← Harold's Old Time Radio
Harold's Old Time Radio
Quoting America 45-10-22 xxx Labor Strikes
00:13:10
Quoting America 45-10-22 xxx Labor Strikes
Loading summary
Transcript2 lines
- [00:01]
Geico Advertiser
Geico makes it easy to get affordable renters insurance in as little as 90 seconds. And then you'll start to wonder why everything else isn't so fast. Like why does it take so long to do the dishes? A meal that's gone in three requires 45 minutes worth of dishes. Doesn't make sense. But it does make sense to get renters insurance through geico. That way that pile of dirty dishes and the other things you love are covered. Get more with Geico.
- [00:26]
News Commentator
Good evening. If press and radio reaction are any indication, there will probably be some labor legislation enacted at this session of Congress. Government leaders have said that something more effective than seizure or arbitration is needed. Labor leaders have said that the strike as a weapon of labor is becoming obsolete, while management has acknowledged that organized collective bargaining is is here to stay. Now, out of these heated discussions about labor on the nation's editorial pages and in the radio commentaries, opinion trends take shape. There is, for example, in the discussions about general wage increases, a growing crescendo of press and radio concern on all sides about inflation. With discussion of the Ball Burton Hatch bill, compulsory arbitration has again become a vital issue. Several observers who had placed high hopes in the forthcoming White House meeting of government, industry and labor leaders are now skeptical over the outcome of the conference. And hanging over the labor picture are the inevitable forces of political maneuvers, which have an important bearing on any government or congressional labor moves. Of the political aspects of the labor picture, the Wall Street Journal claims that President Truman knows the public wants strikes curbed and but that he fears the loss of the union's vote. Take one party economics, two parts politics. Shake well and you may get a White House labor policy, says the Wall Street Journal, President Truman won't make up his mind what to do about the wage price muddle until he decides what would be wise politically. This is the impression of a number of officials, according to the Wall Street Journal, who have been working at top levels on the problem. Harsh treatment of labor to end strikes could cause him labor's political support. On the other hand, the President is well aware that his popularity with the public is being reduced daily by his failure to present a well defined solution for the labor controversies. The columnist Marquis W. Childs says that in his opinion, organized labor is riding for a fall. This conclusion, contends Mr. Childs, has nothing to do with the merits or demerits of the arguments that unions are making for higher wages. In asking for higher wages to sustain purchasing power in the face of the ever increasing productivity of the machine, labor can make a strong case. It is based rather on the politics of the transition period. All the grievances, the annoyances, the irritations, the inequities of mass unionization, long delayed and arriving finally with a rush, have now come to a head. Quincy Howe on CBS and Fraser Hunt on Mutual agreed, as did several other observers, that labor and management were both convinced that the time has come for a showdown. The basic issue in the present industrial situation is the wage increase. Philip Murray, the president of the CIO, speaking on the American Broadcasting Company, gave the views of organized labor. Mr. Murray said, the question responsible for all the hue and cry is shall there be a substantial increase in wages and salaries? No leading industrialists have dared oppose an increase as such. Since VJ Day, $20 billion have been taken out of the national pay envelope, while the financial assets of business have risen from 17 and a half billions in 1939 to 66 billion now. Profits in 1946 are expected to exceed 10 billions of dollars, as against about 4 billion in pre war days. There is enough money available lying idle in the coffins of industry to meet labor's demand for a higher wage. There need be no inflation, continues Mr. Murray. The alternative is a new depression with accompanying mass unemployment, misery and degradation for the people of America. This is not labor's problem alone. It affects our country's welfare. On the other side of this controversy, Raymond Moley, the editor of Newsweek magazine, charged that with the increased strength of the labor bosses has come increased arrogance. An insatiable appetite is linked to political power, and their gains have generated greed. Today their demands have gone beyond the bounds of reason, and the dictatorial desire to run the country is apparent. Unless some restraint is imposed, a period of labor industry turmoil will occur just at the time when the nation can afford it. Least hand in hand with the issue of general wage increase is that of inflation. There has reappeared in the press and on the air in the past few days renewed pleas for extension of wartime controls over materials as well as wages. The St. Louis Globe Democrat makes such a plea. Wage and price controls ought to be abandoned later, but not now, not until we have our industrial feet firmly planted and conversion is well along the way. Yet if the President and Director Snyder give way to the gathering clamor for wage hikes ranging up to 30%, and if they allow material price advances to compensate, the government will be giving a vigorous shovel to the inflation spiral. There is a peril in such a compromise. It would set a precedent for future upward adjustments. Richard Stout in the Christian Science Monitor supports this view. Inflation is not something that is just around the corner, says Mr. Stout. It's here already in a limited sense. Have you been buying any goods recently and do the prices seem high? Well, that's inflation. Statistically. The Department of Labor has a chart which indicates that the cost of living has gone up about 30 points since 1939. Now, while this graph is accurate in its way, it covers only a limited number of goods and services and probably underestimates the situation for most people. The cost of living has already increased well over one third. But Richard Harkness on NBC was more