Trainman News

Urge Drive to Abolish 'Right To Work' Laws

MIAMI BEACH-- The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen is not fooled by so-called state "right to work" laws and intends to do everything in its power to repeal those already on statute books and see that no more are adopted.

Delegates to the BRT's 30th Convention made that clear last week in a resolution unanimously adopted calling for a national campaign against such laws.

The resolution asserted that "right to work" laws were calculated to destroy unions and "return us to the dark days of labor-management strife, low wages, unemployment and depression" which, the delegates said, "provide the breeding grounds of social unrest and worse."

Assail the Title

The delegates assailed the title, "right to work," as using subterfuge, "intending by false and misleading language to obtain favorable response from citizens who are all of one mind respecting our right to work, when as a matter of fact these vicious open shop measures have the real purpose of undermining existing trade unions, preventing their growth and responsibility in the field of collective bargaining."

The resolution asserted that the "right to work" drive is a "concerted, well planned and richly financed campaign of such reactionary forces as the National Association of Manufacturers, U. S. Chamber of Commerce and state and local affiliates, various employer groups and certain so-called better citizens and patriotic groups which in reality are creatures of the political arms of the giant corporations."

The delegates pointed out that the reactionary forces seek to circumvent the Taft-Hartley Law by returning the problem to the states. Thus if such laws were passed in enough states, the "feeble protection afforded collective bargaining and unionism in Taft-Hartley" would be nullified.

The drive for such laws, the resolution said, was given increased impetus when Congress failed to follow Big Business' plans for a tougher, more anti-union labor law.