In - board" approach. If the maritime industry were to take advantage of the mature bargaining experience of such unions as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the maritime industry might find a good model to emulate. ILGWU joint board bargaining in various metropolitan areas, it is possible to find representatives of dress locals, knit goods locals, and blouse locals all on the joint board. When it is time to bargain, each of the groups has a chance to present its position. Their relative points of view are consolidated, weighed and evaluated. Out of the "input" comes a general package requested for the entire industry. Included are common demands for wages, hours, pensions, health and welfare funds, etc. Each local attempts to retain its local autonomy. However, there are times when each must draw back from its individual demands. In the long run, each local benefits by the general protective umbrella of the over-all institution. This writer believes that such a program would be possible if labor leaders in the maritime industry, without government intervention, were able to put their own house in order. Unfortunately, the AFL-CIO itself has not been successful up to this point in putting aside the historic animosities of the old American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Council of Industrial Organization (CIO). When this is finally done, the great AFL-CIO federation should serve as a model for what is badly needed in the maritime industry, namely, a strong central body with an integrated and all-pervasive program of labor relations. [The End] JOB PROTECTION FOR RAILROAD EMPLOYEES An agreement providing job protection for present qualified employees of the Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads after consummation of the proposed Penn-Central merger was signed recently. The agreement was approved by Stuart T. Saunders, chairman of the board of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Alfred E. Perlman, president of the New York Central System and officials of 17 railway labor unions, affiliated with the Railway Labor Executives' Association. A spokesman called the agreement "graphic and refreshing proof that collective bargaining can work successfully in an atmosphere of understanding, wherein labor and management can resolve their differences without resorting to emergency boards, arbitration or governmental intervention." The agreement basically provides reduction of employment through natural attrition of retirements, deaths, and resignations but will further limit work force reductions to 5 per cent annually of an established base of the total number of qualified employees in each craft represented by the labor organizations. The proposed Pennsylvania New York Central Transportation Company will be permitted to transfer work and employees or allocate forces within the several crafts throughout the consolidated rail system. The pact also protects the merged company by providing for temporary layoffs necessitated by emergency conditions such as floods, hurricanes and also major declines in business. X. Ad Hoc Compulsory Arbitration in the Railroad Industry In the history of Congressional efforts to find a solution to the problem of how to settle strikes which endanger the public interest, the passage of Senate Joint Resolution 102 in 1963, which became Public Law 88-108, is felt by some to mark a major milestone. To others it does not. No piece of labor legislation in history has had more attention paid to explaining that it did not do what it unquestionably did, than Public Law 88-108. There was reluctance in and outside of Congress to face up to the fact that, whether, in a technical sense, this was compulsory arbitration, it was a dictated settlement, just as the 1916 Adamson Act provided for a dictated settlement. The 1916 settlement granted most of the demands of the unions; the 1963 settlement terms were more acceptable to management, but both settlements were imposed by the Congress and the President, backed up by public opinion. This suggests that Public Law 88-108 will not be willingly viewed as a precedent. As a matter of governmental philosophy, the executive branch has generally, when no immediate dispute was threatening, favored the "choice-of-procedures" approach to intervention. This approach, in essence, asserts that the role of government lies in not committing itself in advance to any pattern of behavior in a dispute situation, which, in turn, forces both labor and management to exert a maximum effort to settle their disputes through collective bargaining. (See item "f".) The role of the Government then becomes normally limited to encouraging and assisting such bargaining to a successful conclusion. Whatever acts Government takes are directed to making bargaining the preferred solution. While a desire to encourage collective bargaining was certainly a part of the 1963 railroad settlement (and of the 1916 one, as well), most people would not consider that it was this desire which motivated the congressional and Presidential actions in these two crises. The actions taken were dictated by the failure of collective bargaining to work, not be a desire to make it work. They were dictated substitutes for agreements not reached by bargaining. The "choice-of-procedures" approach assumes that the solution to the strike emergency is to get collective bargaining to work. But this assumes away our problem, which is that a strike emergency is caused by collective bargaining not working. One reason that bargaining does not work may be the expectation of Government intervention to prevent any strike. In other words, for "choice-of-procedures" to really work, the Government must be completely free to intervene or not to intervene. Only then will genuine bargaining take place. But Government does not, but definition, in an emergency situation, have this choice. On the other hand, Public Law 88-108 may mark a major milestone in Federal intervention in emergency disputes. The milestone reads "On the road to Federal regulation of labor-management relations." Government intervention