Labor's Status in the National Effort

T WO principal concepts of labor's proper status in the direction of the war economy have been advocated. One takes as its example what has been done in Britain, where official labor representatives have been called to power, not only in the Cabinet but in the inner War Cabinet, and where labor has a participation in the direction of almost every activity, from the top to the bottom, and from the national to the local sphere, fully equal and in many cases superior to that accorded to ownership or management. The other takes as its example what was done in the United States in the former World War. This amounted to an agreement to maintain a truce based on the prebellum status quo of organized labor and employers, while Government as such held the ring and assured labor of an essential minimum in wages and standards of work. Each contestant agreed not to take advantage of the national need in order to extort a permanent advantage for itself. The first attitude has led to a number of concrete proposals, none of which has been adopted in full, although compromises looking in that direction have been attempted. Though organized labor has long felt that it should have a representative in the President's Cabinet, that ambition has not, for whatever reason, been achieved. More important for the time being is the question of representation in the extraordinary war agencies. This was approximated for a while in the Office of Production Management by the cochairmanship of an industrialist and a labor leader, but there was widespread complaint that this arrangement did not amount to full representation, since the leader in question was chosen by the President and was responsible to him rather than being nominated by the movement itself. The arrangement has been abandoned in the War Production Board, successor to the Office of Production Management, while both the price control and the manpower functions have been placed under single heads who do not represent labor and with whom in certain instances, such as the controversy over wage increases, sharp conflicts have arisen. Only in the agencies for adjustment of industrial disputes, such as the National War Labor Board, has labor gained official representation equal to that of employers and the public

Business · Demographic economics · Economics · Political science · Defense, Military, and Policy Studies · Labor Movements and Unions

• The Coming American Revolution

  John D Hicks, George Soule•The Mississippi Valley Historical…•1935

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