The Pittsburgh Press (October 24, 1944)
Background of news –
Mr. Roosevelt and labor
By Bertram Benedict
If President Roosevelt should be reelected, he undoubtedly would owe his success in large part to the valiant efforts on his behalf of the CIO and to a less degree by other labor groups in the large industrial states.
President Roosevelt’s opponents go to his record on labor legislation to prove that he did not really have a pro-labor philosophy, out was pushed into one by the need of labor support. The President’s admirers go to the same record to prove that he was eager to meet labor’s legitimate demands, that he held back when the demands became exorbitant.
In Mr. Roosevelt’s first campaign for the Presidency, in 1932, he laid little stress on labor’s needs and rights. Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 – guaranteeing the rights of collective bargaining and the freedom to join unions – received little attention when it was enacted, although it was to become the cornerstone of the New Deal labor policy.
Labor bills listed
Then came acts setting up a federal system of employment exchanges, for retirement annuities for railroad employees, the first Guffey Act for a wage-and-price code in the bituminous coal industry, the Social Security Act of 1935, the present Wagner Act setting up the National Labor Relations Board and outlawing “unfair” labor practices, and, in 1936, the Walsh-Healey Act for a 40-hour week and prevailing wages on government contracts.
By the 1936 election, it was apparent that business and conservative support for Mr. Roosevelt would be weaker than in 1932. During the campaign, the President advocated what was to become the Wage-Hour Act of 1938. A broad act for federal housing construction was passed in 1937, as was the second Guffey Coal Act, and in 1939, the Social Security system was liberalized.
Thereafter the administration became concerned primarily with retaining the gains already achieved by labor. In January 1937, when John L. Lewis demanded that the administration publicly support the General Motors sit-down strike, the President had said: “There come moments when statements, conversation and headlines are not in order.”
In the summer of 1937, during the coal strike, he commented: “A plague on both your houses,” and that signalized the end of the Roosevelt-Lewis axis. In the same year, administration forces managed to insert in the anti-sit-down strike resolution adopted by the Senate a clause condemning recalcitrant employers.
Smith-Connally Bill
In the following years, the administration with difficulty beat off attempts to weaken the Wagner Act and the Wage-Hour Act. Despite labor pressure, the administration has adhered to the Little Steel formula evolved by the War Labor Board in 1942. The second Price Control (anti-inflation) Act of 1942 directed the President to stabilize wages, as far as possible, at the level of Sept. 15, 1942.
The coal strikes in 1943 made the administration impotent to stave off anti-strike legislation any longer.
The President vetoed the Smith-Connally Bill (in vain), but said he did so only because it really encouraged strikes; he had no objection to the provisions allowing the government to take over struck plants and making strikes in such plants a criminal offense. He expressed no objection to the section outlawing political contributions by unions.
In vetoing the 1944 tax bill (again in vain), the President did not refer to the provision, bitterly opposed by labor, requiring financial statements from unions.
In 1936, Mr. Roosevelt won by 523 electoral votes to 8, and in 1940 by 449 to 82. In those years, he had needed labor support less than he obviously needs it in 1944.