Labor: An Unhappy Precedent

Something seemed to be different. Last year, in the name of protecting the nation's economic interests, President Kennedy leaped headlong into a success ful effort to keep Big Steel from raising its prices. But in 1963, with Big Labor threatening a devastating national railway strike for this week, Kennedy clearly wants no part of the dispute.

To be sure, his Secretary of Labor, Willard Wirtz, has labored patiently to bring about a settlement. Last week he even got the five operating railroad unions to agree, for the first time, to "consider" the "principle of arbitration" as a means of settling key issues. The unions decided that they still didn't care at all for the principle. Negotiations broke down.

That left the whole messy business in the lap of Congress—where Kennedy had pitched it five weeks ago by asking for legislation setting up compulsory arbitration machinery. Congress also would have loved to stay aloof—but now there was little choice. "The time has come," said New Hampshire's Norris Cotton, senior Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, "for us to fish, cut bait, or go ashore."

The Commerce Committee got to work, hammered out a bill calling for a seven-man board (two union men, two management men, three "public" representatives) to dictate terms of settlement for key issues within 90 days, with others to be settled by 120 days of bargaining. A similar measure was introduced in the House.

Thus, for the first time in memory, Congress found itself being forced to legislate arbitration of a labor dispute. The precedent pleased nobody. Wirtz feared that many disputes from now on may be settled by Congress. Eventually, this could badly damage collective bargaining. Eight Democratic Senators—including Commerce Committee Chairman Warren Magnuson—produced at week's end a statement that focused on these fears. Said they: "Free collective bargaining must survive without a precedent that would substitute legislation for negotiation."