One Big Union

San Francisco employers long ago learned from Labor that in bargaining the group is mightier than the individual. In several industries they formed potent associations, first to beat down Labor then to deal with it when unions came to stay.

Last week a leader in this evolution toward unionism for employers succeeded in doing for San Francisco business what Labor has never been able to do for itself. In the newly incorporated San Francisco Employers Council, Shipowner Roger Dearborn Lapham offered his fellows one big union of their own, a master association of employers associations. He thus put San Francisco a long jump ahead of any other U. S. city and injected a new factor into Pacific Coast labor relations.

Organizer Lapham acknowledged a debt to Great Britain and Sweden. He recollected that Franklin Roosevelt's commission on British labor practice found effective associations of British employers dealing with unions on a regional basis, observed: "It is evident that the employers learned a good deal as they went along." Having enrolled established associations of wholesalers, hotel operators, building owners and managers, automobile dealers, general contractors, waterfront employers and draymen, Mr. Lapham's council announced its intention of becoming "the recognized spokesman in a broad sense for all employers, whether group or individual."

Replaced and disbanded was the less inclusive Industrial Association of San Francisco, long feared and hated by Labor. At the council's head will be hardheaded Almon E. Roth, now president of the Pacific Coast Waterfront Employers Association, who like many another Coast employer has learned to deal with but not to love organized labor.

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