tion in the merged federation"; and protection from corruption and Communist or any other undermining influences. Internal machinery was to be provided to implement the principle of nondiscrimination, and to handle problems of corruption and Communist influences.

The positive and constructive role of the united trade union movement was delineated by Secretary of Labor James P. Mitchell when he said at the merger convention:

I believe that the size of this great federation will make it able to do a more effective job in serving the welfare of its members and the Nation as a whole, in bringing the benefits of trade unionism to those not now enjoying its protection and advantages, and in making for greater labor-management peace between responsible unions on the one hand and responsible management on the other.

I believe that labor's voice in public affairs should be heard loud and clear. I believe that as American citizens you have a duty and responsibility to make your voice heard.

The leaders of this organization have stated clearly that they do not intend to try to control the votes of union members. They have stated that labor does not intend to create a powerful economic pressure group or political pressure bloc. They intend instead to keep their members informed on all issues affecting the electorate, especially those affecting workers, so that workers can exercise their privilege and responsibility to participate freely in the Government of their country.

No one can object to that kind of political activity.

Relations Among Unions. To the evidences of restraint on encroachment were added many instances of positive actions contributing to unity involving both AFL and CIO unions in the shoe, aluminum, meatpacking, and other industries. A joint AFL-CIO maritime organizing committee was organized on the rivers (but offshore maritime unions were still far removed from unified action). AFL and CIO Clothing and Textile unions jointly sponsored a program for increasing the Federal minimum wage from 75 cents to $1.25. Longstanding jurisdictional disputes involving the Machinists and the Iron Workers, and the Meat Cutters and the Retail Clerks (all formerly AFL affiliates) were ended by agreements. The CIO

In a situation involving St. Paul Brewery Workers, the CIO Executive Board had charged the Teamsters with raiding.

See excerpts of papers presented at CIO Conference on Automation, Monthly Labor Review, May 1955 (p. 519).

'The subcommittee did not recommend any specific broad-gage legislation, "and the very good reason for this is that we already have on our statute books the Employment Act of 1946." Automation and Technological Change, Report of the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization to the Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 1955 (p. 12). For a summary of the subcommittee's inquiry, see Monthly Labor Review, January 1956 (p. 7).

Oil Workers and Chemical Workers merged, and the CIO Packinghouse Workers and AFL Meat Cutters were in the process of merger.

Developments resulting from the reaffiliation efforts of unions expelled from the AFL and CIO for corruption and Communist domination, however, raised problems for the new organization. In one situation, the Teamsters union carried on negotiations with the International Longshoremen's Association which had been expelled from the AFL in 1953. The AFL Executive Committee, however, refused to permit the Teamsters to absorb the ILA. The negotiations culminated in a mutual assistance pact negotiated with three regional divisions of the Teamsters. The Teamsters also entered a mutual assistance pact with the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers which had been expelled from the CIO in 1950 for Communist domination; this pact impinged upon the jurisdiction of the Steelworkers. In the case of the Meat Cutters and the independent Fur Workers, however, the AFL Executive Board permitted a merger, but only after it was satisfied that the Fur Workers had eliminated its former Communist leadership.

Automation. Rising production without a parallel rise in employment made the impact of automation a matter of substantial concern to labor during 1955. Early in the year the CIO held an automation conference, and requested congressional exploration of the problem. Later, testifying before a subcommittee of the congressional Joint Committee on the Economic Report, union officials called for joint government, industry, and labor action to ensure that the long-run benefits of automation were not negated by its short-run dislocations. The subcommittee's recommendations stressed the importance of maintaining a "good, healthy, dynamic, and prospering economy, so that those who lose out at one place as a consequence of progressive technology will have no difficulty in finding a demand for their services. elsewhere in the economy." "

7

Legislative and Court Actions. The AFL-CIO viewed the increase in the minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 as the outstanding achievement of the 1955 session of Congress. The administration was criticized for endorsing an increase to only 90 cents and for "withdrawing" its proposal for extension of coverage.

Secretary of Labor Mitchell's determination of a nationwide prevailing minimum wage for cotton and other textiles under the Walsh-Healey Act was the subject of two decisions (Mitchell v. Covington Mills). A Federal district court decision. forbidding the Secretary to set minimum wages on a national basis was reversed in December by an appellate decision. The latter decision is based on recognition of the industrywide nature of competition in the textile industry.

Failure to propose revisions in the Taft-Hartley Act was also criticized. The AFL-CIO resolved to continue to fight for amendment of the TaftHartley Act and the repeal of the so-called "right to work" statutes now in effect in 18 States. The latter were characterized as "State antiunion laws," having their genesis in section 14 (b) of the National Labor Relations Act.

There was substantial activity on labor legislation in State legislatures during the course of the year. Particularly noteworthy were the enactment of a new "right to work" law in Utah, the 18th State to enact such legislation, and the veto of such a statute in Kansas. New Hampshire, Texas, and Wisconsin passed statutes prohibiting unions from making financial contributions to campaign funds, making five States with such legislation. Workmen's compensation benefits were raised in 33 States, and maximum weekly unemployment insurance benefits were increased in 32 States. Trade unions, while acknowledging the improvement in workmen's compensation and unemployment compensation laws, held that the "net gains do not warrant the enthusiastic claims made in some quarters that labor made unprecedented gains."

