Trade Unions

Company Unions.

Organized labour in the United States, finally, has in recent years been forced to meet a new strategy of employers. For the moment, at least, many industrial leaders appear to have abandoned the repressive measures of the past and to have engaged in competition with labour unions for the loyalty of their employees. In place of the national trade unions, whose members are recruited throughout the whole of an indus try, regardless of geographical location or ownership of the busi ness, industry has created company or plant unions. (See COM PANY UNIONS.) These organizations, sometimes described as em ployee representation plans or works councils, are limited either to a single plant or to several plants under common ownership. Their number grew rapidly during the decade following the World War and again during the period of the NRA. Passage of the Labor Relations Act changed the whole course of company union ism. Prohibiting employer domination of unions and guaranteeing employees the right of free association, it virtually outlawed the company union. Decisions of the Labor Relations Board ordered the disestablishment of such company unions, or employee repre sentation plans, as had existed in the plants of the International Harvester, Bethlehem Steel, and Standard Oil of New Jersey companies. At the same time the adoption of the Federal Social Security Act stripped many of these plans of their insurance func tions and thus further weakened them in the eyes of employees. In consequence, a large number of company unions disintegrated; some were taken over by the regular unions, and others converted themselves into independent unions, whose constitutions and practices conform to the new law of the land.

Trade Union Problems.

The most fundamental of the trade union's problems is that of adjusting its policies to changing economic conditions. Very often, before the World War as well as since, strong and established trade unions have been reduced in size and strength because they failed to gauge the probable inroads of machinery and business depression. Sometimes the struggle between a union and machinery would last for a genera tion, but in the end the union was beaten. This has been largely the history of the cigarmakers' union. In general, also, nearly all of the organized industries in this country are partly non-union. Unless the union is able to organize the non-union area, or so to protect the competitive position of the union area that the non union firms do not grow, the union will find business being diverted to the unorganized area and control of the industry slipping from its hands. The failure of the United Mine Workers to organize the non-union coal fields of West Virginia and at the same time to strengthen the competitive position of the union operators in Illinois, Pennsylvania and elsewhere led to the dis ruption of the union in the years after 1925.

Although developments in labour law and governmental policy have done much to limit the non-union area and to reduce its threat, economic policy remains the foremost problem of Ameri can trade unionism. The growing power of organized labour has

been accompanied by the more general use of traditional monop olistic practices. Various restrictive measures have been intro duced into the newly organized industries, which were before sub stantially unhindered in improving shop practices, installing new machinery, and generally raising the efficiency and productivity of industry. While practising these restrictions, organized labour has exerted a powerful influence in raising the price of labour. As a result industrial wage rates in 1939 stood at their highest point in American history and were regarded by many students as one of the formidable barriers to the re-employment of a large propor tion of the I 0,o0o,000 men and women who had been unemployed since the beginning of the great depression.

Of equal significance is the quarrel which divides the American labour movement into two rival factions. The battle for suprem acy between the C.I.O. and the A.F. of L. has had a great disrup tive influence within the unions themselves and in industry. Strikes have been called, not because of grievances against the employer but because of disputes between these warring factions. Raids on one another's membership have become a not uncom mon practice. The longer the dispute lasts, the more stubborn it appears to be. Efforts to effect a peaceful settlement and to unify the movement, one initiated by the President of the United States, have all failed.

So bitter has this conflict been and so great are the stakes, that it was no doubt the existence of the rivalry that impelled the C.I.O. to employ the unpopular "sit-down" strike during the organizing campaigns of 1936-37. The use of this weapon not only alienated important public support from organized labour but also paved the way for the beginnings of judicial revision of the definition of the right to strike.

Others have inevitably become embroiled in the fight. The exer cise by the National Labor Relations Board of its power to deter mine the bargaining unit exposed it to vigorous attack by the A.F. of L., which accused the Board of being prejudiced in favour of the C.I.O. Rulings by the Board which upset Federation con tracts with employers and otherwise weakened affiliated unions made the Federation the leading critic of both the Board and the Labor Relations Act. In the campaign against the law and its in terpretation, the A.F. of L. prevented the reappointment of one of the members of the Board and became the most powerful sponsor of amendments to the law. The contest meanwhile spread to the political field as well. In many of the recent national and local elections, the Federation and the C.I.O. lined up on opposite sides, and their dissension had much to do with the defeat of the Democratic candidates for governor in the elections held during 1938 in the industrial States of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.