BUILDING DEMOCRACY'S ARSENAL

1938-41

During the early thirties the Nation had experienced drought, dust storms, and severe unemployment.

"I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished," said President Roosevelt.

In the field of labor-management relations, new and momentous developments occurred. John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers, led a revolt against the American Federation of Labor in his determination to organize industrial workers under section 7(a) of the National Recovery Act. By 1937 the Congress of Industrial Organizations formed by Lewis and seven other union presidents had enlisted 3,718,000 members and was making most of the Nation's labor news. The AFL, too, began to move out in an aggressive organizing campaign.

In 1937 the "sit-down strike" was a shortlived phenomenon of the automobile industry. On Memorial Day, 1937, Chicago police charged CIO pickets at the Republic Steel plant near the Windy City, and 10 workers were killed.

In spite of these occurrences, the Nation was moving steadily down the road to recovery.

Expressing the widely accepted belief that the Nation was by that time fairly well out of the depression, Secretary of Labor Perkins in her report stated these as her objectives: High wages on a national basis, continuity of income, stability of employment, reasonable profits, opportunity for investment of savings in expanded industries and in new industries, and the "conservation and adequate utilization of natural resources, including human life and happiness." (1938:6-7)

Her main concern at that time was the recent cleavage in the ranks of organized labor between the American Federation of Labor and the newly created Congress of Industrial Organizations. Her chief source of satisfaction was the enactment of a Federal wage-hour law.

War preparations in Europe had not yet directly involved the United States, but the country was busily engaged in the production of goods for use abroad.

Two years later, in July 1940, the Nation was engaged in a tremendous program of national defense, in preparation against possible attack. The

Secretary's problem had changed, but she examined it still through the perspective of the purposes defined in the organic act of the Department:

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... Now we are embarking on a great program in the interest of national defense. This program, upon which the American people are determined for the safety of America, finds the Department of Labor better equipped and better informed than ever before to meet the needs of wage earners, their troubles, and their problems.

"In such a situation the Department must be administered in fairness between worker and employer, between employer and employee, and between each and the public as a whole if it is to accomplish its purpose as defined by the Congress. It is recognized that only by doing so in harmony with the welfare of all workers and with legitimate business can the best interests of the country be served." (1940: 1)

Conciliation, Unions, and Industrial Relations

In her comments on the work of the Conciliation Service, the Secretary was quick to note that industrial relations were showing improvement over the years. Causing her most concern during this period was the conflict between union and union-the internecine conflict in the ranks of organized labor that had led to the separate organization of the CIO. The two aspects of the labor-relations situation are discussed here separately.

"Industrial relations," wrote the Secretary, "are being put on a more and more stable and practical basis. There are probably in existence today more voluntary contracts between employers and their workers than at any time in the history of our country. About 75 percent of these contracts have been arrived at without stoppage of work.

...

"Eighty-five percent of all the agreements negotiated by this Department carry a clause to provide for the adjustment of any dispute during life of contract by some agreed method without stoppage of work. Forty-five percent of them provide for arbitration through the Department of Labor. The Conciliation Service of the Department is called upon by employers as well as workers and the procedure is so informal as to make it helpful in a wide variety of problems. . . ." (1938:5)

"Labor now has a certain security against unfair interference and coercion by employers and has in turn a desire to develop responsibility for informed participation with employers and the country generally to achieve and stabilize an expanding national prosperity. Labor unions can build up self-disciplined, self-educated organizations for this purpose. It is a part of a labor union's job to develop a broad understanding on the part of all workers of the problems and pattern of the industry. . . ." (1938: 7)

Partly because of the work of the Conciliation Service, labor-management relations in the United States were at this time in a far more advanced and sophisticated stage than they had been 20 years earlier. As the Director of the Service commented:

"Years ago a labor dispute was mainly a local matter. Due to the close

relationship between labor and industry and in part to the recent increase of Federal and State regulatory statutes, we are finding the plant in a small town no longer isolated and operating on a purely local basis. Today labor and management are familiar with labor conditions in other plants and in other areas. Our Commissioners, therefore, properly to handle a situation, whether in a small town or in a larger industrial center, find that facts are essential. In other words, in addition to drawing upon his experience in the field of industrial relations, a Commissioner of Conciliation must be fully cognizant of competitive conditions in the industry. In order to take full advantage of this changing trend we are endeavoring. . . to supply each Commissioner with factual data and material that will be helpful to him.

"In reviewing our work we find that the working conditions, wages, and hours of employees are more and more being embodied in written agreements. The details of these agreements are increasingly more clearly defined. Whereas formerly a typical collective agreement consisted of but a few sections, today it contains some 20 major clauses defining precisely the relationship between labor and management and the obligations each owes the other." (1938: 11)

Other institutions were also contributing to this improvement:

"The improvement in industrial relations is due to the increasing skill

and intelligence with which both employers and labor groups are conducting their negotiations and approaches to one another. The existence throughout the country of branches of the National Labor Relations Board has contributed in many instances to a stabilization of these situations, and the work of mediation carried on not only by the Federal Government but by an increasing number of state officials and city officials with understanding of the labor problem and with patience is contributing also.

"In spite of much exasperation, which has sometimes been vigorously expressed, it constantly becomes clearer that the men and women, both on the labor side and on the employer side, are becoming self-disciplined and selfeducated with regard to the problem of orderly industrial relations. (1939: 7)

The emphasis in collective bargaining was also changing: "[The evidence draws] attention to one of the most promising trends of the past few years-a trend which the Service has striven unremittingly to encourage. This is the marked shift from the former emphasis on mediation as a remedy to the new, growing, and more practical concept of preventive conciliation as a positive instrument of industrial peace.' " (1940: 18)

Disagreement in the ranks of labor on a major question of organization distressed Secretary Perkins and was something which she hoped would soon be resolved. She noted in her report:

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...

. The most difficult and troublesome disputes in the past year have been those that involved both A.F. of L. and C.I.O. unions in introducing their standing differences into a dispute. In cases of this sort the employer is placed in a most unjustifiable position, and the good-will of the public toward labor is impaired.

"If the two groups cannot presently make a general peace between them they will at least have to make a truce with regard to precipitating and aggravating disputes among themselves when sound relations to an employer is [sic] imperiled. There is overwhelming evidence that the vast majority of union members of both factions want peace and desire to cooperate with each other. . . . When this behavior in the field is so well established, peace between the officers and at the top cannot be far behind." (1938:5)

Two years later, the problem seemed no nearer resolution, though the Secretary was still hopeful:

"The fiscal year saw the divided labor movement no closer to unity or a real settlement of differences. Informal conversations, aimed at peace and initiated by the Secretary of Labor in 1938, were followed by an invitation . . . from the President for both groups to name a joint negotiating committee. . . . A number of meetings were held [but without positive result].

"However, this year has been marked by an increased inclination on the part of the unions in both groups throughout the country to cooperate on noncontroversial matters and to reduce jurisdictional disputes among them. This