DIFFICULT TASK.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 244, 12 September 1933, Page 7

DIFFICULT TASK.

THE RECOVERY PLAN. AMERICA’S TROUBLES. NEW YORK, Sept. _ 11. An example of the peculiar difficulties facing local boards, set up under the National Recovery Act, is the failure successfully to negotiate in a strike of 2500 bakers of fancy cakes and confections. The strike has been in progress for several months. The union leaders allege that the Specialty Bakery Owners’ Association is unwilling to co-operate under the Recovery Act. A temporary Court injunction’ forbids the strikers the right to picket, and they are threatening to take the matter to the highest Courts to clarify the legality of picketing under the N.R.A.

Such manifestations as the bakers’ strike are examples of the general confusion respecting the labour features of the National Recovery Act, which are now being threshed out at Washington with larger industries. There is noticeable a growing restiveness among many classes of workers, and similar comparatively small strikes are breaking out in other sections of the country. It is believed that a settlement of the coal code, which is now before the Administration at Washington, will effect an adjustment of differences in smaller industries, but meanwhile the strikes are causing considerable worry to the local and national administration boards. The negotiations in the coal code now appear to be reaching a crisis, with some observers predicting that President Roosevelt will eventually have to use force on recalcitrant operators. The code formulated by the Administration met with reservations by the employers of such a nature as virtually to constitute the rejection of the entire code. They still resist the “closed shop’’ provision, while it is understood that President Roosevelt is determined to adhere to the original wording of the Act and allow labour the right to organise as it sees fit.