Lesson in Geography

As long ago as 1908, western waterfront employers began to combat incipient labor organizations through local and coastwise associations. Now, in every western port save Tacoma, Wash., and three lesser ports on Puget Sound, four regional associations and the master Shipowners' Association of the Pacific Coast, represent all but a few small companies in continual bickers & dickers with Harry Bridges' International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union.

The foregoing facts were recited last week by the National Labor Relations Board as sufficient reason for requiring the associations to deal as a coast-wide unit with Mr. Bridges' union which won the support of 75% of West Coast longshoremen. Immediate effect was to strengthen Longshoreman Bridges, C. I. O. & Co. in their warming wrangle with Sailor Harry Lundeberg, A. F. of L. & Co. Furthermore, 900 A. F. of L. longshoremen in Tacoma and nearby Puget ports now must 1) go to court, 2) deal through Bridges, or 3) give up their jobs to Bridges men.

Because the decision was the first by which NLRB certified an all-inclusive bargaining agency for a whole area, employers the country over wondered whether, for example, the Cotton-Textile Institute might some day be compelled to deal for all its members, unionized and nonunionized, with C. I. O.'s Textile Workers Organizing Committee; or the American Iron and Steel Institute, including President Tom Girdler's non-union Republic Steel Corp., with Steel Workers Organizing Committee. NLRB spokesmen declared the West Coast situation was unique, said no such precedent had been established.

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