The Union Times

Watt Presents The Basic Aims Of Labor
AFL Leader Warns Compulsion Is Out
Says That Industry Will Be Affected If Government Uses Compulsion Against Labor-Sees Labor As Partner Of Capital In Production
(Editor's Note: The following address, "The Aims of Labor, was given last Thursday before the Personnel Managers' Association of New Haven. We print it in full because it is an important and authoritative contribution to the public understanding of the objectives of organized labor, which are too widely misunderstood, because of the propaganda of labor's enemies.)
By Robert J. Watt
International Representative
American Federation of Labor
In discussing the aims of labor I want to make it clear that I am talking simply as one labor leader expressing his opinion. If you asked a large number of labor leaders to express themselves on this subject you would have many individual answers. But grouping the answers together I believe you would find common agreement on many basic objectives.
You would find that American workers want to be recognized as the partner of capital in production, as the customer of capital in distribution, as the majority voice in a political democracy, and as the substantial center of our community life.
D AMERICAN OBJECTIVES
That may seem revolutionary to some of you, and as mere platitudes to others. Personally I regard them as healthy and constructive and American. I believe that they are conservative, and in the best interests of defending our capital-istic system, and the representative system of a political and industrial democracy.
If the American Federation of Labor and I believe the overwhelming majority of wage-earners in the United States, are successful in their efforts the major aim of our American trade unions will be to secure and maintain industrial peace and expand the productivity of American trade and industry to the maximum benefit of the American people.
OBLIGATIONS RIGHTS
But prescriptions for securing and maintaining industrial peace are more easily concocted than compounded. The truth of that statement is unfortunately, too well-established by current events all over the world to justify any resort to establishing another fact-finding board. You may of course say that what applies to nations should not apply to employers and workers. The differences are obvious but one fundamental fact remains. Workers and employers and nations are people-and people too often are governed by needs and desires and emotion and prejudice more often than by intelligence and consciences.
If I were asked to prescribe a treatment to advance industrial peace, I would suggest as a beginner that employers and workers recognize that they have obligations as well as rights. I would remind them that industrial peace is dependent upon mutual trust and confidence back home where the job is being done.
PROVIDE MACHINERY
I would recommend to begin with, that both parties make every effort to provide machinery for the orderly and peaceful settlement of disputes which cannot be settled between themselves by collective bargaining. I would recommend that parties to a contract provide for conciliation and mediation within the terms of the contract.
Whether or not such mediation and conciliation should be supplemented by a decision in the form of arbitration should depend on the voluntary consent of the parties. I would recommend that every contract including adequate machinery to finally determine any dispute arising within the contract at the point where the dispute takes place.
"EMOTIONAL MATURITY"
By accepting this responsibility in their own backyard, the parties to any contractual relationship would have a reasonable prospect of maintaining peace. To do a decent job would require a degree of mutual understanding and more emotional maturity than many employers and workers have been willing or able to demonstrate.
Both parties must recognize that production is the product of agreement, not compulsion. Mutual trust and confidence cannot be bought at the corner store. It must be earned by good will, tolerance and endurance.
If we can get back to a boss-worker relationship without the intervention of the do-gooders and raise-me-uppers I believe we can achieve a fair degree of industrial peace. We should be approaching a period of physical maturity, even if emotional maturity may still be more distant. I believe the prospects are good, but not just around the corner. A period of difficulty may lie ahead during which we will have to get out from under the effects of the government blindly smashing the product of collective bargaining.
Industrial relations must either be returned to the employer and worker (Continued on Page Two)
Watt Emphasizes Need Of Labor-Management Cooperation

AFL Representative
Speaks In Elm City

(Continued from Page One)
or stay enmeshed in the hands of those
appointed for their political ability
The folks I refer to know all the
prices but few of the values. and usually
shape the course of government
intervention by a series of minor
moves which gradually become, in effect,
the law of the land.

COMPULSION HITS ALL
Of course government intervention
followed by legislation and
compulsion is the
cure
recommended
by many.
That appeals
particularly to reactionaries
and
radicals who depend upon each
other for sustenance. It sounds
simple and persuasive. Many of its
advocates are quite sincere. They
are against sin and seldom stop
long enough to figure out the next
step.
If
government orders both sides
to accept and either refuses what
is the next step? If a worker is to
be penalized for refusing to accept
a decision, some compulsion would
be sought against employers who
refuse. The line is a very thin one.
Even with good intentions, which
may not always be present, any
government intervening in industrial
disputes with compulsion is
likely to be drawn into active
operations in the industrial field.
What needs to be done to secure
and maintain industrial peace will
take time just as the ailment itself
was years in the making. What we
have been suffering from is simply the
climax of a long period of neglect.
Our troubles have been aggravated by
some employers who never did want
to deal with their workers and some
new unions which have depended on
government to take them by the hand
and care for them.

ECONOMIC ANGLE
We are suffering because we did not
take time to build a healthy foundation
for a healthy relationship between
workers and employers. The law of an
economic jungle has prevailed so long
that many of the parties to our recent
troubles are still using the tactics
learned in an ugly past.
While amendments to existing
laws and legislation providing essential
foundations for the well.
being of the people as a whole are
necessary, we do not need more
federal legislation in the field of
employer-worker relationships. We
might profit by our recent mistakes
and avoid trying to enact laws to
cure what is troubling us before we
find out or do anything about what
is causing the trouble.
Of course we need better administration
and inspection of the laws
we have, in order that the handicap
placed upon employers and
workers who maintain decent conditions,
are not exposed to unfair
competition. When that is done our
objective should be to have less
government over or interference
with legitimate collective bargaining.
To secure and maintain industrial
peace labor unions must make every
effort to develop union leadership to
be competent representatives of the
economic interests of their members,
and good citizens of the community
which both employers and unions must
serve. Together, employers and unions
must make every effort to harness
technological improvements in
order that the full available labor supply
may be gainfully utilized and in
the necessary balance between production
and consumption.

