Screen Guilds Magazine (August 1935)

The Wagner Bill — Reality or Prophecy? I T is an interesting historical accident that the National Labor Relations Act, commonly known as the Wagner Bill, was signed by the President on July fifth, just one day after the anni¬ versary of the Declaration of Independ¬ ence. And it may prove to be just as important a document for those who labor with hand or brain in the United States. Since the transformation of our country into an industrial nation fol¬ lowing the close of the Civil War, labor's battles have not all been fought on the picket line. In Congress, in the state legislatures, and in the courts, a less dramatic but more constant struggle has been in progress for a definition of labor's rights in accordance with the realities of a civilization of mass pro¬ duction. Employers, with singular dis¬ regard of the general welfare, but with excellent appreciation of their immedi¬ ate interests, have yielded each field only after stubborn resistance. Nor have they hesitated to counter-attack. In general, however, the advance of labor has been slow but steady, and though objectives attained have sometimes yielded to recurring waves of reaction, they are always recaptured. We ven¬ ture to predict that this will be true of the Wagner Bill. T HE legal campaign of those who work has been concerned with three main theatres of operation. The first has been the protection of workers unable to guard their own in¬ terests by legislation regulating wages, hours of labor, and working conditions. Favored status for women, regulation of child labor, sanitary measures, and limitation on hours are examples of ad¬ vances in this field. The second sector has concerned it¬ self with protection of the right to strike and the prevention of interfer¬ ence with necessary concomitants of the right. Here labor has sought the privi¬ lege to picket, to boycott, and to be freed from injunctions with their consequent contempt proceedings and imprison¬ ment without a jury trial. From an offensive standpoint the last and most important branch of labor's struggle is the field of collective bar¬ gaining, the right to organize freely, and to bargain with employers by majority rule, through representatives of the em¬ ployees' own choosing. C OLLECTIVE bargaining is noth¬ ing more than the elementary prin¬ ciples of fair play. In the prize ring the matchmaker does not pit a bantam¬ weight against a heavyweight. On the football field each side has eleven men. - In bargaining between the employer and employee, large aggregations of capital concentrated in the corporate form of ownership, pressure for jobs, and close co-operation among employers through their own associations, give the employer a commanding advantage over the average employee. Only by organi¬ zation and collective bargaining on phases of employment which affect all can the worker get an even match. O NE of our most cherished institu¬ tions is freedom, of contract. But freedom of contract becomes illusory when one side has all the bargaining ad¬ vantage. Collective bargaining brings into reality the freedom which mass pro¬ duction has transformed into a phrase without living meaning. Under the Wagner Bill, Congress has declared in unequivocal terms that collective bar¬ gaining is the policy of the United States. “It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to elimi¬ nate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of com¬ merce and so mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have oc¬ curred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargain¬ ing and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of asso¬ ciation, self-organization, and desig¬ nation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiat¬ ing the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection.'' This paragraph of Section 1 of the Wagner Bill is a new declaration of in¬ dependence for those who work. Whether it is a prophecy or a reality will depend on how it is administered, whether it runs the gauntlet of consti¬ tutional attacks, and on how labor takes advantage of its opportunities. The Provisions of the Bill S ECTION 1 contains the findings of Congress that the denial of collective bargaining causes strikes and industrial strife and thereby burdens interstate By Laurence W. Beilenson commerce, together with the declaration of policy already quoted. Section 2 is a definition of termjs, and Sections 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, and 12 set up a National Labor Relations Board of three members appointed by the President, with the necessary administrative pow¬ ers for carrying out the functions of the Board. The primary rights of employees are set forth in Sections 7 and 8. They include: (a) The right of organization; (b) collective bargaining; (c) freedom from interference or coercion in the ex¬ ercise of the rights; (d) the outlawing of company unions; (e) a prohibition against financial Support by employers to employee organizations, and (f) a prohibition against discrimination by employers to discourage membership in a labor organization, (but a closed shop for any labor organization except a com¬ pany union is expressly permitted). T HE prohibition against company- unions is but another example of a fundamental principle of fair play. No contract is equitable unless it is the product of an agreement between two freely contracting parties. The com¬ pany union is a device whereby em¬ ployers contract with themselves. They are on both sides of the bargain. Need¬ less to say it is a good one—for the em¬ ployers. Likewise it is unenforceable, because the employers dominate both sides. Section 9(a) provides for majority rule. It reads as follows: “Representatives designated or se¬ lected for the purposes of collective bargaining by the majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such purposes, shall be the exclusive representatives of all the employees in such unit for the purpose of col¬ lective bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment: Provided, That any individual em¬ ployee or a group of employees shall have the right at any time to present grievances to their employer." L IKE freedom of contract, majori¬ ty rule is an American tradition. Indeed it is the basis of democracy. The (Continued on page 14) i • August, 1935