National Affairs: Wagner Charta

No man likes to have his ox gored, least of all A. F. of L. Counsel Joseph Padway. Last February in Madison, Wis., Mr. Padway bellowed as though he himself were on the horns. The Legislature of his home State, in step with the rightward trend of U. S. politics, was considering bills to amend Wisconsin's famed, liberal State Labor Code of 1931 and its Little Wagner Act of 1937, which Joe Padway helped to draft. Having yet to emasculate Mr. Padway's State Labor Relations Act, Wisconsin's newly conservative Legislature last week made over the Labor Code, curtailed the right to strike or picket, and reopened the way for court injunctions in Labor disputes.

Joe Padway was too busy in Washington to bellow last week. He was hard at work for A. F. of L., goring the National Labor Relations Act.

Daddy on Horns. Lawyer Padway and his boss, A. F. of L. President William Green, denounce any suggestion that they are doing for the Wagner Act approximately what farm and industrial conservatives are doing to Wisconsin's labor laws. To Green, Padway & Co. the Wagner Act is pretty much all right but the National Labor Relations Board is all wrong. So saying, they last week urged Congress to rewrite the Act.

Fourteen of their amendments would all but abolish NLRB's powers of discretion, and substitute in effect a set of rules for the elastic administration provided when NLRA was passed in 1935. Another would abolish the three-man NLRB, replace it with a five-man Federal Labor Board whose membership possibly would be more to A. F. of L.'s liking.

A year ago, such avowed foes of the Act as Nebraska's Senator Edward R. Burke, Michigan's Representative Clare Hoffman, the National Association of Manufacturers could get nowhere toward amendment. Since then A. F. of L.'s leadership has plumped for change. Now Clare Hoffman approvingly quotes A. F. of L. to the considerable embarrassment of Bill Green, who strenuously opposes even more drastic alterations proposed by Hoffman, Burke, N. A. M., the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. John Lewis' C. I. O. resists any change, on the ground that once the Wagner Act is opened up for amendments, Labor's enemies may have a field day.

Why Green, Padway & Friends dare to take that risk, William Green explained when his amendments were introduced in the House last month:

"We regarded this law as the Magna Charta of Labor. We so regard it now. That is why we are so deeply disappointed by the failure of the National Labor Relations Board to administer this law satisfactorily. . . . We believe the Act, properly administered under these amendments, will promote industrial peace."

That a portion of A. F. of L.'s rank & file prefers to leave its Magna Charta alone, William Green indicated last fortnight. He thought it necessary to appeal publicly to Federation unions and members to trust their leaders, back up the amendments. Undivided support was essential to Messrs. Green & Padway, for their battle was about to come to a crisis.