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tions-keep them going to the White House and tell them what they are not going to do to good American citizens whose only crime is to ask for proper protection from their own Government. We are not going to be coerced by anybody in the Government which hasn't the authority to adjudicate these matters.

[From the Pilot, November 12, 1937]

THE WASHINGTON POST ATTACKS REPRESENTATIVES OF THE SHIPPING INTERESTS HAVE APPARENTLY FOUND THAT NEWSPAPER A STAUNCH ALLY (By Ralph Emerson, legislative representative, Maritime Unions, C. I. O.) The series of vicious, antilabor, red-baiting articles now being published through the medium of the Washington Post as regards the personnel of our American merchant ships had their inception and birth far from the Nation's Capital. To the casual observer or the ordinary citizen, who knows little or nothing about the maritime situation except what he gleans from the daily newspapers, the Post's sudden interest in maritime affairs would seem to be genuine, particularly when that paper stresses so urgently the need for a strong, well-disciplined merchant marine to act as our second line of national defence in time of war.

However, when a news sheet such as the Post, which has never been known for its liberal tendencies as regards organized labor, blooms forth suddenly into a field to which heretofore it has given only a slight passing interest, there must be a strong underlying motive. This motive has now been brought to light.

It is a well-known fact in maritime circles that a powerful lobby has been operating in the Nation's Capital in the interests of the shipowners and their affiliates. It is also well known that the goal for which they are striving is the destruction of the maritime unions before these unions can become unified and solidified on a national scale.

Quite naturally, as the direct representatives of the shipping interests are held in ill repute here by Congress for their methods and tactics in the past, they have been looking around the Capitol to see what new alliances they could form with other interested parties in order to halt the onward drive of organized maritime labor.

It now appears that they have found certain Government officials and reactionary newspaper publishers with whom they have something in common. The result is the present campaign being conducted through the Washington Post, which is simply the forerunner of a batch of union-busting, antilabor bills which will be introduced at the coming session of Congress.

Among those whom they have enlisted to aid them in trying to deprive the maritime workers of what little gains they made are officials and attorneys connected with the Maritime Commission and Secretary of Commerce Roper, Senator Royal ("Fink Book") Copeland, and other well known labor-hating reactionaries. The fine hand of certain other well known paid attorneys of big business can be seen weaving the pattern and shaping the policy of this combine. All in all, a powerful machine is starting to function, which organized labor will have to battle when Congress goes in session.

Knowing that most Senators and Congressmen read the Washington newspapers religiously and are somewhat guided by public opinion as expressed through the medium of the press, this combine seized avidly upon the opportunity to use the Washington Post as their means of bringing to the public their distorted and vicious program for the suprression of the rights of the men who go to sea to earn a livelihood.

One phase of the situation which is being strongly played up is the so-called "familiarity" with which the personnel of our passenger ships greet the passenger trade. The writer of this article, who has been a smoke room and deck steward on passenger ships for any number of years and who, whilst thus employed, was in constant contact with the passengers, would like the public to know that, with the exception of a very few isolated instances, this type of false propaganda has absolutely no basis for consideration, and is ridiculous, to say the least. His experience, in fact, was the very opposite, as it is quite a well known fact that stewards on passenger ship shave in many instances, had to tactfully discourage advances of romantically inclined members of the fairer sex.

The other point which is being stressed is the good old "red herring." It seems that some of our best flag-waving superpatriots are afraid that we are all going to stage sit-down strikes if this country becomes embroiled in a war. Did it ever

occur to these so-called patriots that the merchant seamen has just as much at stake as they have, as far as our national safety is concerned? Also has it ever occurred to these people that an overwhelming majority of our present personnel on ships are 100 percent Americans and have an ever-abiding faith in our American Government, particularly as expressed by the present Roosevelt administration? The writer of this knows that there are Communists who go to sea to make a living as well as those with other political beliefs. He also knows that there are Communists who work in various agencies of the Government as well, but it is a far-fetched argument to state that these people are plotting to take us, particularly at a time when all democratic nations should be welding themselves together to fight the common foe who is now rearing his ugly head in central Europe.

Outside of the two aforementioned flimsy arguments raised against our merchant seamen, what is there really to base any charges on?

