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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. 5 No. 1, 4 January 1941, pp. 1 & 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
War labor boards? Well, we’ve had them before. William Green and Phillip Murray aren’t the first to “demand” such boards. Samuel Gompers, first President of the American Federation of Labor, not only demanded but received, such boards during the first world war. Those boards were used to lead the workers around by the nose for an entire decade. Let’s look at those boards and see just how they contributed to making the “world safe for democracy” twenty-two years ago, before Green, Murray and Hillman succeed in fastening the ring in labor’s nose this time.
The National War Labor Board, with jurisdiction over all disputes arising in fields of production necessary for the conduct of the war, was established by President Wilson in March 1918. But that was only the second act in a three act tragedy that opened in the Spring of 1917 with Gompers’ capitulation to the War Department, and ended with the anti-strike legislation of 1920.
So, our story really opens in the Spring of 1917. At that time the War Department, through its war production contracts, was the dominant factor in the industrial and labor scene. Its functions and activities in the field of labor included adjustments of disputes, fixing of wages and hours, and direct action on housing and the cost of living. There was no aspect of the labor problem which it did not enter; the War Department was in the process of becoming the largest single entrepreneur in America. Just as today.
In the Spring of 1917 the War Department let contracts for the construction of 16 army cantonments throughout the country, and set completion deadlines that were all but impossible to meet. Under cover of “national defense,” the contractors came into head on collision with the unions by stretching hours to 10 and 12 per day, cutting wages on unskilled labor to 30 cents and skilled labor to 45 and 50 cents, and filling the jobs with scabs and finks when ever union men protested. Enter Mr. Gompers.
Samuel Gompers walked onto the scene with his mouth full of phrases about saving Democracy by blood and the sword, and pledged labor to this crusade. “What labor desires,” he said, “is that it have a voice on any board set up by the government to deal with labor and war production.” Wilson recognized Gompers’ proposal as an easy way of dealing with labor. If Gompers wanted a few pats on the head ... fine. If his ego required easy access to the office of the President of the United States ... better yet. If his soul yearned for labor boards ... excellent. Labor, bound and delivered, was cheap at twice that price.
In June, 1917, Gompers appointed John R. Alpine, vice-president of the AFL, as labor’s representative on a three-man labor board set up by the War Department. The other two men ... on the board were appointed by the Secretary of War. This board was to have jurisdiction over the 500,000 workers employed under War Department contracts. Its decisions were binding and there was no appeal.
Thus Gompers calmly gambled labor’s destiny in a game where the cards were stacked against him two to one. As it turned out, the cards might just as well have all been in the bosses’ hands, for the majority of the board decisions were by unanimous vote. Alpine’s servility was such that, according to War Department records, seldom did both of the boss representatives attend the sessions. They were so certain of Alpine’s vote that only one or the other would bother to show up to go through the motions.
The first problem presented to this, board was the question of the strikes sweeping the 16 army cantonment construction jobs.
The decision handed down by the board provided for those maximum hours and minimum wages “Compatible with local practices”; and that the closed shop be eliminated on all cantonment work “unless the individual contractor desires to maintain one.” The significance of this ukase is obvious. Southern labor continued to receive slave wages. Wherever the workers were previously unorganized and paid low wages they remained that way. And collective bargaining was well-nigh hamstrung as long as the closed shop was illegal. This decision was reached, not over Gompers’ bloody and protesting body, but by unanimous vote of the board.
It is entirely probable that Gompers’ representative, Alpine, fought against the decision within the committee, but once the two boss representatives had decided, Gompers’ pledge of national unity left no course open to Alpine but to make the decision unanimous. That is the snare of such boards.
If the War Department had depended upon Gompers’ ability to shove the decision down the workers’ throats, it was soon disillusioned. Angered by the betrayal, the workers plunged into new and more bitter strikes. By the middle of the summer the War Department,—with the unanimous approval of the board on which sat Gompers’ representative— sent troops into the cantonments and broke the strikes with bayonets.
On July 27, 1917, a supplemental memorandum was signed by both the Secretary of War and Gompers extending the board’s cantonment decision to cover all work on order by, or under the supervision of the War Department.
Rightly reading in this decision a precedent that would guide the government for years to come, a great cry of protest went up from the workers. To stifle their resentment and justify his position, Gompers declared:
“This war I regard as the rejuvenation of mankind. We (labor) will make every sacrifice which may be necessary to make our (i.e. the government’s war) triumph sure.” From that moment on Gompers was not even a trade union bureaucrat; he was the country’s number one scab and war-monger. This was the inevitable consequence of his endorsement of the war and of the labor board.
In rapid succession boards similar to the War Department’s were established by other government departments. The Navy Department patterned its labor board and procedure after the War Department precedents and the agreement was signed between. Gompers and the assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The government, with increasing enthusiasm for Gompers, began to set up additional labor boards within the more important industries such as maritime and clothing.
There were two drawbacks to these boards, however. In the first place they did not prevent various governmental departments from competing for labor and thus inevitably raising wages to attract workers. This was naturally frowned upon by the bosses. In the second place, the workers didn’t share Gompers’ enthusiasm for the boards and their decisions and showed an increasing determination to disregard them.
The National Industrial Conference computed the manhours of work lost due to strikes in astronomical figures and hysterically demanded that something be done about it. Even Gompers was disturbed by the maze of counter-rulings and interpretations propounded by the various boards. And since he had already committed himself and the trade unions to the boards, why not a super-board that would have jurisdiction over all departments, all industries, all workers? Again Gompers and Wilson saw eye to eye.
In February, 1918 President Wilson appointed a commission to explore the possibilities of the establishment of such a board. Within a few short weeks the commission’s report was in, and in March the President announced the formation of the National War Labor Board. The avowed purpose of the board was to prevent work-stoppage during the war. It never entirely succeeded in this respect but it did, with Gompers’ help, deal terrible blows to the American labor movement.
(The strikebreaking activities of the National War Labor Board will be reviewed next week, in the second article of this series.)
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