Legalized Labor Chaos

February 25, 1963

Some day, presumably, the New York newspaper strike will be settled. But it is unlikely that the terms of the settlement will be such as to promote the prosperity of the papers. Hence it is unlikely that the terms will be in the long-run interests of the employees themselves.

The precedent established in the month-long dockers’ strike is ominous. Wholly apart from the fact that the wage boost forced on the shipping industry by the extralegal Presidential board went far beyond the “guideposts” set even by the Council of Economic Advisers, the real issue of featherbedding was untouched. The settlement, therefore, tends to entrench make-work practices and to discourage all future efforts toward efficiency. The real issue in the New York newspaper strike also is union insistence on bogus and featherbedding and preventing economies through modernization.

THE MUZZLED PRESS

There is mounting concern within the newspaper profession. James Reston, chief of the Washington bureau of The New York Times, wrote in a column intended for syndication:

“The present system is intolerable for the public, the unions and the publishers alike. The President of the U.S. cannot censor the New York papers. The Congress of the U.S. is specifically forbidden to abridge their freedom . . . but Bert Powers, the boss of the New York printers, cannot only censor them but shut them down. What is ‘free’ about a press that can be muzzled on the whim of a single citizen?

“This is anarchy. . . . The papers will have to be published, in New York if possible, elsewhere if not; in union shops if possible, in non-union shops if not. And they will have to be distributed through the mails if necessary. The present situation cannot be accepted in a democratic society. . . . Values and duties have become so confused that even the suggestion of publishing without the consent of the unions is now regarded as a declaration of war. How the old editors who founded our press would have hooted at that!”

The Times, by sending out an order to kill this column, showed how far intimidation has gone.

Why didn’t the New York papers continue publication, strike or no strike, instead of allowing themselves to be shut down and silenced for more than two months? Continued publication was not prima facie impossible. When, more than three years ago, a strike hit the two daily newspapers of Portland, Ore., the papers continued publication the next day, first combined, and later again as separate papers. They have continued publication, though the strike has never been settled.

WHY NO PUBLICATION

Why didn’t the New York papers follow suit? Probably for three main reasons. First, fear of the word “strikebreaking.” Second, fear of vandalism and picket-line violence. Third, fear of being cited as violators of the Wagner-Taft-Hartley Act.

The Federal government is moving toward compulsory arbitration of labor disputes. Its dictated settlement of the dock strike reveals the pattern. It allows a situation to develop in which no other solution seems possible. It affects to be following a “hands-off” policy, but under existing laws it is intervening on the side of the unions, and even of union intimidation, every day.

The Norris-La Guardia Act encourages picket-line violence. It denies injunctive relief to employers who are suffering irreparable injury from clearly unlawful conduct. The Wagner-Taft-Hartley Act gives unions a privileged status enjoyed by no other private groups. It forces employers to bargain exclusively with them, even when their demands are beyond all reason. The law is hypocritical. It makes it “an unfair labor practice for an employer . . . by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization” and then explicitly sanctions imposition of the compulsory union shop.

There will be labor chaos as long as such legislation remains. How long will it take for the President and Congress to recognize this?