MOVE IN U.S. TO STOP STRIKES

Southland Times, Issue 24603, 27 November 1941, Page 5

MOVE IN U.S. TO STOP STRIKES

BILL TO BE PREPARED COMPULSORY ARBITRATION PROVIDED (Rec. 7.20 p.m.) WASHINGTON, November 25. The House of Representatives Labour Committee directed the acting chairman of the House of Representatives Labour Committee, Mr Robert Ramspeck (Georgia) to prepare a Bill embodying the principles agreed upon at tlie White House conference. The Bill will contain the following principles: — (1) Negotiation between management and employees. (2) Conciliation by the Labour Department. (3) Mediation by a statutory board empowered to ban strikes for a reasonable period during mediation proceedings. (4) Compulsory arbitration in disputes not settled by the foregoing or if the President directs it in the interests of defence.

Mr Ramspeck explained that when a strike or other labour stoppage was threatened in a defence plant the dispute would go through the successive steps, normal collective bargaining, conciliation, 'mediation and, finally, at the President’s discretion, compulsory arbitration. Therefore, both sides were

bound in advance to accept the Arbitration Board’s decision. If the workers refused they would lose their rights under the Wagner Act, virtually depriving them of their collective bargaining rights and making their union ineffective. If an employer was recalcitrant the Government could take over his plant. RAILROAD DISPUTE President Roosevelt announced that the railroad dispute for which a strike had been called to begin on December 7 had been referred back to an emergency fact-finding board, which had been asked to report by December 1. Tlie board previously recommended compromise increases in pay which the management accepted, but the broth.erh.oods rejected. A series of conferences between management and union representatives since have been held, including several at the White House. A message from St. Louis says the Office of Production Management Labour Relations expert, Mr Joseph Keenan, asserted that the St. Louis strike of 8500 machinists was the “most important and most serious labour tieup throughout the nation.” Mr Keenan flew from Washington in an effort to settle a jurisdictional dispute which has shut down one aircraft factory, curtailed Curtiss-Wright production and paralyzed 400 other .industrial plants.