AMERICAN STRIKE FASHIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 22618, 9 April 1937, Page 8

AMERICAN STRIKE FASHIONS.

It is in a time of increasing national prosperity that the weaknesses inherent in the American labour legislation are becoming apparent. The industrial experiences of the United States during the last few months indicate that the workers are so bent upon sharing the improving fortune of their employers that, in the absence of a nation-wide provision enabling both sides to put their arguments before a conciliation or an arbitration body, recourse has been had to methods that are more novel, and, in some cases more spectacular, than legal. The sit-down strike is a new and menacing development in the social welfare of a country which has neither created a national mediation service nor seriously attempted to establish an official Labour political party. When, America may well ask, will the sit-down epidemic cease? After all, it is only a form of trespass. If there is still any ownership of private property in the States the strikers have no legal or moral right to occupy premises that do not belong to them. It is doubtless the official reaction to this form of industrial unrest that has, on recent occasions, led to the semi-military methods adopted by the police in the attempts to dislodge “ sit-downers.” In the course of time this strike system is certain to be abandoned. The Canadian Government intends to use its full powers to prevent snch strikes from getting a foothold in the dominion across the border, and it is reasonable to expect that the air of disapproval adopted by Mr William Green (president of the American Federation of Labour) will go a fair way towards effecting a cure in the United States. The lengths, absurd rather than humorous, to which copyists of the sitdown example go were reflected some weeks ago in a Coptic monastery in Egypt, where the action of a group of most unmohklike monks nearly resulted in a siege in the breaking of which blood conceivably would have been spilt. A more recent instance of the repellent ramifications creeping into strikes of the kind was furnished yesterday in a cablegram which drew a picture of grave-diggers playing cards and quoits in a New Jersey cemetery when they should have been co-operat-ing in funeral arrangements. There are, of course, lighter manifestations of the epidemic. For example, one ardent swain chained himself to a radiator till the object of his affections had replied in the affirmative to an important matrimonial question. Some school children have seized the new weapon eagerly as a means of protest against such noxious ordeals as examinations. It is intriguing to note, however, that in a few cases “ the worm is turning.” One American employer staged a sit-down strike himself against his own striking workers; while they occupied the plant he made himself comfortable in the office. He declared, with every right, that he owned the business and sold the product, and that he would not step out of his office to secure another order until his workpeople desisted. Altogether, it would seem that the position is farcical. It is unlikely that America will be relieved of her incubus until a constitutional method of settling industrial disputes—a method more in keeping with her reputation for: progressive development—has been devised.