The Potters Herald

Federation Plans Chain Store Probe Inquiry To Include Effects On Market For Union-Made Goods
By President James M. Duffy, First Vice President E. L. Wheatley and John O'Malley.

The 1939 convention of the American Federation of Labor at Cincinnati, Ohio, referred to the A. F. of L. Executive Council a resolution calling for a wide investigation of the chain store system, including the Bata Shoe Company, with special reference to the effect of the chains on the market for goods made by members of trade unions, wage rates, hours, and collective bargaining.

The chain store question was definitely placed before the convention by Delegates John J. Mara and George J. Lawson of the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union in a resolution that bristled with the following charges against the chain store system:

"With the ever increasing multiple unit of chain store distribution of the necessities of life, including shoes, and the lesser number yearly of neighborhood independent merchandise distributors, the producers of the products manufactured under fair union conditions, wherein the workers are permitted to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, are being increasingly deprived of a fair opportunity of reaching the purchasing public. Chains Cause Low Wages

"The concentration of wealth and this concentration of power wherein a privileged few, through their tremendous buying and distributing power, can and do virtually dictate the price at which the manufacturers must sell their products for, thus preventing, in many cases, the actual employers of labor paying to their workers decent American wages.

"The owners of these multiple or chain store groups have no interest in the communities wherein their stores are located other than to exploit the residents thereof as they exploit the workers through depriving them of an opportunity of securing fair wages by forcing the manufacturers who try to pay decent wages to sell the products of the workers at prices which leave but little to pay the workers. Federal Tax Suggested

"Apparently, the only effective way to correct this intolerable and un-American condition is through the adoption of legislation whereby each State, as well as the Federal Government, as has already been done in several States, shall be prevailed upon to levy and collect a tax, increasing in amount with the number of such multiple unit or chain stores in each group wherein such group owns more than three stores, such tax to be substantial and to make up to the State, as well as the Federal Government, for the taxes which have been lost through the driving out of business of the many thousands of neighborhood stores which formerly existed throughout our land.

"The Bata Shoe Company of Czechoslovakia is even now building a plant in the United States which they
Federation Plans
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...intend to operate in the same manner as their factories in Zlin, which will add to their already large chain of retail stores in the United States."

A. F. L. Council Ordered to Probe Chain Store System
In order that the organized labor movement may be completely informed with regard to the structure and social influence of the chain store system the resolution, which the convention adopted, contained the following provisions:

"That the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor be directed to make an exhaustive study of this situation, and if they find conditions as above portrayed they shall be authorized to seek or support legislation which will effectively curb the dictatorial powers now possessed by these chain store owners.

"That the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor shall be authorized, after such study has resulted in finding that the continuation of chain stores are detrimental to the best interests of the workers, and have concluded that the imposition of adequate taxes on chain stores are necessary, to prevail upon the American Federation of Labor, State Federations and Central Labor Unions to support the imposition of such taxes upon all chain store or multiple unit owners."