Labor Drives for "Total Security" P. Vincent

France, West Germany, Bel gium, the countries of Latin America, have had "job security" programs for decades, but with no perceptible increase in labor satis faction. There is always the ex ample of the American "capital ist" worker with his high stand ard of living, his freedom to move up the economic ladder at his own pace, to goad the security-bound worker of other lands into a real ization of his own plight. Or at least there has been - un til now. For the mid-sixties is wit nessing a massive drive by the 17 18 THE FREEMAN May labor hierarchy to impose a simi lar strait jacket on management and employees in this country in the guise of "total security." Decked out in the full panoply of expensive union propaganda, the term has an undeniable seduc tiveness: it is all-encompassing, impatient with logic and history. It promises everything to the worker and asks nothing; seem ingly, he can't lose.

The Obvious Strategy The strategy of implementation is becoming clearer day by day. You can see it in the attempt to focus attention on a few untypical situations as universal models, and in the increasing number of theo retical articles being published in those reliable bellweathers, the journals of opinion. "See - it works!" says the first. "And it's an intellectuallY respectable con cept, too," says the second. Take the case of the total job security program recently negoti ated by the United Steelworkers of America with Alan Wood Steel Company. In itself, the program for the 2,500 employees of the small Pennsylvania steel firm would have little if any repercus sion on the economy. As a pattern for negotiations with the can in dustry, steel industry, and all in dustry, however, it has been moved to the center of the labor arena with deliberate fanfare by United Steelworkers' president, David J.

McDonald. Here, he has said in ef fect, is the shape of things to come. The basics of the contract are familiar to everyone by now. For each worker, a guaranteed aver age rate of earnings which will "protect" him from a reduction of more than 5 per cent because of demotion or other job changes by management; a guarantee of 38 hours pay for each week in which an employee works, even though he is on the job only part of the time; payment to each worker with 10 or more years tenure of the equivalent of 85 per cent of his pay should he be laid off, until retirement; and sharing with all employees 32.5 per cent of savings achieved through labor or materials effi ciencies. No Mention of Weaknesses In "selling" this program to the country, labor spokesmen make no mention of the many factors in the program which have caused disillusionment abroad, such as the worker's loss of mobility and versatility, the discounting of in centives, the sapping of individual initiative, and the inability of companies to compete or even stay in business under this kind of fi nancial burden.

1965 LABOR DRIVES FOR "TOTAL SECURITY" 19 Instead, any suspicion as to the economic feasibility of the pro gram is to be allayed by the in tellectuals. Providing an ideologi cal base from which to influence the mass media. is their role in the strategy of implementation. And just what is the philosophical justification for "total security"? JOust how is this concept to be structured into American life? Here is Robert Theobald, author of Free Men and Free Markets, writing in The Commonweal of September 4, 1964: "... we had to develop a new, human and con stitutional right - the right to an income .... Every citizen who has resided in the United States for a period of five consecutive years should be guaranteed the· right to an income sufficient to enable him to live with dignity. No govern ment agency, judicial body or other organization whatsoever should have the right to suspend or limit any payment assured by this guarantee."

As Mr. Theobald candidly states, this· concept "justifies in come without toiL" And how is this total security to be paid for? By penalizing each employee who has the ambition and initi ative. to develop and market his skills beyond an arbitrarily fixed point. To quote Mr. Theobald, "We should establish the principle that the portion of income required to maintain a reasonable standard of living should be tax free. Taxes should only 0 be paid on incomes rising above this level." Here, then, is the cost which labor is to pay for "total secur ity": regimentation, abrogation of the right to enjoy the fruits of one's labor, atrophy of skills, and a universal but minimum standard of living at a "reasonable" leveL Is it not ironical that just as labor in Asia, Europe, even behind the Iron Curtain, seeks to cast off the confining restrictions of "total" systems and gain some of the mobility and freedom of the American worker, the latter should be offered this same tired and withered concept as his shining hope? ~ Legislated Security THE INTRODUCTION of compulsory social insurance in cases of sickness, or compulsory social insurance in cases of unemploy ment, means that the workers must be subject to examinations, investigations, regulations, and limitations.

SAMUEL GOMPERS (1916) 8. The Deactivation of History CLARENCE B. CARSON -JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON, 1912 To-day . .. one rarely finds a historical student who would venture to recom mend statesmen, warriors, and moralists to place any confidence whatsoever in historical analogies and warnings, for the supposed analogies usually prove illusive on inspection, and the warnings, impertinent . ... Our situation is so novel that it would seem as if political and military precedents of even a cen tury ago could have no possible value. The newer history . .. holds that few situations in a very remote past will allow of being used as data to test the validity or desirability of measures pro posed for present or future application. It regards civilization as a great or ganic complex and contends that, as the general cultural setting of events in the past was so vastly different from the present situation, past events can furnish only a very doubtful and unreliable criterion for judging of the wis dom of present policies.