optimistic than most of the observers. He says there is every indication that the economic situation is brighter than we expected it would be. Inflation has been averted so far. Unfortunately, the government is only beginning to study an adequate wage and price policy. And there is evidence that President Truman, as well as Secretary Wallace, is favoring a wage increase of 15 to 20%. The suggestion of Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace that wages be increased by 15% is criticized by the Chicago Journal of Commerce as a trial balloon. In the more than six months that Mr. Wallace has headed the Commerce Department, he should have learned enough to be aware. Now that what he has proposed is a continuation of the wartime policy of trying to appease labor and at the same time pushing up both wages and prices. It may be questioned that this trial balloon, if such it was, will satisfy anybody for very long time. David Wills on ABC reports that the current idea among top administration officials is that a 15% increase in industrial wages should be permitted with whatever increase in prices is necessary for operators to meet the extra wage cost. But this idea has not yet been openly stated by the administration. The Houston Chronicle believes that wages should be adjusted by certain proportions varying in different industries. If they are adjusted much too little, we're back at 1939 again. But if they are adjusted much too much, the ensuing economic disturbances will hurt everyone, wage earners included. Labor's real mission, then, is first to determine what the ideal rates are and. And second, to get out and bargain for them. Business, too, emphasizes the Houston paper, should be occupied with such a study. And since more interests than those of employers and employees are at stake, government should insist that the bargaining be done without extortionate tactics on either side. Just how those tactics should be defined is the subject of the current congressional legislation. On labor. Albert Warner on Mutual predicts that current labor disputes will probably revive the Ball Burton Hatch bill, which calls for more control over labor management. But most of the pros and cons on this measure center on the compulsory arbitration provisions. The Minneapolis Tribune sees compulsory arbitration as a compromise. Many businessmen and citizens at large, says the Minneapolis paper, entertain misgivings about winning industrial peace by compulsory arbitration. It would lead to peace at a price which is better than the present armed truce, punctuated with increasing frequency by a warfare that blights production and shakes the whole economy. If organized labor does not like it, one would think labor would offer some other choice. The magazine the Nation, on the other hand, is is opposed to compulsory arbitration. The plain fact is, maintains the Nation, that wage decisions unacceptable to workers cannot be enforced. We have seen enough of the rigmarole of plant seizure and subsequent defiance of the government to know that it settles absolutely nothing. Any attempt to mine coal with bayonets or produce automobiles with Tommy guns would be an invitation to a civil war, and not even the most reactionary of administrations democratically elected is likely to engage in such a folly. The Rochester Times Union sees the Ball Burton Hatch bill as the starting point for labor legislation. Its resort to compulsory arbitration may be premature, but the law must replace jungle warfare of strikes. The Omaha World Herald feels that compulsory arbitration will save wages to workers, income to employers, and hardship to the general public. As to its constitutional phases, it should be remembered that compulsory arbitration does not imply such a thing as forced labor within the meaning of involuntary servitude, but only an impartial decision on labor disputes. It does not compel any worker to accept the verdict of the arbiters. He may either work or not work, but he must be answerable to public opinion, says the Omaha World Herald. A recent Gallup poll revealed that the public thinks the government should be firm in dealing with strikes. Over 74% felt that the government should take a strong stand during the reconversion period. However, in a breakdown on what the government should do, there was no majority opinion. Some replied that the government should crack down on labor leaders. Others said that the government should step in with enforced arbitration, while a small percentage said said that the government should help labor by supporting the strikers and raising wages. Several observers commenting on President Truman's forthcoming Labor management conference at the White House feel that although it's a step in the right direction, it comes too late. The battle lines, writes the Portland Oregonian, for instance, have been too sharply drawn. In many types of industry, contention has made agreement immensely more difficult. No matter what plans may evolve from the November meeting, if a conference such as that slated for November had been held two months ago, it might have served as at least a partial preventative of industrial disruption. Conceivably it could have smoothed the path for prompt reconversion. But reconversion already has been set back by many weeks, if not months, and there's no promise of early industrial peace. Fulton Lewis, Jr. Speaking on Mutual, feels that the recent statements of Secretary of Labor Swellenbach foreshadow some concrete action on the part of the administration. Secretary Swellenbach's conclusion, said Mr. Lewis, that something more effective than arbitration or government seizure is needed to settle the nation's labor problems is, is encouraging. Swallenbach has set his advisors to work to find a realistic program that would benefit both sides by showing that labor was not always wrong and that management was not always evil. It's good to have a man willing to lay the foundations for future understanding, says Mr. Lewis. And that's quoting America on the labor situation confronting our country today. If we haven't quoted your favorite commentator or editorialist, send us their views and we'll be glad to quote them, too. If there's some particular subject that you would like to hear America quoted on, tell us what it is, and we'll do our best to gather America's opinions on that subject for you. Good night.