Gregory, C. O.

English

Duke Law Scholarship Repository

LAW AND CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMSTHE LABOR LEADER. By Eli Ginzberg, assisted by Joseph Carwell. New York: TheMacmillan Co., 1948. Pp. xiv, 191. $3.oo.This book is quite a contrast to the book of essays discussed above. The first partof this volume-through page 38-is devoted to a slight, but nevertheless interesting,analysis of leadership in various fields of human activity through the ages, with com-ments upon the dependence of causes and movements on the dynamic qualities of theirleaders. From this beginning the reader is eased into a forty-page consideration of leader-ship in the American organized labor movement and, thence, into an account of theleaders of well-known unions, with some very interesting facts and figures, indeed. Onegets the picture of a paternalistic system operated by periodically producing that which, ifnot everything, is everything else-money in the form of wage increases. And this sys-tem has in the past apparently been run with an iron hand on principles which, if notexactly democratic, are certainly characteristic of the concept of leadership.The last chapter of this book is very good, and in its fifteen pages serves to put thelabor leader on something of a spot. Although the author indicates that it is unfair toappraise any labor leader except in the pragmatic terms of how he has administered hisunion's affairs and what he has used its power to accomplish, he asserts that modernlabor leaders in general have got to snap out of the bureaucratic tradition of the pastand must indulge in a little statesmanship. He intimates that they control powerfulmonopolies which they use to achieve traditional ends-higher wages for less work,plus indefinite job security for their constituents and for themselves. He suggests thatthey will have to abandon qualities of militancy which have made their organizationsstrong and effective weapons for the purpose of forcing society to grant them favors,and will have to adapt themselves to long-range security programs involving guaranteedannual wages and profit-sharing based on willingness to cooperate in proposals to in-crease production and lower unit costs. As the author might be understood to imply,they will have to learn to pursue the service motive for the common good, so that unionswill become actual instruments for social advancement and will no longer seem to bemerely the means for improving the fortunes of another managerial class-union leaders.The intervening part, consisting of ninety-odd pages, is an account of the inceptionand growth of a local union, illustrating in a practical case study the tasks of the inter-national agents of an affiliated union, both in getting the local started and in developingits local leaders from very raw material. While this is a very interesting account initself, I find it somewhat difficult to tie it in with the preceding and subsequent partsof the book, since it does not really take up in example form the kinds of leaders whichhave been previously discussed.I am not sure what to say about this book in evaluating it. Perhaps when I say thatI read it right through in one sitting and found it mildly informative, as well as quiteentertaining, I indicate that I think it is pretty good. But I have seen the same sort ofthing done in a manner which I thought more effective. At the same time, the authordoes succeed in combining a considerable amount of sympathy for and understanding ofthe organized labor movement with rather searching and critical comments on what laborleaders of the past have been up to and suggestions as to how they must change theirtactics if they are going to be left in these positions of great economic power.I suppose it is silly to add that I was somewhat annoyed to find Mr. Hutcheson's namemis-spelled as "Hutchinson," and to see a few statements which I regard as inaccurateconcerning the provisions of the Wagner Act-such as the alleged requirement that51 per cent of the employees in a bargaining unit be signed up with the union beforeBoox REviE-wsnegotiations with it can begin. These are, to be sure, small things; but they detract fromthe quality of a book and interfere with its complete enjoyment.C. 0. GREGORY.University of Chicago Law School.EFFECTiVE LABOR ARBITRATION: THE IMPARTIAL CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE FULL-FASHIONEDHosIERY INDUsTRY. By Thomas Kennedy. Philadelphia: University of PennsylvaniaPress, 1948. Pp. xi, 286. $3.50.Professor Kennedy's book is Number 34 of the Research Studies of the IndustrialResearch Department of the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce of the Univer-sity of Pennsylvania. The author served for a time as Deputy Impartial Chairman andlater as Impartial Chairman under the Union-Industry National Agreement, and writeswith the full understanding which that experience brought him.The impartial chairmanship treated in the book is a mediation and arbitration systemvoluntarily established and maintained by the Full-Fashioned Hosiery Manufacturers ofAmerica, Inc., an association of hosiery manufacturers, and the American Federation ofHosiery Workers, an industrial union of hosiery workers. Under this system the partiesagree to submit all problems, except changes in the general wage level, which arise at anytime during the life of the contract under which they are operating, and which theycannot settle by negotiation, to a permanent impartial chairman for final and bindingsettlement. The book is a study of the 1,566 problems which were referred to the Im,partial Chairman from the initiation of the system in 1929 to August, 1945. Duringthis time six different persons served as Impartial Chairmen. The author classifies theseproblems according to types, and shows the attitude of the Impartial Chairman towardtheir solution.The purposes of the study are stated' to be:I. to present in an orderly and understandable fashion the procedures, techniques,and principles developed and tested by the Impartial Chairmanship of the full-fashioned hosiery industry.2. to determine the factors and conditions which led to the adoption of these pro-cedures, techniques, and principles and to analyze critically their effects on theeconomics and other phases of the industrial relations of the industry.3. to discover what defects exist in the system as it now functions and to examinethe possible remedies.The industry, after a prosperous period in the early i92o's, during which large num-bers of workmen learned the trade, became badly depressed toward the end of thatdecade. Competition had always been keen, with no recognized leading company in theindustry to set prices; units of the industry were easily movable, and the low cost ofshipping put each company in competition with every other, no matter where it waslocated. There were some non-union mills even in the Northeast where the union wasstrong, and there were non-union areas, principally in the South, where new mills wereopened even when the established union mills in the other areas were operating part time.In 1929 the president of the union of hosiery workers stated to its convention thatthe union had lost control of the industry, and that its ability to survive was in doubt.The union invited the management of all unionized mills to meet with it to devisemeans of defense. The spokesman for the owners said that at least 6o per cent of allhosiery-making machines were then being operated by non-union knitters and that non-'P. 2.

The Labor Leader by Eli Ginzberg, assisted by Joseph Carwell

bepress Legal Repository

https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2384&amp;context=lcp

The Labor Leader by Eli Ginzberg, assisted by Joseph Carwell

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Duke Law Scholarship Repository

bepress Legal Repository