Knock on Wood

When two Tennessee Democrats pulled together enough votes on Wednesday to kill the Wood Bill, alias the Taft-Hartley Law, there were immediate cries of triumph from labor and its backers. By the next morning, however, the smoke had cleared sufficiently to reveal one depressing fact: the Taft-Hartley statue was still on the books. As long as it says there, we haven't come back very far from the nadir of June, 1947, when the law was passed.

It should be obvious by now that in spite of what the voters endorsed in November, Congress is not going to indulge in any whole-hearted repeal of Taft-Hartley. If Administration leaders had been alert enough to compromise at the right moment, they could have put through a bill which might have repealed such legislative larceny as the ban on the closed shop even if it retained items like the non-communist affidavit and the union financial reports. They missed their opportunity; it will now be increasingly difficult to pass any new law with the opposition unified.

There are some hopeful factors, however. The agreement of Democratic leaders to frame a bill which "the party could support" might pick up enough votes to pass the House and still re-legalize the closed shop, clean up the non-voting rules which now disenfranchise strikers in plant elections, and provide for legal machinery less abrupt, than the present injunctions rules. In the Senate, there is some hope of compromise between the Administration bill and a minority proposal drawn up this week by Senator Taft. In both Houses, though, labor forces will have to contend with stubborn opposition from Republicans and Southerners--opposition which is itself past the point of compromise.

The best hopes for a new labor bill now rest with the Congressional committees which must frame new bills: The Democratic majorities have one more chance to compromise intelligently. If the Taft-Hartley Law remains in effect, many small inequities will continue--not to mention big ones like the closed shop ban. The National Labor Relations Board will have to continue operating under a law parts of which both labor and management have attacked violently; it will be forced to go on throwing out the cases of unions whose officers object to non-communist affidavits or the required finance reports.

A new labor law is badly needed. It is needed so badly that President Truman cannot afford to match his stubbornness and pride with that of the opposition. If any one thing is obvious from the first quarter of the 81st Congress, it is that the Fair Deal is going to get no free ride. Truman can do much by astute juggling; the labor bill should be the first item on the program.