A VITAL LOOK AT LABOR
Romer, Samuel
A Vital Look At Labor LABOR TODAY AND TOMORROW, by Aaron Levenstein. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.75. Revieived by Samuel Romer FROM his vantage point as editor of the Labor Relations Reporte^r of the...
...Unless the American people decide to delegate certain economic powers to a central government and by "an economic bill of rights" withhold others, much as the nation's founders did in 1789 with political powers, he predicts the rise of the state as "the master of all...
...Levenstein has prepared an eloquent argument for his thesis...
...Labor Today and Tomorrow is more than a book lor the general reader who is interested in labor's wartime history: it is a vital book for every unionist who is concerned with his and America's future...
...Levenstein suggests that the likeliest hope is in the education of labor's rank-and-file and the maturing of its leadership...
...Discussing a subject where too often bias and wish-fulfillment have obscured facts and statistics, Mr...
...He does not propose an easy solution ; it will have to be figured out the hard way while industry is in the throes of reconversion and millions of servicemen return looking for jobs...
...BUT the author doesn't want the Wagner Act repealed ; the labor unionism of Samuel Gompers is as out-of-date as Adam Smith...
...The same power which labor sought for the government to certify unions as legal bargaining agents can be used to withdraw certification and, in effect, make the labor union dependent on governmental approval for effective existence...
...Revieived by Samuel Romer FROM his vantage point as editor of the Labor Relations Reporte^r of the Research Institute of America, Aaron Levenstein has watched the unions' futile struggle against more and more regulation...
...Labor leaders like Walter Reuther, who know that workers' wages are inextricably tied up with the community welfare, may well provide part of Mr...
...And he has written Labor Today and Tomorrow as a timely warning to labor "that the simple lines of laissez faire have been permanently erased and that new lines must be drawn...
...Levenstein's answer...
...The Wagner Act, labor's acclaimed "Magna Carta," can legally become labor's chains...
...It is" in this setting that the current General Motors strike with labor's demand that management recognize the union's interest in the community makes sense...
...rarely a page is without a footnote or a court citation which removes his statement from the arena of argument...
...It is this little realized fact which has led some AFL leaders to denounce the act and seek its nullification...
...Only the unions, he suggests, can give a coherent answer to the basic question: "Are freedom and security com-** patible ?" In Labor Today and Tomorrow, Mr...
...Over and over he makes his central point—that the unions have paid heavily in independence as a price for government protection...
...But the solution must be found if the American people will get their "bread sweetened by liberty...
...Using the Montgomery Ward labor conflict as a point of departure, he travels along every avenue of capital-labor relations—union security, wage stabilization, management's economic royalism, the wartime labor shortage...
...Levenstein has carefully kept to his role of objective observer...
Vol. 9 • December 1945 • No. 49