JOBS FOR ALL
Our goal is to provide jobs for
all and full use of all that is produced.
We do not seek this objective
by legislation, but we believe
our splurge and slump habits must
be succeeded by a wage policy for
consumer maintenance of markets.
The machine should be a source of
profit to the worker as well as to
the owner. Higher wages per unit
of production seems to us essential.

SOCIAL INSURANCE
A wider base of coverage and
content in a sound system of social
insurance would help secure and
maintain industrial peace. We can
protect values of work and property
only if we provide funds for
the families of those who cannot
bring home a pay envelope because
of any involuntary cause, whether
it be lay off or shut down, illness or
accident, old age or death. The
time to insure against these hazards
is the time before disability
occurs. It is simple common sense
for a nation to insure itself against
the widespread mishaps to its employed
working people and the consequent
demoralization of its trade
and industry.
Of course we have opposition to the
order that workers as consumers keep
policies I have outlined. The Communist
and their fellow-traveling
stooges don't want peace or stability.
They must have unrest and turmoil if
they are to justify their existence and
gain recruits. Their objective is to
keep people stirred up with a new
emotional crisis as soon as the previous
one begins to lose its propaganda
value. They try to push labor
unions into one political demonstration
after another. Propaganda with
the "Party Line" folks is an objective
rather than a means.

THE FUTURE
The type of competition we meet
from the "Red Fascists" is well-
financed, shrewdly led, tightly dominated
and rigidly disciplined. They
keep at it day and night, seven days
a
week. I sincerely believe in the
next few months or years industrial
peace will be shadowed by the scheming
and misrepresentation of a well-
trained group, who work per instructions
and who control the machinery
of several large important American
labor unions.
They spawn front organizations in
profusion. They have paper outfits
with impressive letterheads ready to
throw into any campaign at a moment's
notice. These front organizations
prosper because we have in this
country thousands of good people
whose hearts bleed at injustice anywhere,
who seldom bother to check
the facts. They use the canned resolution
denouncing oppression in X.Y.Z.
Land and since most people are
against sin the resolution usually
slides through. Sometimes they get
caught in a sudden switch of the
"party line" and require some fast
foot work to get out from under, but
usually like sheep they run with the
flock, get shorn regularly and come
back to be clipped.
The American Federation of Labor
has refused to join, or associate
with those who follow or cultivate
the mumbo-jumbo of the Communist.
We have recognized that our
specific responsibility as a labor organization
grows out of the nature
of our organization. We have recognized
that our primary function is
that of collective bargaining representative
for the American worker.
We have stuck to the job of being
a federation of labor organizations.
speaking on behalf of our thousands
of members. We have not
become the pendulum swinging
hopelessly and helplessly as the tail
of a political party kite. We have
never been swallowed by a political
party, and we have never tried to
swallow one.

THE CHIEF FACTOR
But despite the obstacles, and regardless
of legislation, I believe the
determining factor in securing and
maintaining industrial peace will continue
to be the quality of employer-
worker relations which exist within
responsibility for the success of the
enterprise instead of competing for
power. You must recognize that labor
is but a group term for working people.
They are like yourselves with
the same desire to earn a decent living
at jobs they can enjoy. They may be
less qualified in terms of leadership
and more crude in their inability to
use fifty-cent words to express themselves.
But we can secure and maintain
industrial peace only by viewing
labor as a mass movement of individuals
with the same hopes and fears
and needs as yourselves.

Against Economic Wedlock
Real collective bargaining which
has been government controlled
for some years would protect the
integrity of political democracy by
divorcing in large measure the
machinery of civil
government
from economic management in the
field of employer-worker relations.
It will help conserve the values of
property by sustaining a balance
between the wages of labor and the
prices of goods which will enable
workers to consume the output of
their efforts.
Don't forget we have a new kind
of labor organization which would
like to turn labor unions into ideological
agencies to wield political, social
and economic power. Maybe we are
old-fashioned, but we doubt whether
the men we elect to leadership are
vested with some extraordinary gift
of leadership. We elect them to bargain
as to wages, hours and conditions
of work, and doubt whether they can
decide how many men should compose
our army and navy, how atomic power-
I submit that the aims of employers
and labor are so similar
that industrial peace can be established
if and when both sides park
their guns and prejudices and meet
quietly together to grapple with the
day to day human problems of the
business. I submit it is time to realize
that there is no legislative substitute
for self-discipline and joint
cooperation.
I submit that the challenge we face
together needs. little masterminding as
far as the American people are concerned.
To plan for victory in peace
is simply to fuse the energy, endurance
and enthusiasm into the task of
doing our individual jobs well.

OUR OWN MASTERS
It takes pick and shovel work,
not slogans and words, to build and
expand democratic institutions and
secure
and maintain industrial
peace. The job can best be done by
pledging allegiance to the ideals of
a great nation and praying to God
that we may be worthy of those who
fought the good fight to preserve
our right to be masters of our own
destiny.