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Advertising Rates on Request Subscription: 00 per Annum ២ន PUBLISHED IN THE INTEREST OF WORKERS ON THE ISTHMUS YEAR II. No. 18 PANAMA. JANUARY 28, 1946 a copy Truman Asks AmericanPeople To Pour Heat On Congress ECONOMIC COOPERATION THE WAY FORWARD APPEALS FOR SUPPORT OF gress are now at home. During There are voices of defeat, LIBERAL LEGISLATIVE this period they will have the dismay, timidity among us who benefit of close contact with say we cannot do it. These PROGRAM you. the people whom they challenge. They will not guide serve us to success, these men of lttle faith Washington, Taking From personal experience, a leaf from labor book, Presiknow that contact with the We cannot shirk leadership dent Truman in a nationwide people back home helps every in the postwar world. The proradio address appealed to the public servant. urge you to blems of our economy will not American people to put the heat tell your public servants your be solved by timid men, mison their members of Congress own views concerning the grave trustful of each other. We canto break the long jam blocking problems facing our country. In not face 1946 in a spirit of drift progressive legislation for the a free country the voice of the or irresolution protection of human peeds.
people must be heard The men and women who The President language was fully appreciate the many made this country great and which temperate but the sum problems total Congressmen kept it free were plain people of his indictment against Conface. They have done a great with courage and faith.
ress severe wartime job under most trying conditions. The complicated re Let us justify this heritage.
He emphasized that he pro turn to peacetime has increasAFL leaders expressed agreeposed a whole series of vital ed their difficulties.
ment with every point in Preand progressive laws. as full sident Truman program but employment, unemployment seek no conflict with the one. and that was his recomcompensation, minimum wages Congress. earnestly desire comendation for the appointment and health insurance and operation with the Congress. of government fact finding added: Orderly procedure in the Con boards to deal with labor disgress is indispensable to the putes during compulsory cool But Congress has done lit democratic process. But order ing off periods.
tle. very little about them. ly procedure does not mean needless delay This cure is worse than the Finding his program blocked disease, AFL President William and stultified at every turn, the Stable world relationships Green said, reiterating labor President turned to the people require full production and full specific objections to this meafor support. He said: employment in the United sure as embodied in the Norton The members of the Con States Ellender bill.
The White House announced the President had received more than 500 telegrams in response to the radio message, 80 percent of them favorable. Congressional mail was reported to have jumped only 10 percent.
Washington, C. This is unions should be interested in This somewhat disappointing going to be a banner year for examining the profit figures for response was tempered by the profits, the Office of Price Ad 1944, as revealed in statement fact that most Congressmen ministration predicted. With ex field by the OPA with the Se were home and their consticess profits taxes repealed, in nate Small Business Committee. tuents may have had opportudustry should earn its greatest Profit increases in 1944 over the nities to contact them personalprofits in history, the federal 1936 39 period, which was quite ly.
agency said.
prosperous, include: Reports circulated in WashThis statement is especially Hardware retailers, 464 per ington that the President orisignificant because American cent; small furniture stores, 185 ginally included sharp and spebusiness made profit history in percent; variety chain stores, cific criticsms in his speech of the last two years and earnings 339 percent; men apparel sto the CIO and some of the large still going up res, 398 percent; department and corporations with which it is The figures for 1945 are not speciality stores, 1, 324 percent; now engaged in disputes. Such yet available, but they were chain grocery stores, 152 per references were tempered down greater than in 1944, a fantascent; music stores, 210 percent; in the final version. The Presiautomobile dealers, 200 percent.
tic profit year.
dent charged that some of the promises of teamwork given to So much for retailers. These American workers and trade increases in profits show how him by labor and management well the wholesalers also fared: after J Day had not been CALIFORNIA LABOR kept and again, in speaking of Hardware wholesalers, 179 per factfinding. he declared the SCHOOL OPENS cent; dry goods, 639 percent; purposes of his recommendaNEW SESSIONS grocery 25 percent.
tion have been misrepresented by some of the spokesmen San Francisco. With the Of course, the distribution end for labor and management.
