LABOUR IN AMERICA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24773, 25 November 1941, Page 6

LABOUR IN AMERICA

The persistent epidemic of strikes which has been sweeping the United States has two unfortunate effects of international concern. Every strike causes a hold-up in one or more of the industries which are working to arm America and to produce material aid for Great Britain and the democracies, including China. And reports of large scale labour unrest in the country which is pledged to serve as the arsenal of these democracies will certainly be seized upon by the Axis propagandists as indicative of opposition by the American workers to measures on the part of the Administration of the United States

to encompass the defeat of Hitlerism. In actual fact, American Labour is strongly behind President Roosevelt in his foreign policy. The American Federation of Labour has long placed itself on record as the supporter of all measures which may be taken to combat the march of Nazi-ism in Europe. Only last week, while the strike in the Appalachian colliery area was in its most critical stage, the Congress of Industrial Organisation, which was responsible for calling out the miners, passed unanimously,, and, we are told, amid intense enthusiasm, a resolution endorsing Mr Roosevelt's policy of " all-out" aid for Great Britain, Russia and China. Industrial unrest in the United States is related to the American defence programme only in the sense that the huge expansion in all the heavy industries to meet orders for the manufacture of war material has provided the unions with favourable circumstances for bringing pressure on the employers. This opportunistic attitude can have little to commend it. It suggests that the reality of the crisis as it threatens the very security of the United States is not fully realised by Labour in that country. On the other hand, it would be erroneous to interpret it as an expression of deliberate disloyalty on the part oi the workers. American labour is not organised to a stage comparable with that in New Zealand or, for that matter, in Great Britain. The real point at issue in the Appalachian strike is that of the "closed shop," acceptance of which by the colliery owners would debar them from employing labour outside Mr John L. Lewis's powerful United Mine Workers' organisation. The principle of the " closed shop" appears to be the real bone of contention in most of the major strikes which have been disrupting American industry, but in the case of the strikes that are threatened in the steel and transport industries the demands for- higher wages supply the issue that is in controversy. There seems now to be every prospect that work will be resumed in the Appalachian area without a final settlement of the union's demands, which will be submitted to arbitration on Mr Roosevelt's prompting. There are, however, indications that the end of the period of industrial labour trouble is not in sight. The terms of a Bill introduced by Senator Connolly which would "freeze" working conditions in industry for "the duration of the emergency," and empower the Government to take over and operate plants engaged in defence production which might be closed by strikes, seem likely to exacerbate the militant unions while their present mood lasts. It is possible that public opinion might assist Mr Roosevelt in controlling the trouble-making elements in American labour in cases in which the appeal to patriotism is disre-, garded when it cuts across unionist opportunism. The spectacle of labour hopelessly divided and stubbornly embattled at a time when the future of freedom in the world hangs in the balance is certainly distressing, and even tragic. It represents, perhaps, but one aspect of the difficulty that has confronted the Administration—the difficulty of convincing the American people that, in the war against Hitlerism, it is-not sufficient to take democracy's side and at the same time evade actual and material sacrifice.