Logic of Do-Nothing

January 25, 1960

Though the steel companies, as one of their spokesmen admitted, certainly “took a hell of a licking,” it does not follow that labor won. It will take years for the strikers, even with their new gains, to make up their losses during 116 days of idleness. And as the union which forced a thumping increase on top of wage rates already higher than in any other manufacturing industry also refused to permit employers to effect any savings by discarding wasteful work rules, the settlement must adversely affect employment in the long run. As Roger Blough, chairman of United States Steel, pointed out, the settlement “can certainly weaken further their [the workers’] ability to compete in the market place against the workers in steel mills abroad, as the gap between wage costs on opposite sides of the ocean continues to widen.”

As for other workers, the purchasing power of their wages will be cut by a new spiral of inflation. The price at which the Administration bought off the steel strike was a hundred new strikes, unless a new national round of inflationary wage increases is granted. The great problem now is how we can limit the damage done.

DON’T ACT NOW

Yet this—the most important domestic problem now before the Administration—was dismissed in the President’s long annual message with a perfunctory mention. The inflationary implications were belittled. We were told that we must depend “primarily upon the common sense of the responsible individuals,” and should “encourage regular discussions between management and labor outside the bargaining table.” In other words, the government should do nothing.

Toward any meaningful reform of our labor laws, this Administration, like its predecessors and its Democratic opponents, has developed a masterly logic of inaction. Don’t legislate during a strike, because then it is too late to affect that strike, and any such legislation would be hasty and ill-considered. Don’t legislate after a strike has been settled, because there is no longer any urgency. Don’t legislate in an election year (i.e., every second year) because such legislation will be “political” and bad. Don’t legislate until we see how the Landrum-Griffin Act (obviously ineffective on nationwide strikes) is going to work out.

We come to the paradox that nobody attempts to solve the problem precisely because it has become so serious. The politician dares not make proposals that might incur the vengeance of the union leaders at the polls. The employer fears to press suggestions that would antagonize his union workers or arouse the resentment of their leaders.

UNION INTIMIDATION

But the greatest obstacle to reform is the confusion and division even in the ranks of those determined to face the problem. Some ask for compulsory arbitration, failing to see that this must lead into general wage-and-price fixing. Some want to seize the companies and force them to pay what the unions ask, oblivious of the violation of private-property rights and the consequent demoralizing effects on industry and employment. Some demand making the unions subject to “antimonopoly” laws, but fail to specify what these would permit or forbid. Some want to limit the size of unions, but are vague about the limits or how their proposal would be enforced.

And all the time the central evil is ignored. This is union violence, or union intimidation through mass picketing. It was this that made the nationwide steel strike effective. It was this that made it inevitable that McDonald would win. For throughout the strike no steel company dared to try to operate. And this irresponsible union power will continue until a company is in a position to say to strikers: “Unless you are back by Monday morning, you will be considered as having quit your job, and you will be replaced.” Until a company management is in a position to say that without being haled before a labor board, until it can seek immediate relief in the courts from irreparable damage, and until it can depend on local police action to prevent mass picketing and keep the peace, the labor-union bosses will continue to have the economy at their mercy.