American Steel and the Law
The attempt to find some legal means of settling the steel strike in the United States goes on. Seizure of the industry by the President on his own authority has been declared unconsti- tutional by the Supreme Court. Other possible procedures are the passing by Congress of a new law specifically giving the President powers of seizure or the invocation of the existing Taft-Hartley Act which would require both sides in the dispute to take no action until a " cooling-off " period of eighty days had elapsed. President Truman this week asked Congress for a new law. This action, besides being a reasonable and prac- tical step at this stage of the dispute, is politically astute—for the unions hate the Taft-Hartley Act as much as the President does himself and the union vote in the Presidential election is a factor to be reckoned with. The principle lying behind the Taft-Hartley Act—the use of injunctions to limit the actions of the unions—is one which, for historical reasons, is utterly repugnant to American unions. Its practical effect of imposing an eighty days' delay does not help very much, since the President himself had already managed to secure 150 days' delay, by his seizure of the steel mills before the Supreme Court ruled him out of order. But the whole legal argument looks rather irrelevant in view of the fact that the owners and the unions seem to have come within an ace of a settlement earlier in the week. The exact reason for the breakdown is still obscure, but there is no reason to believe that seizure of the mills or prolonged delay will remove it. Sooner or later the two sides have to agree. And the sooner the better, for the present arrangement whereby essential defence needs are still met is only a stop-gap. At any moment the unions may define the word " essential " in such a way as to put the armed forces in difficulties, and some civilian industries are already closing down. There is a case for forgetting legal sledgehammers and making one more attempt to employ the finer tools of negotiation.
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