is a fact. It has taken place since 1916, not 1963. It will take place again. It will take place whenever public interest, as interpreted by legislature and the Executive, dictates that it is required. Seen in this light, "choice-of-procedures" becomes a more limited weapon, but still a usable one. We can agree that a completely free choice, to intervene or not, would foster collective bargaining. But given our interdependent social and economic structure, the Govern ment no longer has the option in a strike emergency of doing nothing. Nonetheless, it does have a broad range of alternative choices. Thus, our final point about the fact of intervention in emergency disputes is that the real problem Congress must now face up to is, as we noted, what does it wish to do? This major milestone was not located at a crossroads. Once Congress accepted the fact that there was such a thing as an emergency dispute, it no longer had the choice of intervening or not intervening, given the emergency. But in other respects, it does have choices. It can favor terms more acceptable to labor, to management, or to the public interest as it views it, or some combination of these. What it does not have is the choice of not choosing. It may move rapidly or slowly down the road to regulation. It may even stand still for a time. But the crossroads was passed far back. Federal intervention may have become an established practice in 1916, or 1926, or 1947, but it did not begin in 1963. Because the experience under the railroad arbitration statute is so significant we have included rather full accounts (items c, d, and e), of both the origins of Public Law 88-108 and of its results, together with the key decision (item b). The significance of Judge Holtzoff's decision was not that it affirmed the constitutionality of compulsory arbitration by the Federal Government-the Government has imposed such arbitration for years in "minor" disputes under the Railway Labor Act, as was noted above-but that it dispelled the popular notion that there was a question of its constitutionality. Thus, the significance of Public Law 88-108 was that it publicized. not that it initiated, the principle of Federal intervention. To throw light on the above discussion of the choice-of-procedures issue, as already noted, we have included here, perhaps somewhat inappropriately, a key article discussing the matter. It was written in 1955 by an eminent labor lawyer, W. Willard Wirtz, then a member of the firm of Stevenson, Wirtz, Blair & Minow, and now Secretary of Labor. As it will prove of interest in a broader context (see XI. below), we do not hesitate to include it. X-a. (Source: Congress of the United States. In U.S. 77 Stats. 132 (Public Law 88-108, August 28, 1963), 88th Cong. (1963)) August 28, 1963 [S. J. Res. 102] 45 USC 151. Railroads, putes. PUBLIC LAW 88-108 JOINT RESOLUTION To provide for the settlement of the labor dispute between certain carriers by railroad and certain of their employees. Whereas the labor dispute between the carriers represented by the Eastern, Western, and Southeastern Carriers' Conference Committees and certain of their employees represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and the Switchmen's Union of North America, labor organizations, threatens essential transportation services of the Nation; and Whereas it is essential to the national interest, including the national health and defense, that essential transportation services be maintained; and Whereas all the procedures for resolving such dispute provided for in the Railway Labor Act have been exhausted and have not resulted in settlement of the dispute; and Whereas the Congress finds that emergency measures are essential to security and continuity of transportation services by such carriers; and Whereas it is desirable to achieve the above objectives in a manner which preserves and prefers solutions reached through collective bargaining; and Whereas, on August 2, 1963, the Secretary of Labor submitted to the carrier and organization representatives certain suggestions as a basis of negotiation for disposition of the fireman (helper) and crew consist issues in the dispute and thereupon through such negotiations tentative agreement was reached with respect to portions of such suggestions; and Whereas, on August 16, 1963, the carrier parties to the dispute accepted and the organization parties to the dispute accepted with certain reservations the Secretary of Labor's suggestion that the fireman (helper) and crew consist issues be resolved by binding arbitration but the said parties have been unable to agree upon the terms and procedures of an arbitration agreement: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That no carrier which served settlement of dis- the notices of November 2, 1959, and no labor organization which received such notices or served the labor organization notices of September 7, 1960, shall make any change except by agreement, or pursuant to an arbitration award as hereinafter provided, in rates of pay, rules, or working conditions encompassed by any of such notices, or engage in any strike or lockout over any dispute arising from any of such notices. Any action heretofore taken which would be prohibited by the foregoing sentence shall be forthwith rescinded and the status existing immediately prior to such action restored. Arbitration board. SEC. 2. There is hereby established an arbitration board to consist of seven members. The representatives of the carrier and organization parties to the aforesaid dispute are hereby directed, respectively, within five days after the enactment hereof each to name two persons to serve as members of such arbitration board. The four members thus chosen shall select three additional members. The seven members shall then elect a chairman. If the members chosen by the parties shall fail to name one or more of the additional three members within ten days, such additional members shall be named by the President. If either party fails to name a member or members to the arbitration board within the five days provided, the President shall name such |