VIII-c. (Source: Harold L. Enarson. In Emergency Disputes and National Policy. New York, N.Y., Harper & Bros., Publishers, 1955, pp. 46–74)

THE POLITICS OF AN EMERGENCY DISPUTE:

STEEL, 1952*

BY HAROLD L. ENARSON

Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education

There is a deep disquiet about government intervention in emergency labor disputes. The general feeling is that presidential intervention has frequently been premature and ineffective. Shutdowns in basic industries have not been prevented. Indeed, federal intervention has sometimes complicated a dispute and prolonged a stoppage. This discontent finds expression among university economists who, discounting the severity of the emergency in past "emergency disputes," insist that federal intervention should be shaped primarily by abstract, formal economic tests, presumably developed or at least applied by political eunuchs.

Prescriptions for the handling of emergency disputes are many. Some advocate a rigid hands-off policy. Others argue for detailed economic definitions of emergency or for new patterns of presidential or even congressional intervention. Still others believe that the Taft-Hartley emergency procedures are sufficient. Within the labor relations fraternity, it is fashionable to urge restraint on the federal government, call for "maximum flexibility"-whatever that may mean and proclaim that presidential intervention is "political," as if it could possibly be anything else!

The writer was employed at the White House on the staff of John R. Steelman from 1950 to 1952, and was a "participant-observer" during the many months when the steel dispute was the "albatross" of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

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What have we learned from past government intervention in emergency disputes to guide public policy in the future?

First, some kind of intervention, at one stage or another, is unavoidable. Emergency disputes cannot be wished away. Certain disputes go to the heart of the economy and of the national defense. They generate pressures for intervention which no elected government dares to ignore. The endurance of the parties exceeds the capacity of government to take a strike in certain key industries. Thus one or both of the parties can force intervention.

Second, intervention reflects the public antagonism to stoppages which threaten a national emergency. Government will seek to prevent an emergency from developing. The dominant pressures will always be for early, perhaps premature, intervention. Government must anticipate what may happen and act accordingly. It cannot await that precise moment when the experts have concluded that the stoppage is intolerable.

Third, in key industries the possibility of government intervention has a significant impact on the bargaining environment. Expectations of what the government may do become part of the total expectations which determine the strategy of the parties. Government is the silent partner in the bargaining process of our basic industries. The law of emergency disputes, the state of the economy and of public opinion, the balance of forces in the political system—these and other considerations are the inescapable concern of bargainers in what might be called the "emergency-prone" industries.

Fourth, intervention complicates a dispute since it substitutes three-way for two-way relationships; collective bargaining gives way to tripartite negotiation. Labor and management devise strategy in anticipation of the strategy of government-and vice versa. The disputants seek to mobilize support within the White House and the Congress. Traditional collective bargaining issues tend to be submerged by political conflicts, and the positions of the parties reflect their alignments within the political community rather than customary economic valuations. Bargainers may assume the role of political ideologists.

Fifth, intervention must be timed and shaped to take into account the prevailing attitudes of the country and of the Congress. Presidential power is bounded by the Congress, the courts, and public opinion-by the consent of the political community. In few areas

of our national life does the President have so little actual legal power in the face of such large responsibilities and exaggerated public expectations. Since presidential intervention is primarily a matter of moral leadership, the battle for public support is crucial. Traditional conflicts between President and Congress make the latter a natural "redoubt" for either labor or management, whichever feels disadvantaged in the scramble for support at the White House.

Sixth, intervention is increasingly dictated by the dangers to the economy and to the defense program: by the coercions incident to a hostile world. As long as the cold war persists, emergency disputes will tend to be defined in terms of the defense program. The executive measures the dangers and determines the next steps to be taken. But Congress, the courts, the country, and, above all, the participants in the dispute will determine whether such intervention succeeds.

Seventh, intervention is severely handicapped if the extent of the emergency is exaggerated. The government "cries wolf" at its peril. The penalty of exaggeration is disbelief. The point needs no elab

oration.

Finally, government intervention in emergency disputes is preeminently the responsibility of the President. “Keeping labor disputes out of the White House," though a laudable goal, is not always possible. The President carries a burden he cannot shift. In emergency disputes, people look to the President as a center of initiative and responsibility. As chief executive he is also chief mediator and protector of the peace. He is expected to "do something," to produce a settlement no matter how complicated the issues or intransigent the parties. Nor can he push responsibility upon a reluctant Congress.

