LABOR ON THE DEFENSIVE
Frank, John
Labor On The Defensive By JOHN FRANK Til K history of organized labor in the United States has been a fighting history, a history of battles won an I tost, but almost always a history of conflict....
...The old farmer-labor alliance has been generally broken...
...Hence, whether we like it or not, labor will continue to be on a retreating defensive until the farmer-labor alliance is reestablished...
...On a distant day...
...We can only cautiously estimate and appraise from a short past, and from the course of events as we live through thorn...
...The most serious immediate consequences of the registration and publicity provisions are that employers are thus handed on a silver platter a great deal of information about the unions which they previously could not get without using labor spies...
...In the Thomas case, as the majority of the Supreme Court interpreted the facts, the only issue was the narrow right of an individual to make a speech without first registering as a labor organizer...
...2The states may not illegally deny the freedom of ? speech, or of press to anyone...
...Labor kept on fighting from 1910-1920 with the teamsters in Chicago and the railroad workers, steel workers, and the coal miners...
...If the Board is right, this difficulty would be removed by a change in the enforcement process...
...If these tentative restrictions are upheld, the door is open to much more rigorous regulation...
...The Alabama law requires labor unions to file annual reports giving full details concerning the number of members, a statement of the assets of the union, and an accounting for all expenditures...
...The tactics of reaction have been amazingly successful...
...This defense has been moderately successful in the Congress of the United States...
...A genuine farmer-labor coalition temporarily gave labor a secure holding on the country's lawmakers...
...The Thomas case does not control the cases now before the Supreme Court...
...In 1932 Congress passed the Norris-LaC.uardia anti-injunction act, which with one stroke stopped the 40-year old practice of Federal court interference in labor disputes for the benefit of employers...
...But we who live in the midst of this century cannot yet know how the tide of battle will go...
...The Board also argues that the provision in the Alabama law which prohibits administrative, professional, or supervisory employes from joining rank and file unions is unconstitutional because only the National Board can decide who is and who is not eligible for union membership...
...Hence, the second question is whether the state laws do deny these rights...
...Congress and the state legislatures can...
...Justices Black, Douglas, Murphy, and Jackson agreed with Justice Rutledge and made up the majority of 5. Justices Roberts, Stone, Reed, and Frankfurter voted the other way...
...The years 1930-1940 were probably the best 10 years that organized labor ever had...
...Labor is now challenging the constitutionality of the restrictive state legislation and the issue should be decided by June of this year...
...In that case, R. J. Thomas, president of the United Auto Workers, was about to give a speech in Texas when a state court issued an order forbidding him to do so without first registering as a labor organizer...
...For example, the appropriations for the National Labor Relations Board have been savagely cut and such a heroic friend of...
...Which way is the current flowing now...
...Particularly in the states in which labor is still not strong and in which, therefore, it has the greatest need of sympathetic legislation, the forces of the opposition have been able to write into the statutes systematic restrictions of labor...
...The Board argues that under the Wagner Act, bargaining must be carried on whether or not such reports are filed...
...Hence the first question is whether the state laws conflict with the National Labor Relations Act...
...For the first time in the country's history its laws were with labor, and those laws helped to make the unions boom...
...Even if labor should win these particular cases, better draftsmanship in the state legislatures or Congressional action can render the temporary victory meaningless...
...The Supreme Court divided, 5 to 4, the majority holding that punishment of Mr...
...The War Labor Board has, on the whole, been at least not an enemy if it is not always a friend of labor...
...Labor was fighting for its existence in the 1890's, at Homestead and at Pullman...
...The mass-production industries were successfully organized for the first time...
...Labor has suffered a few losses at the hands of Congress...
...The right to carry on the whole business of unionism presents a different problem...
...eral Government has established legal conflicting regulations...
...Labor was fighting for its existence in the 1900's in coal and in a hundred other places...
...The Supreme Court decided a case earlier this year which has some bearing on the questions now presented...
...In the state legislatures, and in the halls of Congress, too, labor made great strides...
...No pro or anti-labor sentiment on the part of the judges can remove the basic fact that in our system of democratic government, the place to make the labor laws is in democratically elected legislatures and Congress, and not in the courts...
...Labor, for the most part, was recumbent in the 1920's, but it got up long enough to make a fight for Bob La Follette...
...The act also bars from general union membership administrative, professional, or supervisory employes...
...Fair minded judges—and men like Justices Black, Douglas, Murphy, and Rutledge are as fair as labor can possibly desire—cannot make the laws which labor needs...
...In 1935 the Nat tonal Labor Relations Act was passed and in several states Little Wagner Acts were adopted to further the right of organization...
...labor as Warren Madden, former Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, has b«en forced off the Board to the more peaceful sanctuary of the Court of Claims, where he is now judge...