We hope that at the coming session of Congress we will be able to tear away the smoke screen which hides the real purpose of these forces of reaction who are lined up against us and let the whole country know for once and all the real truth of the whole situation. Then it will be brought to light that the same greedy industrial interests who muleted an unsuspecting public of millions of dollars before through government shipping subsidies and through other crooked methods are simply trying to pull the same stunt again but using slightly different methods to fit the moment.

[From the Pilot, November 12, 1937]

WHY SIT DOWNS?-WHEN NO OTHER MEANS WILL IMPROVE INTOLERABLE CONDITIONS THEY HAVE BEEN RESTORED TO-THEY ARE PASSING OUT OF THE PICTURE AS THE UNIONS SIGN AGREEMENTS WITH SHIPPING COMPANIES The seaman, like any other worker, is not a legalist, To preserve the gains he has won through bitter, sometimes bloody, struggle, he often adopts a tactic that might seem, in the eyes of the untutored, super- or contra-legal.

Thus the sit-down strike, as a union weapon to better conditions and to retain improvements aboard ships, evolved out of experience.

Some statistical body has estimated that there have been 3,000 sit-down strikes on ships within the past few years. On the surface, such a figure would appear to be a damning indictment against the seaman and his militant unionism. However, to one familiar with statistics, it is a known fact that figures do not tell the whole story; indeed, sometimes they distort it.

Let us leave the philosophic and legal aspects of the sit-down strike to the experts in these fields, and try to understand why the seaman, as a worker and an American citizen, has used this tactic so widely in the past. (Actually, those aspects of the argument are of second importance, and simply becloud the issue. What is really of paramount importance is the effectiveness of the sit-down. It must not be forgotten that strikes, picketing, boycotts, etc., were once denounced as unmoral and unlawful by those same interests that assail the new tactic. If a moral decision must be made on the question, then it can be argued that the sit-down is right because it has been successful.)

The rise of the Maritime Federation of the Pacific and of the rank and file movement against the labor faking A. F. of L. officials on the east coast gave the average seaman a feeling of newfound strength. For years, the faintest sign of militancy in a seaman meant facing an all-powerful, omnipresent blacklist by both shipowners and union bureaucrats. For all the help many old guard union officials rendered their fellow workers, they might have been adjuncts of the laborrelations department of the shipping companies. Time and again they sold out their trusting union brothers.

Considering the picture of the seaman and that of the shipowner under the huge Government subsidies which the Black investigation has drawn so sharply, and the obvious bias of so-called impartial governmental maritime agencies, is it any wonder that maritime workers had stored up an accumulation of resentment against their employers and a contempt for legalistic hair-splitting, always invoked to their disfavor? Is it any wonder that they mistrusted the shipowners and their hypocritical promises, and employed the most efficacious means to enforce them?

In the days of 1934, when the rank and file movement among seamen had burst through its chrysalis and was feeling its way toward a powerful industrial union, impatient crews aboard ships sat down, either to prod shipowners into signing collective bargaining contracts and living up to them, or to alleviate their miserable living and working conditions.

The new leadership had to fight continuously against a hostile press and radio, combined with the shipping interests to prove that communism and anarchy were disrupting and destroying the American merchant marine. Nevertheless, only in rare instances has the National Maritime Union failed to back up job action or been unable to control it.

The statistics on sit-downs have made no distinctions between the reasons and the extent involved in these job actions. It is easy to gain the impression that the shipping industry has been more or less paralyzed by labor unrest in the past 3 years.

Except for several times during this period when major strikes--not sit-downs, but walk-outs have ben called, the industry has run on as smoothly as any other industry.

The great majority of sit-downs have been employed to obtain satisfaction over meals, living and eating quarters, defective safety and other equipment, and hundreds of little things that singly amount to little but in the aggregate determine the health and comfort of the workers.

Crews have struck over the monotony of their meals which were not varied week in and week out. Before they were challenged by their crews, shipowners would serve the same menus on their ships whether they traveled to the Tropics or to Alaska.

