Broadcasting (Oct - Dec 1950)

« EXTORTION (CONTINUED form. Here is an effort to extort the payment of himdreds of thousands of dollars based merely on Grand Lodge Officers' own conclusion that their interpretation of awards must be accepted without question . . . "We urged upon the employees the foregoing considerations and that they submit these issues (as well as the other grievances) to the National Railroad Adjustment Board or a special adjustment board or an arbitration board, and the carrier, as an inducement to that end, offered concessions which to VIS seemed the maximum that could reasonably be demanded or expected. However, the organizations refused to so agree." At another place in their report, they referred to the action of the Grand Lodge Officers as "constituting themselves claimant, judge and jury to determine the issue ..." More *'Biack Jacking" Another similar case was that involving the Denver & Rio Grande Western and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, in the early months of 1950. President Truman created an Emergency Board consisting of Robert O. Boyd, attorney, Portland, Oregon; Harold R. Korey, labor relations consultant, New York City; and Chief Justice Robert G. Simmons of the Supreme Court of Nebraska. This Board, in its report to President Truman, said: "In the language of the Brotherhood, they propose to settle these issues by force of economic strength. The Congress has provided methods for the settlement of such disputes by the orderly processes of the law. "At considerable expense to the Nation it has created tribvinals vested with power and equipped with the means to make a determination of such matters here involved. Decisions by processes of the law and not by force is the orderly American method of settHng controversies between men. "We have heard the parties fully as to all matters here in dispute. It is our reasoned judgment that the issues here involved may be and shovild be resolved within the provisions of the Railway Labor Act." conductors and trainmen actually struck — a month after an Emergency Board had refused to recommend that their demands be granted. This strike, in the fall of 1949, shut down that railroad and deprived large and important sections of ten states of railroad service for nearly seven weeks. The members of this Board, appointed by President Truman, were Judge Roger I. McDonough of Salt Lake City, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Utah; Floyd McGown, attorney, Boerne, Texas; and Curtis G. Shake, former judge of the Supreme Court of Indiana. ^'Inconceivable/' Says President's Board This Board, in its report, said: "We should hke to point out that if it is permissible under the Railway Labor Act for employees to circumvent the functioning of the Adjustment Board merely by creating a situation that calls for the appointment of an Emergency Board, the act has lost its efficacy for maintaining harmonious and orderly relations in the railroad industry insofar as operational disputes are concerned. "It seems inconceivable to us that a coercive strike should occur on one of the Nation's major transportation systems, with aU of the losses and hardships that would follow, in view of the fact that the Railway Labor Act provides an orderly, efficient, and complete remedy for the fair and just settlement of the matters in dispute. "Grievances of the character here under discussion are so nvunerous and of such frequent occurrence on all railroads that the general adoption of the pohcy pvirsued by the organizations in this case would soon result in the complete nullification of the Railway Labor Act." It's Time to Stop This Extortion These are strange and outrageous examples of railroad unions setting themselves up as claimant, judge and jiiry — all in one. They make clear the imions' ruthless determination to enforce their "black jack" \iltimatimis by plimging important railroad systems into costly and crippling strikes. This practice is thoroughly xmdemocratic and imAmerican. It is a device of dictators — not of fairminded men. Still More <*Black Jacking" In another case, involving the Missouri Pacific, the imions representing the engineers, firemen. SOUTHEAStSRN We are publishing this and other advertisements to talk with you at first hand about matters which are important to everybody. iROADCASTING * Telecasting October 9, 1950 • Page 21