflict with the steel industry...
...Kennedy was an active member of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Congress, voting against the measure and for upholding President Truman's veto...
...He was strongly opposed by building trades men, who do not like the role he played in ousting the Teamsters Union and other corrupt elements from the federation...
...His name was not even on the list of "acceptable" candidates submitted to the President-elect by AFL-CIO chief George Meany, all five of whom were elected officials of AFL-CIO international unions...
...Meany, however, came around to accepting Goldberg's appointment and refused to join those who wanted it blocked...
...How to bridge that distance is the most serious challenge facing the new Secretary of Labor...
...As Attorney General, his brother Robert is expected to head the drive against Teamster boss James Hoffa...
...But the President-elect also is interested in labor reform and in continuing the clean-up of corrupt elements within unions, and it is this that gives pause in labor circles...
...It wants unilateral power to hold down the line on costs and intends to use its favorable position in order to gain that power...
...It's a long way from the labor-management aerie occupied by Meany and, say, Roger Blough of U.S...
...But there is one hitch...
...Since Rarick failed to secure the nomination, it is argued, he has no recourse under the law...
...All the steel the country needs can be produced in eight months...
...All else will undoubtedly fall to the Secretary of Labor...
...The first case to rise under his own administration may involve his former major client, the United Steelworkers...
...Tom Brooks, who regularly reports on the labor scene, is now an associate editor of Current magazine...
...These, it is hoped, will improve the present bitter collective bargaining climate and perhaps forestall a repetition of such strikes as the 1959 steel dispute...
...The balance of power has shifted in management's favor and it is taking full advantage of the situation, witness the recent General Electric settlement...
...have also been most instructive, to say the least...
...I think the GE approach is going to be emulated by many companies," the Wall Street Journal quoted a West Coast oil company official as saying not so long ago...
...And his selection as Labor Secretary is taken as an indication that the White House will support his proposal for a National Council of Labor-Management Advisors...
...The Department of Labor's new enforcement bureau has already inaugurated one case against the National Maritime Union, alleging union electoral malpractices, which Goldberg will inherit...
...If anything, the selection of Goldberg, general counsel for the United Steelworkers (USW) and special counsel for the AFL-GIO's Ethical Practices Committee, neatly underscores the ambivalent relationship that is likely to exist between the Kennedy Administration and the trade unions...
...This would be composed of representatives of labor, management and the public...
...Management is willing "to invest"—the phrase is GE's—in strikes to gain control over work practices in the new age of automation...
...There is some question as to how the Landrurn-Griffin law applies in Rarick's case...
...And this points up a very important though largely overlooked fact: The President-elect is not only a friend of labor, but the first man to enter the White House with more than passing knowledge -of the labor movement...
...Kennedy comes to the White House with labor backing, but not indebted to the unions...
...Of particular concern to me," he said when his appointment was announced, "is the promotion of labormanagement peace...
...Steel to the worker who must have 12 years seniority to retain his job at GE's Schenectady plant or 25 years seniority to go on working at the American Locomotive Company, the other major producer in that town...
...Most labor officials are not worried about the new Administration's performance in the field of social reform...
...Indeed, the handsome labor lawyer, whose ability has won wide if grudging praise from diverse quarters, has been completely accepted by Kennedy in a way that he never was accepted by most of union leadership...
Vol. 44 • January 1961 • No. 1
