LABOUR DISPUTES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1941, Page 5

LABOUR DISPUTES

IN DEFENCE INDUSTRIES PROPOSED LEGISLATION IN UNITED STATES. CONCILIATION & COMPULSORY POWERS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, November 25. The Labour Committee of the House of Representatives has directed Representative Rainspeek to prepare a Bill embodying' the principles of strike legislation agreed upon at the White House conference yesterday. The Bill will provide:

First, for negotiation between managements and employees; secondly, for conciliation by the Labour Department; thirdly, for mediation by a statutory board empowered to ban strikes for a reasonable period during mediation proceedings; fourthly, for compulsory arbitration in disputes not settled by the foregoing, or if the President so directs, in the interests of defence.

Representative Ramspeck. explained that when a strike or other labour stoppage was threatened in a defence plant the dispute would go through the successive steps of normal collective bargaining, conciliation, mediation and finally, at the President’s discretion, compulsory arbitration. Therefore both sides would be bound in advance to accept the Arbitration Board’s decision. ‘ /

If the workers refused to accept it, they would lose their rights under the Wagner Act, thus virtually depriving them of their collective bargaining rights and rendering their union ineffective. If an employer was recalcitrant, the Government could take over his plant. The Washington correspondent of the “New York Times” says that Representative McCormack, after attending the conference at the White House, announced that those at the conference favoured legislation to enforce a “cooling-off” period between the development of a dispute and the commencement of a strike in defence industries. The conference generally agreed that the President should have power to order arbitration. President Roosevelt announced that the railroad dispute, in which a strike of more than' 1,000,000 men has been called for December 7, has been referred back to the emergency fact finding board, which has been asked to report by December 1. The board previously recommended compromise increases in pay which the managements accepted, but the union brotherhoods rejected it. A series of conferences between the managements and union representatives have since been held, including several at the White House. A message from St. Louis says that the Office of Production Management labour relations expert, Mr Joseph Keenan, asserted that the strike there of 8,500 machinists was the “most important and most serious labour tie-up throughout the nation.” Mr Keenan flew from Washington in an effort to settle the dispute on jurisdiction, which has shut down one aircraft factory, curtailed CurtisWright production, and paralysed 400 other industrial plants .