For the A. F. of L.

Last week the champions of the A. F. of L. debouched in the U. S. Senate to quell the bitter opposition of industry to the Wagner Labor Bill. They were prepared for a desperate struggle. Instead, their opponents barely emerged from the cloak rooms. There was a short debate and then it was all over, the Wagner Labor Bill had passed, 63-to-12, sped on to the House for action. Industry and the A. F. of L. were left blinking in astonishment. What did the Senate's act portend?

A, F. of L. Two years ago, when the Recovery Act containing Section 7a was passed, A. F. of L. men thought they had won a mighty victory. They had at the time 2,000,000 A. F. of L. members out of a total of some 24,000,000 employed in industry. They had visions of organizing the whole 24,000,000 now that the collective bargaining clause made interference with their organizing illegal. And they were desperately disappointed, for instead of gaining they lost ground. Many industries, distrustful of the A. F. of L., encouraged their employes to form company unions. The A. F. of L., with the aid of the National Labor Relations Board, was unable to crash the steel industry when Weirton Steel worsted them in court, failed to crash the automobile industry when Franklin Roosevelt negotiated a settlement of the threatened automobile strike on the basis of proportional union representation.* After 21 months of Section ya, the A. F. of L. had actually lost ground: it claimed some 3,500,000 members of the 28,000,000 men employed in industry, a gross gain, but whereas it had previously been the dominant unit of organized labor, now company and independent unions overshadowed the A. F. of L. in dozens of industries.

Wagner Bill. In order to put a stop to this retreat, the A. F. of L. wanted: 1) a ban on company unions; 2) power for the Labor Relations Board to compel labor elections in any plant; 3) the right to give orders to all employes of a business once it succeeded in organizing a bare majority. These three things the Wagner Bill provides.

The first is taken care of by establishing a new class of offences, "unfair labor practices" which the Labor Relations Board would have power to prevent just as the Federal Trade Commission has power to prevent "unfair trade practices." The Wagner Bill forbids employers:

P: To dominate a union or contribute to its support.

P:To encourage or discourage membership in any union.

P: To discharge any employe who files charges of unfair labor practices. P: To refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of the majority of their employes.

The A. F. of L. hopes these rules will give it what it thought it was gaining when Section ya became law. The company unions will supposedly suffer. The A. F. of L., being already organized, will have a distinct advantage over all other unions. It can bide its time until it gains a majority of the workers in any plant, then secure an election," and with its majority gain the sole right of bargaining in that plant, a hold which it is not likely to lose once gained, for no employe could have any object in joining a minority union.

Politics. "This is the next step in the logical unfolding of man's eternal quest for freedom," proclaimed Senator Wagner when he produced his bill in the Senate last week. To some Senators it undoubtedly seemed so. Others had their minds more on the quest for reelection. Having bid for a share of the 3,500,000 veterans vote by voting for the Bonus, they wanted a share of the 3,500,000 A. F. of L. vote. Few Senators cared to fight the bill. Daniel Hastings of Delaware criticized it for what it did to labor minorities. Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland proposed to amend the bill by making it illegal for anyone--not merely employers--to coerce an employe to join or not to join any union. He was answered that such an amendment would "weaken the bill." Labor organizing not being a parlor game, the amendment would obviously have prevented the A. F. of L. from using some of its "strongest" arguments, would have given some employers a legal pretext for interfering with the organization of their employes. Just 21 votes were mustered for the Tydings amendment, so it went to defeat. No amendment of any kind was made to the Wagner Bill from the Senate floor. Just four Democrats and eight Republicans voted against the bill when it passed.

Significance. Although Franklin Roosevelt has never adopted the Wagner Bill as his own, he was expected to sign it if it passed the House. But there remains another question: will the Supreme Court declare this new law unconstitutional? The bill's validity dangles by involved inference* from that one phrase in the Constitution which empowers Congress "to regulate commerce . . . among the several States." One explanation offered last week for the overwhelming vote for the bill in the Senate was that many Senators were so sure it would be declared unconstitutional that they felt secure in voting for it.

Finally, even if the bill works as the A. F. of L. hopes, there may be an uncomfortable backfire. In the U. S. unions have for all practical purposes succeeded in keeping themselves free from legal responsibility for their acts, but with greater power that immunity might not survive. After Britain's powerful unions staged a general strike in 1926, a Trade Disputes Act was passed making unions legally responsible for their acts. U. S. Business, already arguing that unions should be held accountable, may gain public support as the A. F. of L. gains power.

*Last week after again threatening a general automobile shutdown by a strike in Toledo's Chevrolet transmissions plant--a strike which forced the closing of 16 other General Motors plants--A. F. of L. again made peace without gaining its major point, a written contract with General Motors. *The argument: Depressions interfere with interstate commerce; depressions occur and are aggravated because workers have not enough purchasing power; workers lack purchasing power because they have not enough bargaining power to get high wages: the Wagner Hill will give it to them. Also: Strikes interfere with interstate commerce: some strikes result from refusal of employers to bargain with their employes: the Wagner Bill will make them bargain.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.