"Happy Day"

The Taft-Hartley Act became the labor law of the land last week. It was something like the day Prohibition came into being. Nobody knew for sure what it might bring, but almost everybody was sure that some terrific headaches would follow. Unionists greeted the start of the new era in labor-management relations with defiance and derision; at C.I.O. and A.F.L. headquarters in Washington the morning greeting was "Happy Taft-Hartley Day." Even among the law's proponents, few were happy about it.

In the grimy offices of the new National Labor Relations Board, only one man seemed eager to get the law's machinery into motion. He was Missouri-born, 62-year-old Robert N. Denham, who will be a sort of czar over U.S. labor relations as the board's general counsel. He likes the law; some of his ideas were incorporated in it. Republican Bob Denham thinks he can make the law work. The five new NLRB members, who will sit as robeless judges but will have little authority in enforcing the law, do not share Denham's enthusiasm.

Side-Steppers. Labor's defiance of the Act and its boycotting of the NLRB promised little for the NLRB to do in the immediate future, unless Bob Denham forced some action. Nobody else, particularly employers, seemed to want to get tough. In fact, just the opposite was the case. In advance of Taft-Hartley Day last week, many employers helped unions to beat the law's deadline and to evade some of its provisions.

In Detroit, on deadline night, Ford Motor Co. officials waited more than six hours for the C.I.O.'s United Automobile Workers to make up its mind about what kind of a contract it wanted at Ford. The union had the choice of a straight 11 1/2-c- increase plus six paid holidays or a 7-c--an-hour pay boost along with a pension plan (TIME, Aug. 11). Ford had the U.A.W. over a barrel; if it failed to sign by midnight, the U.A.W. would be forced to give up its union shop or go to the NLRB for an election on it. At 11:59 p.m. the U.A.W. had not made up its mind. Obligingly, Ford signed a contract which would put the choice up to a workers' vote.

Clock Watchers. Elsewhere, other unions raced the clock and beat it with management's help. In New York City, the day before deadline, the C.I.O.'s Communist-dominated United Electrical Workers got a union-shop agreement from the Radio Corporation of America's RCA Victor Division. In Cleveland, the big, strong International Typographical Union's convention adopted a policy of not signing any future contracts, thus skirting the Act's closed-shop ban (see PRESS). Across the country many minor strikes and disputes were settled close to the deadline; in some cases, clocks were stopped at 11:59 P-m., while negotiations went on. In New York City a longshoremen's contract got signed in time, but three locals refused to abide by it and started a wildcat strike. That touched off a sympathy move aboard the big liner America, queen of the U.S. merchant fleet, and off walked its National Maritime Union crew. Results: no America sailing to Europe; badly frayed tempers for Film Actress Carole Landis and 937 other passengers; loss of about $500,000 in fares and wages.

There was no doubt left that the C.I.O. and A.F.L. meant to fight a bitter-end battle. Phil Murray put his signature to a 41-page document listing legal loopholes for C.I.O. lawyers to crawl through. Old Bill Green announced that the A.F.L. was planning a national work stoppage on Election Day in 1948, to get out the vote against the Congressmen who had voted for the Taft-Hartley bill.

Cue Takers. New Jersey's crinkly-haired Representative Fred Hartley, co-author of the Act, was its only vocal defender during the week. He lambasted labor's "brazen effrontery" and called for a congressional investigation of "any and all efforts to by-pass the law, whether by unions working alone or in conspiracy with employers." Employers perked up their ears and wondered what sort of merry-go-round they were on now. Many, for the sake of labor peace, had taken their contract cue from Co-Author Bob Taft. He had found "no illegality" in the coal operators' deal with John L. Lewis which bypassed some of the law's provisions.

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