National Affairs: Fighting Machine

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What A. F. of L. particularly hates & fears is the Board's power to determine units for collective bargaining—in substance the power to determine whether A. F. of L. craft unionism or C. I. O. industrial unionism shall survive. In the General Steel Casting case, the Board last week ordered an election by crafts, an A. F. of L. victory. In several other cases the Board has ordered plantwide elections, which, in effect, deprive the craft unionists of their right to select their own bargaining representatives. And A. F. of L. would like to see the Wagner Act amended to read like the Railway Labor Act, which provides for bargaining by craft or class of employes.

A. F. of L.'s legal adviser, Milwaukee's Joseph A. Padway, declared that A. F. of L. was willing to await the outcome of the pending Allis-Chalmers test case to see whether or not the Wagner Act was to be "circumvented, perverted and turned into an instrument of propaganda for the C. I. O. "But if the decision was against craft unionism and unless the law was "speedily" amended, he warned, then there would be only one thing left to do: repeal the law.

Credentials. Fast gaining popularity with the A. F. of L. delegates as the convention entered its second week was a proposed boycott on Japanese-made goods, similar to the four-year-old A. F. of L. .boycott on German imports. President Charles P. Howard of the International Typographical Union even suggested a 30-day jail sentence for purchasers of Japanese products. Mr. Howard, who provided the convention's only excitement, was out of order in speaking up at all in Denver, for the reason that the convention refused to seat him. So far he has successfully kept one foot in each Labor camp—by being both secretary of C. I. O. and head of a union which is in good A. F. of L. standing. His Typographers are pretty C. I. O.-minded but his C. I. O. connection is purely personal. The charge against Mr. Howard last week was the deadly labor sin of having, as C. I. O. secretary, issued a C. I. O. charter to 100,000 Northwest timberworkers who deserted A. F. of L.'s Carpenters' Union. Typographer Howard replied: "The president of our union, under our constitution, is the head of the delegation to the A. F. of L. convention. The A. F. of L. has no right to say who shall speak for the I. T. U., as long as we pay our dues and assessments. The Federation seems to make up the rules to fit the occasion."

Actually the rules were not changed. The credentials committee simply stalled. Efforts to spur the committee to action were futile, though so strenuous at one time that Bill Green broke his gavel pounding for order. Apparently the plan was to stall until Typographer Howard departed for the gathering of C. I. O. leaders this week in Atlantic City, where, as Mr. Howard observed dryly, he usually took a vacation "at this time of year."

Just as they avoided a showdown on Typographer Howard, the A. F. of L. also dodged the prime question of whether or not to expel the rebel C. I. O. unions— despite the thunderous talk of "crushing John L. Lewis." The resolutions committee recommended, and the convention voted, not summary expulsion but authority for the A. F. of L.'s executive council to expel when & if they saw fit.