CAUSES OF TROUBLE

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 43, 14 November 1941, Page 8

CAUSES OF TROUBLE

Unionism, Living Costs And

Profits NEW YORK, October 30. With five major strikes in being or threatened, the labour problem, which has been a continuous issue in tlie United States since the launching of the vast armament programme, is now coining to a head. Unless it is solved quickly, it will be impossible for the nation to carry out its expressed intention of becoming the “arsenal of the democracies.” There is no prospect of an immediate or satisfactory solution without major dictatorial legislation and its strict enforcement by the Administration. Irrespective of where the blame is to be placed, the fact remains that the present situation is intolerable, and it seems that public opinion will demand a solution which will achieve the objective of uninterrupted'war production, irrespective of possible injustices that may be inflicted on one or other of the parties involved—labour aud capital. Three Issues.

The issues in all strikes at present are unionization, increased pay, and labour’s demand to have a greater say in olacing defence contracts. The fight between the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the American Federation of Labour merely complicates these issues, although to a dangerous degree. Labour understandably sees an opportunity in the current industrial expansion to strengthen its ranks by taking in hitherto unorganized or weakly-organized, mass production industries, and Mr. John L. Lewis’s stand in the coal strike is dictated first by this consideration, and secondly by the desire to establish the C. 1.0. s supremacy over the A.F.L. The United States Steel Corporation and seven other leading steel producers’ net income for the first six months of 1941 was 128,000,000 dollars (£A40,000,000), compa red _ witii 83,000,000 dollars (£A25,937,500) for tlie corresponding period of 1940. This is indicative of the enormous increase in industrial profits, and labour naturally is anxious to obtain a share in the form of increased wages. No Price Stability.

Discussions regarding price aud wage-fixing by the Government have to date not borne fruit, and, though stabilization of the ratio between wages and prices might reduce the pressure by labour to obtain au increasingly greater return in order to meet rapidly-mounting living costs, such stabilization seems hardly likely in the near future. Finally, there have been efforts by labour to dictate the allocation of defence contracts. Great public resentment was caused'by the disclosure that the joint director of the Office of Production Management, Mr. bidney Hillman, a member of the had icfused to accept the lowest bid fur one defence housing contract under pressure by tlie A.F.L., causing au increase of 400,000 dollars (£A125,000) in the cost to the Government.