Perkins: Lewis expected to widen his fight on Roosevelt
Drive to filter down through UMW union to wives and families of his mine workers
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent
Cincinnati, Ohio –
The concluding days of the United Mine Workers Convention are expected to develop more of the reasons why John L. Lewis is so dead set against the reelection of President Roosevelt.
These arguments will be filtered down through the mine workers organization to the half a million members and their families in states that may decide the presidential election, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky, and to a lesser extent, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
Mr. Lewis epitomized some of his reasons in a speech before the Ohio United Construction Workers, a division of the UMW’s District 50, in which he declared that policies of the Roosevelt administration are directed toward making labor in general “a political company union.”
Sarcastic comment
He added the sarcastic comment:
What a record for one who likes to call himself the savior of mankind and the defender of the poor. He would strike down the unions that are not subservient to his wishes.
Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Lewis charged, “joined in intrigue with his man Friday, Hillman, the cringing officers of the American Federation of Labor and the present officials of the CIO” to hinder the organization of the United Construction Workers. He shot an oratorical blast at what he called “cowardly leadership” that would permit labor to become “indentured servants.”
He asserted that under such leadership, “the officers of unions would become a police patrol to hold labor in subjugation to the will of its economic and political masters.”
‘Sympathy’ for management
In a press conference, Mr. Lewis showed a sympathy with the problems of management in the coal industry – in direct opposition to the Communist school of thought.
He argued against proposed further government development of hydroelectric power as “a vicious and destructive victory” that would “create widespread unemployment and harass invested capital in the coal industry.”
Having disposed of the controversial political and autonomy issues in a manner satisfactory to the leadership, the convention will take up a subject about which there will be no argument – the United Mine Workers want a big pay raise and they want it badly.
The details probably will not be decided definitely until a few weeks before the mine workers meet the bituminous coal operators in the regular wage conferences next March. A demand for a pay raise is sure on the basis of the volume of more-pay resolutions from local unions that are now before the convention’s “Scale Committee,” and also from the fact that Mr. Lewis has not yet won the $2-a-day raise which he spent most of 1943 trying to get.
Little Steel formula
It has been emphasized here that the apparent victory won by the miners’ union in 1943 did not raise the basic pay scale. The miners were making considerably more money, but much of it comes from premium pay for overtime, which is likely to disappear after the war. The rest of it comes from portal-to-portal pay arrangements.
Forecasts, now backed by War Labor Board panel reports in the CIO steelworkers wage case and the general case of the American Federation of Labir, are that President Roosevelt will soon authorize an upping of the Little Steel pay formula.
The WLB timetable indicates this action may be expected no later than two or three weeks before the November election.
The mine workers, like all other unions whose basic pay scales have been held to this formula, undoubtedly will line up for their share.
Best information is that the March demands will include a boost in basic pay of at least a dollar a day, and more probably the still-unsatisfied two-dollar prescription. Also, the miners are expected to demand full pay for the time spent in traveling between mine entrances and actual working places underground (portal to portal). According to the hard-to-understand settlement finally worked our by the War Labor Board, the miners get pay for only about two-thirds of this travel time.
Vigil keynotes Martin’s address
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (UP) –
Governor Edward Martin said yesterday that the freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution were not self-perpetuating, and required the constant vigil of liberty-loving Americans because they were under the continuous attack by “both foreign foes and by enemies within our gates.”
In an address commemorating the 157th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, Governor Martin said the framers of the Constitution set up a system of checks and balances designed to insure us against the encroachments of tyranny at home. The two-party system in our national political life was a further safeguard, Governor Martin said.
The governor said that under the Constitution, our country grew to greatness, and that our national government depends upon the indestructibility of the states for its existence. Failure of state and local governments to function properly would destroy the whole structure of national constitutional government, he said.
Governor Martin said that the first three words of the historic document – “We, the people” – proved the birth of a new concept of government, the people have chosen an orderly form of government – “the kind we want to keep and hand down to the generations that come after us,” he said. Any weakening of the Constitution would weaken the structure and spirit of America, Governor Martin said.
The ceremonies at Independence Hall were marked by an hour-long parade and a review of 800 of the state guardsmen.