By Law & by Ball

What will the 80th Congress do about labor? At least one man had some answers: Minnesota's Republican Senator Joe Ball, who was drafting some legislation last week.

A onetime St. Paul newspaper man, friend of Harold Stassen, and an ardent internationalist, Joe Ball has been called a liberal. In 1944 he crossed party lines to support Franklin Roosevelt against Tom Dewey. But since then, organized labor has soured on him. Ball's belief in the individual does not jibe with labor's belief in the union. He has made it clear that he thinks organized labor has gained too much power.

Three principles should govern a new national labor policy, he thinks. First, disputes should be settled as far as possible by collective bargaining; he rejects the idea of labor courts rendering arbitrary decisions. Second, Government should stay out of labor disputes except where the lawful rights of individuals or the interests of the public are paramount. Third, all parties should be given equal justice, made equally responsible under the law.

Labor's Magna Carta. Getting down to specific measures, Joe Ball frankly admits that he cannot dot all the i's. The best he can do in some cases is point out reforms. These are high on his list: the need for better federal mediation machinery; the need to discourage industry-wide bargaining (to which "the only answer so far has been Government seizure"); the need to protect individuals and minorities within a union (who are now the victims of "monopolies as vicious as any attempted by the unlamented trusts of a few decades ago"). One way to afford that protection says Joe Ball, is to "outlaw the closed shop."

"The closed shop," said Joe Ball, "is about the most reactionary and unliberal institution that we have developed. No liberal who believes in individual freedom can regard it as anything else."

One long-term problem which is getting his close attention is labor's so-called Magna Carta, the Wagner Act. Ball would overhaul it. He believes that jurisdictional strikes should be outlawed; that unions as well as employers should be required to bargain; that certain legal reforms are in order.

Equal Rights. Finally, he believes that at some stage of a strike--"after three, six or nine months"--employers should be allowed to fire striking employes. This would be a serious blow at the Wagner Act. Under the Wagner Act, no matter how long an employe stays out on strike, his job is safe. "The present definition has decreased too much the employe's risks in a strike and increased the employer's risks."

The employer's right which matches the employes' right to strike, said Ball, is "his right to beat the strike by lawful means if he feels the union demands make a settlement impossible."

Those are some of the tenets which Joe Ball--who, along with Ohio's Bob Taft and New Jersey's H. Alexander Smith, will be in charge of drafting labor legislation--will offer the new Congress.

Says Ball: "I think it is safe to predict that there will be substantial changes in the direction I have outlined."

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