new spring term beginning Jan. of business, on the whole, took 7, the California Labor School, a back seat to the manufactur AFL leaders derived chief sponsored by AFL, CIO and rail ing end, as these profit in comfort from the following paunions, is offering a fulltime vecreases emphasize: ragraph in the address: terans educational program All manufacturing, 450 per have indicated my opposiAt the request of veterans cent; textile and leather, 730 tion, and repeat it now, to who wished to be informed on percent; transportation equip the antilabor bills pending in the labor movement, courses ment, 650 percent; metals and the Congress which seek to dehave been arranged in union products, 590 percent; building prive labor of the right to barorganization and administration, materials, 270 percent; chemi gain collectively, or which seek social sciences, writing, public cals, 230 percent; food, bevera to deprive a union of its ultirelations and industrial arts. ges and tobacco, 200 percent. mate right to strike.
Record Breaking Profits In 1946 Forecast By OPA For Industry The significance of the recent Management Labor Conference was ignored by most American newspapers. Its outstanding achievements were played down, and the American public was given the false impression that it had been a failure. Perhaps some reporters wanted to make it appear so, in order to clear the way for legislation to control labor. Actually, the Conférence did more than any amount of legislation to promote peaceful settlement of disputes Management Labor Conference Opens Way for Progress.
The Conference resulted in at least three major achievements. 1) For four weeks (November to 30) top leaders of labor and management met together and came to a clearer understanding of each other viewpoint and problems. 2) In three unanimous reports, they reduced to writing certain vital principles for collective bargaining, accepted by both parties, and gave a blueprint for reorganizing the Conciliation Service to fit it for constructive work in the settlement of disputes. 3) They provided for a continuing committee, with four representatives each from management and labor, which can carry forward the joint consideration of their common problems, enlarge the area of knowledge, understanding and agreement, and bring further progress in collective bargaining.
The Conference marks a milestone in labor relations. After World War I, management refused to recognize collective bargaining and waged bitter warfare against unions. Today, both national organizations of employers officially endorse collective bargaining as a constructive factor in American economic life.
However, there are persons who advocate government control of labor relations, and the bill for labor fact finding boards, introduced in Congress immediately after the close of the Management Labor Conference, imposes such controls. Our country must therefore decide between two alternatives in labor relations: Collective bargaining or control through government boards Under collective bargaining, management and labor together work out the knotty problems of wages and other conditions around the conference table. Facts and records bearing on all matters concerned can be brought and studied by both parties.
Decisions are adapted the particular conditions of each plant or industry because they are made by those who best know the circumstances and who will carry out the agreement reached.
During the war, collective bargaining was broadened in many plants to include union management production committees. Joint consideration of plant problems combined the genius of management and labor to crate our war production miracle.
Eighty five percent of American war material was produced in plants where collective bargaining prevailed. The ManagementLabor Conference has now paved the way for further progress.
The bill for labor fact finding boards on the other hand, would turn back the clock of progress. Under this bill, the Secretary of Labor could certify to the President any labor dispute affecting the national public interest, and the President could appoint a fact finding board of three or more persons. 30 day cooling off period would be imposed during which strikes would be illegal; the board would then report its findings and recommendations. By making strikes a crime and thus imposing involuntary servitude on labor the bill goes far beyond the Railway Labor Act.
This bill would take the process of negotiations out of the hands of management and labor and place it in the hands of outsiders who have no direct knowledge of the problems concerned. Facts and records would be brought together by the government board and studied by it, not by workers and employers who have experience in the production. The board findings or decision, not the conclusions of management and labor, would set the terms to govern the plant concerned. Such process would kill the joint management labor consideration of facts and problems which is at the heart of American productive efficiency and high living standards.
Under government fact finding boards in the railway industry, workers have made far less progress than under free collective bargaining in other industries. It is significant that from 1926 to 1944, hourly wages of railroad workers rose only 50 under government boards, while hourly wages of factory workers rose nearly 100 under collective bargaining.
Further development of collective bargaining is the way forward for America, if we wish to maintain our free enterprise system, which is the basis of political democracy, If, on the other hand, the objective is to develop a breach between management and labor so that government controls over the American economy may be widened, then government fact finding Important Principles Adopted by Management Labor Conference. Labor unrest and strikes cannot be ended by finding some simple formula to be adopted universally. Yet this is what the public was led to expect the Management Labor Con(CONTINUED ON PAGE 2)