Evening Post. MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1933. ADAMANTINE OPPOSITION

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 80, 2 October 1933, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1933. ADAMANTINE OPPOSITION

For Presidentl^ Roosevelt and his National Recovery administration Saturday is described in, a New York message, ag "a day of mixed fortune, btit continuously furious activity." At.the| close-of the day he washable to. announce>that:,Tie had signed an agre«frent;>6h hours and wages which brought" jjie mines -of the - iron and steeil: companies in Western Pennsyl-;. variia under, the bituminous codej and tbat';He expected jt«.to bring sojne 7^,000; miners back to the pits.today. Onrtifw^s*^^ay General Johnsoii, his chief of staff, whose illness had been seriously embarrassing the administration, a week ago, was working desperately for the settlement of the issue, but while he did so 25,000 of the strikers carried a poll against returning to work on Monday. It seems therefore practically certain that, to the extent of-at least one-third, the President's hope of the resumption of work in the mines of Western Pennsylvania.is being disappointed today. And a disappointment in which the world is bound to share is aggravated by the grave character of the issue in dispute. It is indeed of absolutely bedrock importance. "The most revealing development" of a day on which Mr. Roosevelt hoped that he had laid the foundations of peace is described as « the opening of ;i' buttle ■o£ the first ord<jr on the organised labour movement —a, battle'that promises, to force a decision as to labour's right to organise and provide a. crucial,test of-tho National Recovery Act.A happy result or incident of the Coal Code which was^ signed on September 21 was the signing on.the same day of a labour contract by the Northern ' Coal Control Association and another group, representing between them more than 70 per cent of the soft coal tonnage of vthe country, wjth the United Mine Workers of America. But, as we are told today, the uncodified area included a number of mines owned by large steel companies where serious strikes, accompanied by violence and resulting in some loss of life, were reported .inJuly and August, and apparently have not ' yet ceased. » ' These companies, "while accepting the code"—that is to say, while accepting the rest of the code—have refused to accept the provision which would compel them lot enter into negotiations with the United Mine Workers' Union. They reject this obligation on the ground that it would be "an entering wedge towards the unionisation of the steel industry itself." The. United States Steel Corporation, which is the most powerful of these if not1 .the most powerful in the country, has issued a statement on its own account in which it declares its readiness to pay high wages and to observe the hours and conditions prescribed by the code, but "remains adamant on the unionisation issue.*' ■i In his article in the "Spectator" of August 18, entitled "Will Mr. Roosevelt Succeed?" Mr. Mauritz Hallgren, while declaring that "it is obvious that if prices are permitted free play it will be impossible to expand buying power rapidly enough to kfep up with rising price levels," mentions this great concern alone as the typical exception to the rule. A few giant companies that still have largo cash surpluses, he Avrites^-for exanvple, the United States .'Steel Corporation—can afford to keep prices down 'while increasing^ wago costs (though they probably will not do so); but the average manufacturer and merchant, who normally operatns on a slender margin of profit and today has no surplus left after four lean years, will be forced to increase the" prico. of his product when his production costs go up. Yet while the smaller businesses, many of them riot without bitter complaints, have submitted to all the handicaps imposed by the recovery scheme, the United States S,teel Corporation, to w"hich the increase of wage costs is a relatively small matter, can afford to reject the whole scheme on the unionisation issue. The coincidence is doubtless not accidental. The immense .power of this corporation makes it' the less r&ady to part with any fraction of its power to the labour organisations which it is an essential par! of the

President's scheme to recognise and encourage. "Big business" has derived an immense benefit from the suspension of the anti-trust legislation which has been provided by the National Industrial Recovery Act, and the recognition which it extends to labour was welcomed not only on its own merits but also as a sort of set-off to that provision." But the reciprocity that is all one-sided is the kind that some industrial magnates prefer. It was apropos of this Coal Code that the reply of Mr. William Green, president of the American Federation, to the critics of the labour clauses of the National Recovery Act was cabled on September 23. The Act, he said, does not prevent the closed union shop—that is, a shop which, is union, by agreement between the workers and the employers. . The Act gives the workers their ,'frccdoni to organise. Critics are dismayed because wage-earners no longer, aro under the necessity of paying tribute to a company./ . ; What the National Recovery Act actually provides is that all codes, agreements, and licences made or issued under it" shall contain provisions permitting employees •to "organise and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing" and protecting employees from being forced to join a company union or prevented from "joining, organising, or assisting" a labour union of their own choice. The application of this provision to the Steel Code was the subject of a keen controversy which was brought to a dramatic close at Washington on July 31. Mr. Robert P. Lamont, president of the Steel/Institute, argued for an "open shop" clause, which would have meant a boycott of trade union labour. General Johnson considered such a-clause to be inconsistent with;"the Act. As there was really no answer to this ruling.Mr. Lamont expressed his readiness to recommend the withdrawal of the clause. After an adjournment to allow him to consult his colleagues he returned to s,ay, "in a half audible voice,"'that the recommendation had been accepted. While this is in many ways the most .important single victory in the whole history of the American Union Labour -movement, said the "Manchester Guardian's" Washington correspondent, it is.not a complete one. The steel manufacturers are still hostile to independent organisations of their employees, and will undoubtedly do what they can to set up dummy "company unions" as a substitute for the genuine associations of their employees. Whether or not the steel companies had been able to evade the obnoxious clause in the code for the steel industry, they were apparently adamantine in their refusal to admit it to the Coal Code. '