If these observations suggest that the "politics" of an emergency dispute dominates its character and provides an indispensable key to understanding, that is exactly what is intended. In this connection, politics may be quickly defined. Politics is coterminous with government and with public policy. The politics of an emergency

1 The politics versus economics approach has its limitations. As E. S. Mason has suggested, "In the realm of public policy, there are no economic problems, no political problems; there are merely problems." Preface by E. S. Mason in C. J. Friedrick and J. K. Galbraith, eds., Public Policy: A Yearbook of the Graduate School of Public Administration (Cambridge: Harvard University

labor dispute deals, therefore, with the intricate maneuvers and interaction of persons and groups as they move in, against, and through the labyrinth of government.2

The steel dispute of 1952 is perhaps the outstanding example of the dominance of political considerations in an emergency dispute. It serves admirably to illustrate the observations made above. Its politics was anything but simple.3 Underlying the controversy were the pressures of groups, the momentum of institutions, and the force of ideas and ideals. The steelworkers' union sought a wage increase; the industry resisted a wage increase and fought to safeguard its wage-price relationship, and the government tried to stabilize both wages and prices while maintaining uninterrupted production and free collective bargaining. These conflicting objectives precipitated the breakdown in collective bargaining, a wage-price controversy, and finally a battle between the President and both Congress and court, prolonging and intensifying the dispute.

The strike which was "unthinkable" for so much as a single daywhich reportedly threatened the physical security of our troops in Press, 1953). Analysis of the collective action of groups is the "stuff" of both politics and economics, of Mill's long-lost "political economy." The institutional economics of John R. Commons is paralleled by the group politics of Arthur Bentley.

2 Politics is a chunk of life. Its outward machinery is the schoolboy's triumvirate-executive, legislature, and judiciary—and the infiltrating political party and pressure group. Its forms are laws, regulations, policies, decisions. Its function is the fashioning of tolerable compromises out of the conflict of persons and parties, interests and institutions. Its "stuff" is the hopes, faiths, fears, and expectations of people. From these, loyalties are generated, myths are shaped, programs are developed, and support is mobilized in the legislature and the voting booth.

3

To many, the "politics" of the steel dispute was transparent. Those who believed that President Truman made a "deal" with Philip Murray are matched by those who saw the steel companies' "refusal to bargain" as a conspiracy to force up prices, wreck economic controls, and discredit a Democratic President. Partisan suspicion is always a comforting substitute for hard thought and the search for evidence. In any great controversy, much action takes place in what Walter Lippmann has called the "unseen environment." Facts and experience which cannot be directly apprehended must be imagined. Actors and spectators alike saw only fragments of the play. For drama it was-excellent drama, providing conflict, suspense, denouement, and a plot whose progression no one could have guessed, least of all the participants who moved on and off the public stage.

Korea-persisted for fifty-three days. Before the strike was ended the stabilization program was damaged beyond hope of repair; the mobilization program was disrupted; the President and the Congress were embroiled in a bitter struggle; a constitutional crisis had developed; the Taft-Hartley Act assumed new prominence as a campaign issue; 1,200,000 steelworkers had lost an average of $600 each; and the nation had lost 20 million tons of badly needed steel, as well as some of its faith in collective bargaining and in government intervention.

ROOTS OF CONTROVERSY

The steel dispute had deep roots. It was enmeshed in the struggles over the Taft-Hartley Act, the alternative emergency machinery of the Defense Production Act of 1950, and the collapse and reconstitution of the Wage Stabilization Board.

The emergency provisions of Taft-Hartley precipitated a running conflict between the President and the Congress and between labor and management. Management, supported by majorities in the Congress, hoped the emergency provisions could curb the President, blunt the power of unions, and protect the nation from “national emergency" disputes. Unions professed to see the emergency provisions as a backward step to the hated "government by injunction." After 1948 President Truman used the emergency provisions of Taft-Hartley sparingly and reluctantly, much preferring the use of ad hoc fact-finding boards. Experience reinforced political predisposition. Taft-Hartley boards of inquiry generally proved to be hopelessly handicapped because they were forbidden to make recommendations. Fact-finding boards were flexible; they could mediate, make recommendations, report-suit their strategy to the case. The thinking of the White House was reflected in the establishment of the Steel Industry Board of 1949. The logic was this: why should an injunction be used if the parties would voluntarily agree to postpone a stoppage?

This approach placed President Truman squarely at loggerheads with the Congress and with management. The White House was severely criticized for "by-passing" Taft-Hartley, despite the historic recognition that in labor disputes as in other matters the President