Labor's Love Lost

Amid the clutter on his statehouse desk, Ohio's new Governor Michael V. (for Vincent) DiSalle keeps a framed motto attributed to the late Herbert Bayard Swope: i CANNOT GIVE YOU THE FORMULA FOR SUCCESS, BUT I CAN GIVE YOU THE FORMULA FOR FAILURE--TRY TO PLEASE EVERYBODY.

Cheerful, chunky (5 ft. 5 in., 196 lbs.) Democrat DiSalle, a man of notable affability even in his harried term (1950-52) as President Truman's Price Administrator, is determined not to fail. Already he has irritated educators, businessmen and politicians with a tighten-up-and-tax budget. And last week he incurred the wrath of Ohio's powerful A.F.L.-C.I.O., which backed him heavily in his campaign last fall.

Labor was in a swivet over Old Fair Dealer DiSalle's hard-hitting state labor-racketeering bill. The measure, now before the Democratic legislature, provides fines and imprisonment for labor leaders who 1) charter paper locals, 2) use union funds for personal profit, 3) buy stock in corporations with which they bargain collectively--or have bargained with over a three-year period, 4) accept gifts from companies with which they have bargained. Under the same bargaining terms, it also sets up a maximum of a $1,000 fine and a year's imprisonment for any union member or employer who does violence to person or property during a strike.* Unveiling the bill at a press conference, DiSalle conceded: "Everybody thinks it's too rough, even the girls in my office who typed it up. But if a union man's honest it doesn't mean a day in jail."

Cried Ohio's A.F.L.-C.I.O. executive board: "The principal effect of this bill is delivered against honest and legitimate trade unionism." Added A.F.L.-C.I.O. Special Counsel Arthur Goldberg in a hot opinion to state labor leaders: "It is plainly an anti-labor bill." Replied DiSalle with equal heat: Such labor leaders as the Teamsters' Jimmy Hoffa and Dave Beck have gone "a long ways toward destroying what we fought for in the '30s."

*Labor-reform bills are pending in twelve other states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington. In addition, New York passed a bill this year; Indiana's legislature adjourned without acting on one; and Arkansas' Governor Orval Faubus vetoed a mild reform bill.

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