The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, MAY 21, 1934. BATTLE LINES DRAWN.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19804, 21 May 1934, Page 8

The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, MAY 21, 1934. BATTLE LINES DRAWN.

Well-informed observers of the march of internal developments in the United States have been asking themselves if Capital and Labour must after all fight it out to a finish in spite of all the New Deal’s provisions and co-oper-ation ? This question stares General Hugh Johnson and his associates directly in the face. Close on the heels of those historic N.R.A. Conferences in Washington came proof that the most difficult, most dangerous problem is not that of prices or production, or wages, or hours, but of collective bargaining with the irresponsible c'onflict between the American Federation of Labour unionisation and the so-called “company unions.” In tlie highest political circles in the United States it is boldly asserted that President Roosevelt’s National Recovery Act has had the result of creating a Labour Party in America. It is certain that the trade unions have been strengthened and there have been more industrial disputes. Dr. Albert Shaw, writing in the Review of Reviews in America, says: “Organised Labour affords salaried positions to many thousands of ambitious members of their respective unions. They derive the sinews of war from dues which they collect from the rank and file of their membership. To make collections easy and certain, they endeavour to exact from employers the use of the so-called ‘check-off’ system, under which union dues are withheld from the pay envelopes of the workers and passed along by the employer to the treasury of the union. “These remarks are not made in the spirit of criticism, but rather to help the reader at this time to understand how strong, behind the scenes, during the month of August and the early part of September was the resistance offered by the heads of many industries to the efforts of the American Federation leaders—with the seeming support of certain N.R.A. officials—to force the unionised closed shop upon employers who had been accustomed to deal with their employees in a different way. “When Congress passed the Industrial Recovery law it was regarded by the country as intended principally to enable employers to put an end to unfair competition, so that more workers might be employed at living wages. In the course of its passage there somehow crept into the Bill a clause that asserted the right of so-called ‘collective bargaining as a principle of universal application.’ ” It is generally agreed that the original N.I.R.A. provision for collective bargaining started two campaigns which have resulted in several minor clashes, and may possibly precipitate one of the greatest labour wars in the history of the United States. On the one hand the American Federation of Labour has been carrying on unionisation drives, building up its membership in old and new fields, in order to make .Federation unions the obvious spokesmen of the workers of the nation. On the other hand, since the famous section 7a of the N.I.R.A. acknowledges the existence of “company unions,” merely forbidding employers to use coercion or undue influence, there is a steady campaign to form company unions to get ahead of the organisers of the Federation. Dr. Shaw suggests that many industries claim that they have outlived the conditions that once justified trade unionism and the closed shop. It is argued that employers can usually protect their own interests ; but in some cases the workers themselves may need protection from the intimidating methods of the salaried organisers who demand of them that they shall join the union, pay regular dues, and ostracise such fellowworkers as prefer to make their own agreements. These industrial aspects of the controversy between open shop and closed shop will take care of themselves. It is the political bearings of the situation that are, perhaps, too little understood by the world. Certainly no harm can come from acceptance of the American Government’s recovery plans in a patriotic and disinterested spirit, hut of course, if politics is coming into the picture any settlement is unlikely. The N.R.A. programme goes so far in its prescription of minimum wages and maximum hours that the genuine friends of wage-earners may well be content with the industrial codes, as employers have adopted them.