A City at War by Richard L. Pifer

Author:Richard L. Pifer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Published: 2014-01-22T05:00:00+00:00

The arbitration board upheld the company’s refusal to fire Gilbertson on the grounds that expulsion by the union constituted an attempt to prevent individuals from performing to the best of their ability as stipulated in the contract. In an attached explanatory opinion, L. E. Gooding, chairman of the arbitration board, questioned why the union took the most severe action available instead of filing a grievance asking the company to discipline Gilbertson for violating the ceiling. Although he refused to blame the company for the workers’ fear of wage cuts, Gooding acknowledged that such fears existed and that the company acted in an “underhanded” manner when it withdrew from the piece-rate compromise after WLB approval. He concluded by urging the parties to return to their earlier good-faith relationship.36

That good-faith relationship had succumbed to the traditional industrial conflict between management’s desire to produce as efficiently and cheaply as possible and the workers’ desire to protect their wage rates. When the company retimed jobs, it reinforced the workers’ fear that they would be working harder and earning less. Members of the Employees’ Mutual Benefit Association took direct action to protect themselves and to enforce limits on production. The war effort—encompassing patriotism, self-sacrifice, and good will—became a secondary consideration in this conflict.

It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of wage-related issues in labor-management conflict during World War II. Nonetheless, issues related to union security also influenced industrial relations as unions sought to protect themselves from company interference and from attacks by other unions. Many government agencies dealt with labor relations issues, but a local union could not afford to allow these agencies to replace the collective bargaining process. Neither the Conciliation Service, the WLB, nor the NLRB were likely to play a significant role in a conflict unless a deadlock had already been reached. Long before that time, most disputes were resolved through the normal functioning of the collective bargaining system. When a dispute could not be solved quietly, government agencies tried to protect the rights of each party under the law and to mediate or impose a solution without an interruption of production. These activities ultimately gave meaning to labor legislation that had recognized organized labor’s right to exist; but the local union still bore the responsibility for ensuring that the company followed the contract, that workers’ rights were not violated, and that members continued in good standing.

Measures such as the WLB’s maintenance-of-membership awards could protect a union from direct attacks, but the WLB could not stop conflicts that arose out of the workers’ desire to be represented by another bargaining agent or the unions’ desire to expand its membership through organizing. The WLB and similar conflict-resolution agencies created a quasi-judicial setting within which unions could operate, but they did not replace the need of workers and unions to protect their own interests.

Jurisdictional disputes, which the Milwaukee press portrayed to the public as irrational squabbles, often developed out of such needs. They marked one of the boundaries beyond which organized labor would not go in the name of the war effort.

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