Not only was a menu unchangeable, but it was almost as restricted as a monastery's, and the food was the cheapest money could buy. At one time-not so long ago tainted meats were served, highly seasoned to disguise their rotten quality. It was a common thing to find a worm in the fruit salad (when fruit salad was served) or in the cereals. Half-rotten vegetables and fruit were rare delicacies. Milk was a nectar.

Living quarters were no better.

For instance, four men were placed in a room

so small that not even two could dress at the same time-the alleyways were used for that purpose. It was customary for crew members to bathe in a bucket. Crews have sat-down over their lumpy straw mattresses and pillows. Tired workers don't like tossing in their sleep seeking comfortable positions. And many a crew has sat-down demanding that the ship be fumigated of vermin-wonderful carriers of disease-before she left port.

Such complaints, such conditions, have caused the greater bulk of sit-down strikes. One has only to peruse the section in this paper entitled "Voice of the Membership," which is composed of letters from seamen and crews, to see that this is true.

Sometimes ships have been sat-down in sympathy with strikes of other maritime unions. In many cases these actions have more than an ethical propulsion. Experience has proven to seamen that "green" longshoremen, for instance, are an actual danger to life and limb.

Sit-downs have been employed to secure compensation for overtime and to prevent the discharge of active unionists-in other words to enforce the law of the land.

Of the sit-downs, is there a record of how many are called because of chiseling on agreements and contracts?

A shipowner may promise to provide cleaner focsles and messrooms and pay for overtime in a contract or verbal agreement, but the moment a ship leaves port, many or all of these promises may be violated.

Union headquarters are often so swamped by these minor complaints that it may take the delegates a long time to have them adjusted. Sometimes they can't unless crews take action. To the seaman who has fought so long and hard merely to obtain these promises, every day their realization is delayed seems intolerable. No honest and intelligent union man and leader will deny that some sit-downs are foolish and unwarranted. But this type of job action is actually an infinitesimal percentage of the whole. Even of this percentage, a proportion is faked and

provoked.

Such an idea cannot be termed unreasonable or fantastic in view of the La Follette inquiry on labor spies. Paid stool pigeons and provacateurs are sometimes so clever that they cannot be distinguished from real militants. And in a union like the National Maritime Union or the International Longshoremen's Association local on the Pacific coast, where militancy is a proud heritage, a provocateur sometimes strikes fertile soil. But who is to blame for such actions?

The charge against the sit-down strike as a trade-union weapon implies a lack of discipline and responsibility within the union. The technique of the sit-down requires a high degree of discipline and organization within the area involved, and a faith in the union as a whole to support justifiable job action.

In the past, if seamen did not like conditions under which they sailed, they left their vessel and shipped out on another. This, of course, never solved their problems, because when the industry was unorganized, rotten conditions prevailed on all lines.

Instead of escaping from a given set of problems, seamen through the sit-down meet them efficiently and quickly. N. M. U. crews which have complaints that are not satisfactorily adjusted within a reasonable length of time, meet in a body aboard their ships and, after a vote, usually unanimous, decide to sit-down. In the majority of cases, job actions last a short time and the vessel is able to sail on schedule.

If a crew were to leave a ship on strike, an attempt might be made by the company to recruit scabs. What might be only a minor difference could easily develop into a major dispute. Then the losses on both sides would certainly be out of proportion to their cause.

It often happens that a captain and his fellow officers sympathize with the job action taken by the unlicensed personnel. The captain may have been carrying the crew's complaints to shore officials and suggesting that they be acted upon, only to be rebuffed by indifference or red tape. It is amazing how easily a sit-down can cut through indifference and red tape.

In conclusion, it must be pointed out that the era of sit-downs is passing with the signing of agreements on the part of steamship lines with the N. M. U. and other bona fide marine unions. Today, when complaints arise on an N. M. U. ship, the crew takes them to its shore delegates on arrival in port, who in turn takes them to company officials, and usually an adjustment is made without undue friction.

The union is as sensitive as anyone to the charge of irresponsibility leveled at its head because of the sit-downs by its members. Now that it is surer of its power to settle differences around a table with comparative amicability, the N. M. U. has established a policy banning sit-downs as a general tactic.

It has not abandoned this policy entirely. It cannot do this while operators ignore or violate promises and contracts. It cannot do this while the weapon of the sit-down is cheap, effective, and rapid. It cannot do this while the Federal Government guarantees operators huge profits and leaves the seaman to shift for himself.

