Labor Trouble Caused by Not Determining Who Their Representatives Shall be, Declares Slichter

"The present difficult labor situation in the country is the logical result of a law that stipulates that men shall have the right to bargain collectively, through representatives of their own choosing, without providing a method of determining who those representatives are," declared Sumner H. Slichter, Professor of Business Economics in the Graduate School of Business Administration, in a recent interview with the CRIMSON.

"Hundreds of companies have given representation to their men through plant committees or so-called 'company unions'. In many of these same plants labor unions claim the membership of a majority of the men and demand the right to represent them. The crucial issue is: Who represents the men? If this one issue could be settled, other matters would cause no insurmountable difficulties.

"Underlying the present acute labor difficulties, and in the last analysis accounting for them, is the fact that virtually overnight we are attempting to introduce revolutionary changes in the industrial mores of the country. Until last summer four out of five employees were working under individual bargaining. Now we are attempting to make a sudden shift to collective bargaining and joint relations. Neither capital nor labor is well-prepared to assume so suddenly the new responsibilities imposed on each side by the NRA. In most plants each side lacks experience in dealing with the other; each lacks men trained in collective bargaining. Employers are not well-acquainted with the new leaders of labor who have sprung up in various plants, do not understand the policies of labor organizations, or the reasons that lie behind them. The new leaders of labor do not understand the problems of the employer. Each side more or less fears the other and lacks confidence in the other. If is not surprising that an attempt to introduce such drastic and sudden changes in industrial practices should give rise to many acute labor difficulties. Indeed it is remarkable that strikes have not been more numerous."