The Presidency: Pleading Beyond Reason?

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THE PRESIDENCY

Precisely 90 minutes remained before the scheduled start of a nationwide ail way strike. For nearly four hours, the President of the U.S. had pleaded with management and labor for a 20-day delay in the showdown on their conflicting demands. In the White House Fish Room, newsmen were wearily awaiting the outcome. Now, into that room sauntered a workman who casually set up a TV prompter. On it, in letters two inches high, was printed the news that the strike had been put off for at least 15 days. Moments later President Johnson, appearing haggard, entered the Fish Room and read these words: "Both management and the brotherhoods have tonight acted in the public interest. They responded as Americans to the request of their President, and they have done what is best for our country."

But it was not all that simple. Nor was it the noblest hour of the U.S. presidency.

Time & Again. Behind the threatened strike lay almost five years of inflexible dispute. The railway carriers have long insisted on their right to change the "work rules" for employees. Basically, this meant that management wanted to end the featherbedding practices for which the railway brotherhoods are notorious—such as their insistence upon "firemen" on diesel engines.

Time and again, management has tried to impose its changes. Time and again, the union brotherhoods have threatened strikes. U.S. Presidents—including Eisenhower, Kennedy, and now Johnson—have set up boards to study the situation. Twice these boards have generally upheld management. Three times federal courts have upheld the boards' opinion.

In March 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court gave railway management an apparent go-ahead for putting the new work rules into effect. But once again, at the request of the Administration, management held off. In the meantime, the unions were three times enjoined from striking. Then, last week, workers of the Illinois Central went out on a wildcat strike—a surprise walkout without giving the notice that would make another injunction possible. Next day the carriers, determined not to be picked off one by one, announced that they would finally put national work-rules changes into effect. As expected, the unions retaliated by setting a national strike deadline.

Crisis Unto Crisis. This was the situation faced by President Johnson. He had already ordered Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz to try to negotiate a strike postponement. Wirtz made little headway. Johnson hereupon summoned management and labor negotiators to the White House. There, in the Cabinet Room, he read a prepared statement: "Although this railroad crisis has gone on for over four years, it has now been brought to a crisis stage with less than 48 hours available for last-ditch collective bargaining. This does not give the bargaining process a fair chance. It does not give the country a fair break."

He urged that the carriers withdraw their work-rule changes for 20 days, that the unions hold off their strike for the same period.

For the umpteenth time, management negotiators were willing to agree to a request by a U.S. President. But the brotherhood leaders, over dinner at the Willard Hotel, decided to refuse—except under conditions unacceptable to anyone but themselves.