The philosophy of seamen on the sit-down strike may be summarized briefly. If the shipowner can avoid the law of collective bargaining, safety-at-sea legislation, or ignore the general health and welfare of his employees, then his employees, as citizens with equal rights, can use any trade-union weapons at their disposal with equal impunity to insure a fair wage and decent living conditions.

Mr. EMERSON. When Mr. Joseph Curran was testifying before this committee on the bill S. 3078 he quoted a paragraph from what is known as the Black Diamond agreement, which dealt satisfactorily with all questions of mediation and arbitration between ships' operators and crews. I herewith submit a copy of the Black Diamond agreement in full, and in addition to referring to the mediation clause, which will be found on page 8, I would also like to bring the attention of this committee to section 2 of article 1 on the first page, which reads:

Both the company and the union agree that while this agreement is in force, there shall be no strikes, or walkouts, or stoppages of work. In the event that any disputes or grievances, arising in connection with the terms and provisions of this agreement, cannot be satisfactorily adjusted by the parties hereto, it is mutually agreed that such disputes or grievances shall be forthwith submitted to arbitration as provided for herein.

The CHAIRMAN. May I ask this question: Is not that agreement which you just read identical with the agreement with the shipowners on the west coast?

Mr. EMERSON. No; it is not identical; it is a better agreement for the seamen in some cases.

The CHAIRMAN. What happened to the one on the west coast? Was that left up to the different men?

Mr. EMERSON. Yes, sir; so far as I know. I cannot answer for the west coast unions only to the extent that they have asked me to represent them in these two instances here. They are not members of

the Committee for Industrial Organization, but they asked me to represent them on various matters, as to which Mr. Lundeberg was supposed to represent them himself.

That whole agreement is said by various people and experts on maritime affairs to be the best agreement that has ever been compiled for maritime workers.

The CHAIRMAN. What is that? Read that, Senator, if you please. Senator VANDENBERG. It is article 7, on page 8, entitled "Arbitration." It reads:

Upon written notice by either the company or the union that any dispute cannot be adjusted by their respective representatives, such dispute shall be referred for final adjustment to a port committee composed of seven persons, three of whom shall be appointed by the company and three by the union, within 24 hours after receipt of such notice. The six members so appointed shall meet within 24 hours after their appointment, at a time and place suitable to, the company and the union, and at that meeting shall select the seventh member of the committee. If they cannot agree on the seventh member, such member shall be designated by the American Arbitration Association, of 8 West Fortieth Street, New York City. The port committee shall render a decision within 72 hours after the appointment of the seventh member, Sundays and holidays included, and the committee's decision or that of any four of the members of the committee, shall be final and binding on the company and the union. The company and the union shall bear the expenses of their respective appointees to the port committee but shall share equally the expenses of the seventh member of the committee.

In other words, that is compulsory arbitration within certain limitations?

Mr. EMERSON. We consider compulsory arbitration something the members of a union are forced into against their will; but the members of the union have accepted that voluntarily, so we do not consider it compulsory.

Senator VANDENBERG. That is right; but the net result is that under this agreement you are submitting yourselves to conclusive arbitration.

Mr. EMERSON. Yes, sir; we are voluntarily submitting to that, provided it is in the agreement, so that other particular clauses can be in there.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that your standard clause?

Mr. EMERSON. Yes, sir; and that is going to be in every agreement. The CHAIRMAN. Why not write that into law?

Mr. EMERSON. Would it be necessary to write it into law? The CHAIRMAN. Why not give the sailors of all ships the benefits? Mr. EMERSON. We have found that when a thing like that is written into law it gives a chance to offer amendments at times which might not be to the best of our interests.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that the best answer you can make?

Mr. EMERSON. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. If that were written into the law

Mr. EMERSON. Of course, I have no authority to say that we don't like that written into law. I would have to have the authority of the unions. As far as I am concerned, it would be good, speaking for myself.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the effect of that mediation? Does that mean there would not be any strikes?

Mr. EMERSON. There would not be any strikes. We would keep the right to strike. There would not be any because the thing would be arbitrated by such an impartial body, which would have three

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