13 DECEMBER 1946, Page 9

AMERICA'S LABOUR CRISIS

By GUNTHER STEIN New York

BEHIND America's suspended coal-strike lies a steadily deepen- ing nation-wide conflict between labour and management. And behind the festering industrial struggle looms the threat of economic and political dangers which some day may merge into the most serious crisis the modern United States has yet experienced. Both sides are fighting for principles, rather than for the wage and welfare problems of the coal-miners immediately at stake. Both sides, looking far ahead, are hard at work trying to influence the public, involving the law and interpreting the American constitution in their respective interests. Management welcomed in the coal strike its opportunity of turning back the clock of pro-labour legislation by which organised labour has been measuring its rise to power in recent decades. Management's case against " labour monopolies " looks good enough.

One lone man who makes his own decisions, John L. Lewis, obviously set himself against the nation and the world. As the arbitrary leader of the United Mine Workers, blindly followed by its soo,000 members whose lives he has improved beyond recognition during the last twenty years, Lewis closed the soft-coal mines. By cutting off the country's coal-supplies he held up production everywhere, and slowed down the transportation of what goods could still be made. By forcing the prices of scarce and slowly-moving commodities beyond their already dangerously inflated height, he made it almost certain that the eventual fall of prices and the resultant business " recession " would become even deeper and more dangerous than it would have been without a coal strike. Directly challenging the Government, which has been in control of the mines since the last coal strike, he exposed its impotence under the present labour law. By stopping coal and other exports to a needy world he made every country still more critical of the crisis-ridden, un- predictable American system.

With all this, management's old demand for restrictive anti-union laws has suddenly become popular among the general public. President Truman's hesitancy at " getting really tough with labour " has waned. Trying to take the wind out of the sails of the Repub- licans, he has now prepared more stringent anti-labour legislation than even the victorious Opposition party had until recently dared to contemplate. It is practically certain now that the new Con- gress, meeting in January, will drastically curtail the power of organised labour, reducing the organisational strength of the unions, their right to strike and probably their ability to win most of the fresh wage-and-security concessions that seemed within the grasp of the workers. Labour sees in the reaction of industry and Govern- ment to the coal strike a danger to its hard-earned power far exceed- ing in importance the issues of the conflict itself. But labour is badly split under the surface of its solidarity. For, with his coal strike, John L. Lewis attacked not only industry, Government and the public but also the leaders of all the other trade unions. He was forcing the rest of labour to side with him while trying to submit its ranks to himself. Lewis's desire to obtain wage and welfare concessions for the coal miners seems in fact secondary to his old wishes of forcing organised labour as a whole to accept his personal leadership and furthering his political ambitions.

The stormy petrel of organised American labour, ruthless, clever and inordinately ambitious, has twice come near his aim of uniting all unions under his politically opportunist control. But each time he lost. Years ago the American Federation of Labour, the country's most powerful super-union, refused to elevate him from a promising vice-presidency to the post of its president. He failed equally in his attempt to gain control over it from the outside, by helping to form the Congress of Iliclustrial Organisations, now of almost equal strength with the A.F. of L. and bitterly opposed to it. Having left one labour federation after the other, he used the key position of his own independent United Mine Workers to enhance his reputa- tion as America's most determined and successful union leader ; and he even tried to force himself on Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate for Vice-President in the elections of 1940. Recently, when the A.F. of L. looked for support against the more quickly growing and politically more progressive C.I.O., Lewis returned to it as one of its vice-presidents. He has since been trying once more to gain decisive influence over the A.F. of L. and to use his alliance with it to conquer the C.I.O.—so far without success.

Rank-and-file dissatisfaction with A.F. of L. and C.I.O. function- aries, he seems to think, will eventually play into his hands. His relatively good relations with the Republican Party, who suspect no labour leader less of " leftism " than John L. Lewis, will help him further to impress the A.F. of L. with his useful political power and to undermine the C.I.O., already torn by internal struggle between its moderate and radical-leftist elements. In the coming years of constant labour-management struggle Lewis might therefore at last achieve his first aim—with the help of the Republicans who always considered him politically " safe " and worth a favourable personal deal ; and with the help of badly disillusioned trade unions which might prefer a maximum of political accommodation under the opportunist, personal rule of Lewis to dangerous political impotency under more principled and progressive leaders of their own choos- ing. So far, Lewis has fared well with labour. The other unions, while deeply suspicious of his motives and greatly embarrassed by his costly and provocative coal strike, have shown themselves ready to back him up in their defence of the fundamental principles that have now been challenged by management, Government and a large part of the public in their fight against the United Mine Workers.

The future looks grim for American labour peace, or at least for that positive labour-management co-operation which the American economy needs more than anything else in order to increase pro- duction, stabilise prices and prevent a depression. There is little doubt that Congressional action against labour will coincide with rising unemployment in consequence of the gradually approaching " recession " in business and of the wave of labour-saving rationalisa- tion that is getting under way in all industries. With the memory of the suffering of millions of jobless during the last depression still fresh in its mind, and with its recent hopes for lasting po,..-war boom disillusioned, labour is unlikely to react meekly and calmly to a combination of unemployment and curtailed union rights. Radicalism among the workers may grow apace with increasing attempts from within and without the unions to suppress it. On the other hand, it seems likely that management, once given the go-ahead signal against trade unionism, will press its advantage more strongly when the oncoming " recession " makes it more impera- tive to get the most out of labour and to keep wages and the number of workers as low as possible.

Finally, the "recession" would automatically be deepened by a further loss of purchasing-power on the part of the workers and by the dislocating effects on industry of rising labour dissatisfaction. There are already a good number of qualified observers in the United States who now fear that the set-back in business generally expected for 1947 may gradually lead to a genuine depression, without the intervening boom-period on which they had counted until recently. The political consequences of such developments might well be of a critical nature, too. The cycle of radicalism- conservatism-radicalism in American politics, which, with the recent victory of the Republican Party, has just entered its middle phase, might be greatly accelerated. The American public is notoriously fickle and politically susceptible to drastic changes in the business cycle. Its recent conservative vote may be revoked much sooner than could normally be anticipated. The only question is what kind of political radicalism would follow the present con- servative mood. It might once more be that of a " pinkish " New Deal. But it might also be radicalism of a rightist variety, to which sizeable minorities of till: American people threatened to succumb during the last depression when they followed anti-democratic demagogues like Father Coughlin, Dr. Townsend and Huey Long.