The Pittsburgh Press (May 28, 1941)
SHIP STRIKERS TOLD TO HEED ROOSEVELT, RETURN TO WORK
By Fred Bailey, United Press staff writer
Washington, May 28 –
Chairman Harry S. Truman (D-MO) of the Senate Committee Investigating national defense today called on striking San Francisco machinists, who have tied up $500 million of shipbuilding contracts, to accept President Roosevelt’s “no strike” edict and return to work.
Mr. Truman resumed a committee hearing into the shipbuilding strike by asking Harry S. Hook, business agent of Lodge 68, International Association of Machinists (AFL) which called the walkout, whether he had read Mr. Roosevelt’s proclamation of an unlimited national emergency.
When Mr. Hook said he had not had time, Mr. Truman read the portion which called upon capital and labor to cease disputes in defense industries.
Mr. Truman asked:
Now, are you fellows ready to accept the terms of the President’s proclamation and accept impartial government mediation and go back to work?
Mr. Hook replied that the machinists were willing to “do anything they could” for the government, but that the dispute was “with Bethlehem Steel Co. and not with the government.”
Mr. Truman’s reference to Mr. Roosevelt’s proclamation addressed to the nation last night, marked the first official attempt to invoke his declaration that no strikes or lockouts shall be permitted to disrupt defense production.
The Defense Mediation Board, meanwhile, prepared to submit its recommendations for settlement of the soft coal dispute, calling upon Southern operators to grant the United Mine Workers (CIO) the $7-a-day wage scale granted them by Northern operators.
At the Senate Committee hearing, Mr. Hook said that the shipyards dispute will be settled when the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp. agrees to accept conditions that “every other shipbuilder in the area has accepted.”
Bethlehem has refused to accept contract conditions which have been accepted by “160 odd” employers in that area, he declared. He added:
We don’t see why Bethlehem should be any better than other employers.
Mr. Hook said the corporation has refused to sign the master agreement negotiated with other West Coast shipbuilders, although it exercised “considerable influence” in negotiating the agreement. He added that Bethlehem had refused to attend the bargaining sessions in a San Francisco hotel.
Strike repudiated by Green
He said:
But we know for a fact that they met in caucus in another hotel behind closed doors with other shipbuilders, and we feel that they are the fellows that made the balls, and the others fired them.
The strike, called originally by approximately 1,200 machinists of the local AFL union and joined by 500 CIO machinists, has been repudiated by AFL President William Green and John P. Frey, head of the Metal Trades Department. However, the IAM has given its formal sanction to the action.
Senator Truman, after calling on Mr. Hook to submit the dispute to impartial mediation, warned that “public opinion thinks you are wrong.” He added that the general impression is that the union is taking advantage of the defense program to “promote your own ends.”
Seantor hears story
Mr. Hook replied:
We do not think we are wrong.
Mr. Truman said:
President Green of the American Federation of Labor thinks you are wrong. Mr. Grey, head of the Metal Trades, to which you are affiliated, thinks you are wrong. Mr. [Joseph] Green, head of the CIO shipbuilding union thinks you are wrong.
Mr. Hook said:
As far as Mr. [William] Green and Mr. Frey are concerned, they did not give the story of the Bethlehem corporation as I would like to give it.
Mr. Truman said:
Well, go ahead and give you story; that’s what you are here for. You have the opportunity to convince this committee, if you can.
Coal dispute a test
Both the shipbuilding strikes and the soft coal disputes were regarded here as definite tests of Mr. Roosevelt’s demand that industry and labor accept mediation without work stoppage.
The principal labor leaders – President William Green of the American Federation of Labor, President Philip Murray of the Congress of Industrial Organizations – did not comment immediately on Mr. Roosevelt’s “no strike” demand, but previously had indicated they would cooperate.
The AFL Executive Council, in session here, is expected to issue a proclamation calling on its 4,500,000 members to “exhaust every recourse available” to adjust disputes affecting defense production.
Mr. Roosevelt said in the address accompanying his proclamation of a full national emergency:
A nationwide machinery for conciliation and mediation of industrial disputes has been set up. That machinery must be used promptly – and without stoppage of work.
He placed particular emphasis on the word “must,” but did not specify that powers would be used if labor did not voluntarily give up the right to strike. Labor leaders believed he had in mind only that of public opinion.
There are more positive weapons possible. The Vinson Bill for a 25-day “cooling off” period before strikes may be called is ready for House action. The administration so far has frowned on removal of Selective Service exemptions from strikers, although that weapon has been suggested in some quarters.
The President also emphasized his demand for uninterrupted work in his emergency proclamation:
I call upon our loyal workmen as well as employers to merge their lesser differences in the larger effort to insure the survival of the only kind of government which recognized the rights of labor or of capital.
Future at stake
In his address, Mr. Roosevelt said the administration proposes to maintain and strengthen the “very great social progress” made in recent years.
He said:
When the nation is threatened from without, however, as it is today, the actual production and transportation of the machinery of defense must not be interrupted by disputes between capital and capital, labor and labor, or capital and labor. The future of all free enterprise – of capital and labor alike – is at stake.
He called upon labor to give up temporarily some of its privileges in order to maintain those gains in the long run against the Nazi system which, he said, would strip it of all rights.
Mandatory mediation seen
Under the American system, he said, collective bargaining will be retained. He also warned:
…but the American people expect that impartial recommendations of our government conciliation and mediation services will be followed both by capital and by labor.
Labor officials, generally interpreted the statement as equivalent to mandatory mediation and, if necessary, arbitration. He set up arbitration as well as mediation machinery in the executive order creating the Defense Mediation Board.