National Labor Relations Board. The Board's decisions generally amplified and applied the policymaking decisions reached in 1954.

The AFL-CIO continued the premerger criticism of the National Labor Relations Board on the grounds that the Board has become employer oriented. Specific complaints include what labor terms restrictions of the Board's jurisdiction, sanction of employer statements of "coercive character" under the "guise of protecting free speech," and alteration of the captive audience doctrine.

There was continuing labor interest during 1955 in cases further developing the doctrine that Federal law prevents States from interfering in labor relations matters subject to the National Labor Relations Act.10 In one case (Weber et al. v. Anheuser-Busch), the Supreme Court overruled a State action invoking a State antitrust law to enjoin picketing reasonably coming under the Taft-Hartley law. In Amalgamated Clothing Workers et al. v. Richman Brothers, however, the Court held that Federal courts could not interfere at the request of a private party in a proceeding in a State court, even though the question was one properly under the Taft-Hartley Act; they could intervene only at request of the NLRB. The Court held that section 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act does not give Federal courts jurisdiction over a union's suit for wages allegedly owed its members under a collective bargaining contract (Westinghouse Salaried Employees v. Westinghouse Electric Corp.).

Labor and International Affairs

The AFL-CIO merger was preceded this year by joint action in international labor affairs, not the first instance of such cooperation. Most recently the two federations prepared a common policy for the meeting of the Fourth World Congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions held in Vienna in May." It opposed any reduction in the Armed Forces of the United States and called for economic aid to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Both federations also agreed to boycott the meeting in Venezuela of the Petroleum Industry Committee of the International Labor Organization (ILO), protesting the suppression of trade union rights there.

At the 38th session of the ILO, the American delegation, noting that the question of forced labor had been placed on the agenda of the 1956

See State Unemployment Insurance Legislation in 1955, Monthly Labor Review, January 1956 (p. 34), State Labor Legislation in 1955, Monthly Labor Review, December 1955 (p. 1464), and State Workmen's Compensation Legislation in 1955, Monthly Labor Review, November 1955 (p. 1245). It was noted, too, that "there is ample evidence that large funds are being raised to push various anti-labor legislation proposals in both the Congress and the State legislatures." AFL, Report of the Executive Council, 74th Convention, 1955 (p. 143).

10 See p. 164 of this issue.

11 See The Fourth World Congress of the ICFTU, May 1955, Monthly Labor Review, July 1955 (p. 785).

conference, proposed that the ILO should do everything in its power to combat forced labor everywhere it exists. The United States worker delegate at that session disapproved the position taken by the American employer delegate, who had refused to serve on any committees in which employer delegates from the Soviet sphere were participating.12

At the merger convention, AFL-CIO President George Meany sounded the keynote of the American trade union position on international

12 In expressing disapproval, however, George P. Delaney, United States worker delegate, said: "But I should be the first to defend [the employer delegate] if someone said he had to keep silent or take instructions from a "Big Brother' in a Government office in Washington."

affairs when he stated that "labor has never been neutral in its relations with dictatorship or tyranny" whether Fascist or Communist. The convention called for the buildup of democratic political unity, economic power, and military strength, while never precluding negotiations with Soviet Russia. The integration of American foreign political and economic policies was stressed as an essential concomitant of improving the living standards of democratic but economically underdeveloped countries. While supporting cultural exchange, the merged organization opposed the sending of delegations of free labor to any country which outlaws free trade unions.

As a Factor in Economic Growth

CHARLES D. STEWART*

IF GROWTH is defined to include all of the components of economic progress, the increased leisure accompanying the general reduction of the workweek ranks high as a component of the level of living which has been achieved through economic progress in the last half century in this country. Leisure is a characteristic feature of the economic growth that the Nation has achieved.

The decrease in working time represents a substitution of leisure for an increment that alternatively would have been obtainable in the form of additional goods and services. Its economic value can be approximated by the goods and services which have been sacrificed for leisure. This, however, is only a crude approximation. On the production side, the efficiency of labor has been enhanced by improvements in physical health, reduction of fatigue, increased opportunities for training, etc. To the degree that leisure has taken the form of postponed labor force entry and better educational training, the efficiency of labor is also higher than what it would be otherwise. On the consumption side, increased leisure has been a contributing factor to the pressures which expand the standard of living and thus the level of living in terms of consumption of goods and services.

The demand for shorter hours was commonly influenced by fears of unemployment, technological and otherwise, and considerations of bargaining power. It is not easy to disentangle the drive for shorter hours from other factors or to determine to what degree bargaining for shorter hours and higher wage rates was predicated on views as to the possibility of increasing labor's share of

degree there was the same belief in the certainty of a constantly rising real income via economic progress and thus a conscious formulation, as now, on the part of labor, that shortening of hours represents one way of taking part of the social gain in real output without loss of any part of present levels of consumption.

In the present paper, the effort is made to quantify the implications of a 30-hour week for the structure of output and expenditures in the United States in the next 15 years. This is attempted by the projection of output and expenditures by general categories for 1960, 1965, and 1970, using basic and alternative models in terms of constant 1954 dollars. The results are summarized briefly in table 1.