...Such registration was required by the state law...
...Labor victory will not, by itself, mark a labor step forward...
...The Wage-Hour Act vvas passed providing a floor for wages and a ceiling for hours which has been a tremendous benefit for millions of workers...
...Hence, the fight before the Supreme Court is a rearguard action...
...As a matter of principle," he said, "a requirement of registration in order to make a public speech would seem generally incompatible with an exercise of the rights of free speech and free assembly...
...Thomas defied the order and gave the speech and the issue before the Supreme Court was whether, under the Constitution, he could be punished for doing so...
...It has failed almost completely in many of the state legislatures...
...The cases before the court involve the validity of laws of Alabama and of Florida...
...For almost 10 years a successful alliance was formed and existed between laborers and farmers...
...The Smith-Connally Act passed Congress and over labor's protest...
...The main majority opinion was written by Justice Rutledge, the most recent of President Roosevelt's appointees to the Supreme Court...
...But on the whole, labor's defense tactics in Congress have been at least comparatively successful...
...The result has been that since approximately 1938-1940...
...The Florida law requires organizers to be licensed by the state and requires that the organizers must have been citizens and residents of the state for 10 years prior to the date of licensing...
...The result was the crumbling of the old lewral restrictions on labor and the creation of a new set of laws which gave unionism the green light...
...The National Labor Relations Board contends that the state laws do conflict with the Wagner Act...
...Membership boomed with millions of new recruits...
...we hope that the historian of the 20th Century will be able to chronicle that history in terms of a progression toward an era of labor peace, prosperity, and security...
...He contended that a person desiring only to make a speech which was not in itself harmful could not be compelled to register...
...No matter how the Florida and Alabama cases are decided, it is clear that union labor will win at most a temporary victory...
...The Norris-LaCuarriia Act is still on the books and the National Labor Relations Act has suffered no major amendments...
...labor has for the most part been on the defensive in Congress and in the state legislatures...
...Slate legislatures quickly followed suit...
...For the most, labor is retreating and it is fighting a rearguard action against the restrictive state laws...
...From a long-range stanpoint, the consequences are more serious...
...The Board says that the provisions of the laws requiring reports do not conflict with the Wagner Act but that their method of enforcement does, since the laws prevent collective bargaining by any union which has not filed such report...
...The big industries—autos, steel, electrical works, long-shor-irur—were brought close to 100 per cent unionization in a tremendous expansion of organized labor...
...The act also contains registration provisions somewhat similar to those of the Alabama law...
...Justice Rutledge held that the state had a right to regulate labor unions, but in doing so it could not deny the right of free speech...
...Thomas under the circumstances would be unconstitutional...
...The legal issues involved come down to 2: 1States may not regulate in a field in which the Fed...
...And then came the 'ISO's with labor on the march...
...The real losses have been sustained in the state legislatures...
...The battle of labor is now passing out of the legislative halls into the judicial chambers and an important contest is about to be fought before the Supreme Court of the United States...
...They may not take away from anyone what is vaguely described by lawyers as the right to "due process of law...
...Almost at the beginning of the decade came one of the biggest legal victories of all...
...To a successful national union with a big treasury, this may no longer make a great deal of difference since the employer knows without being told in detail that the union is powerful and has money to finance a long strike if need be...
...The Board also says that the Florida 10-year provision would hamper collective bargaining in a manner not permitted by the Wagner Act...
...If these laws are held constitutional, the consequences from labor's standpoint are both immediate and long-range...
...In Wisconsin, for example, a conservative legislature abolished the Little Wagner Act passed in a Progressive administration and wrote a new restrictive labor code...
...It is a fight by labor to slow its retreat before the state legislatures as labor seeks to protect the positions which it has won...
...In the face of those state laws, the labor defense now shifts to a new forum...
...The right either of workmen or of unions under these conditions to assemble and discuss their own affairs is as fully protected by the Constitution as the right of businessmen, farmers, educators, political party members, or others to assemble and discuss their affairs and to enlist the support of others...
...Sr., in 1924...
...It will mean that for the moment, labor is holding its own...
...The argument concerning the right of free speech simmers down ultimately to the contention that the right of organization itself is the right to give a message which cannot be taken away...
...The famed La Follette civil liberties investigation laid bare the horrors of industrial espionage and of murderous anti-unionism with such clarity that the sympathy of the country was aroused...
...The last 15 years teach an important lesson...
...The Tide Begins To Turn But during the present decade, the tide has been running the other way...
...Various southern states have passed laws prohibiting the closed shop, requiring licensing of union organizers, and in various other ways, placed legal restrictions on labor activities...
...However, where a less strong union is involved, this information would enable the employer to compute fairly accurately just how long he has to hold out to beat the union...
Vol. 9 • April 1945 • No. 17
