"Modern Labor Charter"

Everyone who is really for Democracy and hates Right & Left -isms had good cause to stand up and cheer last week, as Premier Camille Chautemps fought and won the greatest battle of his career. The grave crisis the Premier faced was really three crises rolled into one:

Labor Crisis: Something had to be done to stave off trouble after the expiration on March 1 of some 7,000 labor contracts, affecting workers in every part of France. Ugly signs of labor unrest have been appearing for several months, and last week there were grounds to fear another wave of sit-down strikes and stand-up riots such as burst forth under Socialist Premier Leon Blum (TIME, June 15, 1936), today Vice-Premier.

Revolutionary Crisis: Since last November, in view of the great quantities of arms, ammunition and bombs seized by the French Secret Service, it has been certain that there are in France sizable groups determined to overthrow the Republic by force. Proletarian leaders have not hesitated to accuse Socialist Vice-Premier Blum and Middle-Class Premier Chautemps of restraining the Ministry of Interior from making use of evidence which might condemn two Rightists, whose names are household words in France, the No. 1 munitions maker, de Wendel, and the No. 1 tire maker, Michelin. On the other hand, exasperated Frenchmen in circles close to the Church and the General Staff have their list of Communists, proletarian militants and officials of the Soviet Embassy in Paris whom they accuse of preparing a Leftist coup d'etat.

Parliamentary Crisis: Since free France is still continental Europe's greatest Democracy, her battle of last week was fought in the Chamber & Senate. In case Chautemps & Friends did not win, there was a good chance not only of an eruption of strikes, but a general strike followed by God knew what.

The parliamentary battle was waged around six bills which Premier Chautemps calls his "Modern Labor Charter," and which represent a great constructive effort to create, by democratic means and with democratic checks, a French State authority strong enough to arbitrate and enforce peaceful settlement of disputes between Capital & Labor. The 7,000 contracts expiring March 1 were not permitted to expire last week while the parliamentary battle raged, for the Chamber & Senate calendar was kept day after day at February 28, and thus officially time stood still.

The Charter. The formulas by which studiously Middle-Class Camille Chautemps hoped to achieve social peace:

P: In case a strike is about to be called, a plebiscite on the issue must first be held among workers in the plant concerned, by secret ballot. Coercion by trade union leaders or employers is thus theoretically held at arm's length. The Premier believes that this will result in the workers themselves democratically blocking hundreds of incipient strikes.

P: The cost of living has now risen and is still rising in France at such a rate that wages must obviously be further raised-- members of the Chamber took time out recently to raise their own pay--and the new charter adopts a variant of the system existing in Belgium, where most labor contracts provide for automatic revision of wages up or down in step with the price index.

P: The Modern Labor Charter would make hiring or firing workers in France the business in each plant of representatives of Capital & Labor in conference with a State representative as umpire--in other words a French modification of the Italian and German systems, under which capricious hiring & firing largely ceased years ago.

Bombshell. The French Senate is a collection of greybeards with about the views of Calvin Coolidge. To them the charter was far too radical. The Chamber supports Premier Chautemps on the basis of a "Popular Front" coalition of Communists, Socialists and moderate Radical Socialists. And into this combination, Vice-Premier Blum chose this moment to drop a bombshell, in the form of an article in his newspaper Le Populaire, evidently designed to infuriate the Communists so that ultimately they would quit the Popular Front and permit the Cabinet to be reorganized as a "National Government" --as in England--with effective control in middle-class hands and the extreme Left frozen out. In France there has never been any doubt that the Communist Party is 100% Stalinist and has been subsidized by Russian funds. With Communists and Socialists still nominally the closest political allies last week, Le Populaire asserted as a fact that last week's Moscow trial was a complete frame-up and all the charges false (see p. 21).

Chautemps Miracle. That in such a situation even the most skilled French political maneuverer could continue last week to make steady legislative progress with a great new program of social peace was a parliamentary miracle.

The Chamber committee on the Modern Labor Charter, with whom the Premier had to deal, consisted of three Communists just smacked in the face by Socialist Leader Blum's newsorgan, two Socialists and a Radical Socialist of M. Chautemps' own middle-class party. The angry Senate had already rejected portions of the charter as many as five times. The angry Chamber had torn countless amendments to shreds. Through it all the Premier kept dashing now into the Chamber and now into the Senate, threatening and pleading, coaxing and bargaining. The triumph for Democracy and Chautemps was historic when, at 3 a. m., the Premier secured a decisive Chamber vote unanimous in his favor. The Senate then, by a vote of 191-to-71, finally passed the Modern Labor Charter. Signed by President Albert Lebrun it becomes law by publication in the Journal Officiel.

With the Modern Labor Charter law plenty of tough jobs still remain for French statesmen. The 7,000 expired labor contracts have not been frozen or extended but under the charter will be modified and renewed in peace, hopes the Premier, but none can be sure. The elements desperately bent upon overthrowing the Republic have not been unmasked, although the arms seizures have drawn many of their teeth, but for several months, European observers told each other, it will be well to watch France.

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