Yourwar vourwages m_,,/A. L Z , WV, . . 5»/r.rvn.V.l mzv mm nu: nnor onus This started out to be I-Iitler’s War and Tojo’s War. At first they had the gangster’s- advantage of surprise. They had the Stukas and the jungle guerrillas ready for action. They got the jump on us by wanting war. ' It became our War when we saw What they were after. Hitler b_e- gan pushing Workers around 111 1933, the year when America first passed a law protecting la- . bor’s right to organize. Japan cracked‘ its last trade union in 1938. When workers under Fascism were losing the last of their liberties, America was adopting collective bargaining. That the two systems can’t live in the same world became apparent when U-boats began jogging the American continent on one elbow and Jap bombers on the other. It's your war now. Your wages in your war are the Nation’s biggest item of‘pro- duction cost. A destroyer in the Solomons fights carried 1,700,000 hours of your labor. Your Government has to be the over-all manager of this fight- responsible that We produce Weapons to top the sweat-shop production of guns “Made in Japan.” And as anequal military necessity Government must see that your Wages maintain stand- ards Which will provide the food, clothes, and housing to keep you fighting at top physical, condition. Government has other worries. The farmer, the manufacturer, and the wife who does the mar- keting—they all must have pro- tection and they all must play a part in putting What he needs into the soldier’s hands. DANGER AHEAD The radio from Berlin, pret_end— ing it came from our own Mi — West, has been whispering to the American people: “Spend freely. Go into debt and buy things while they’re still cheap. Buy a lot of stufl for yourself!” Those soft Whispers carried Hit1er’s hope that America would cut its own eco- nomic throat . . . that many bids for the same object would sky- rocket its price . . . that the cost of living would get out of hand to the point where the no-strike pledge would crack, and the pro- duction of tanks and planes and guns would go down and down and down. A It was as simple as that, and it almost happened. The dairy farmer wanted a higher price for his milk"so~that' he could«afl"ord the higher price of a pair of shoes. The shoe worker needed a raise to buy milk at the new high level. We were on our _way, and all it needed was for everyone to get scared at once. Grab what you can! Buy now! Get profits, wages, higher prices! . . . That was a sucker’s game. Hitler's gamble. He was just smart enough to know that a democracy moves slowly. But as it happens we outsmarted him. We saw that the little steps-— some rationing here, a few moves to stop price rises-—were not enough. nsmoonncv um Acnou Congress hitched up its pants and Went into action on October 2, 1942. Its emergency measure stabilized both farm prices and industrial wages, making due al- lowance for the possible injustices you can’t meet in advance. And» it put floors under both farm prices and wage scales. Things happen fast when a democracy squares off for action. Witliin 15_ hours after the act’s passage the President set top prices for 90 percent of the coun- try’s food bill; fixed country and city rent ceilings from coast to coast; defined standards for prices and Wages; and said that no American should have more than $25,000 salary after meeting his fixed debts. On the same day a Supreme Court Justice resigned his lifetime job with the speed of a Volunteer fireman answering a call to a brush fire next to the gasoline tank. This is how James F. 1Byrnes felt about it: “Intime of peace I would not‘ resign from the Su- preme Court to accept any office. In the situation now confronting the Nation I could not decline to serve ~ Wherever the Commander in Chief requests.” On that same October 5, Price Administrator Henderson extend- ed price ceilings over foods not yet covered——over butter, eggs, cheese, chickens, flour, citrus fruits, nearly everything in the family budget except seasonal items such as fresh fruits and fish. This is a people's War, and on the Economic Stabilization Board will sit two representatives each of labor, management, and farm- ers, along With Cabinet oflicers and the heads of war agencies. Right across the board! Worl<- ers, farmers, industry, and Gov- ernment sitting across the table -where the grievances of each get top attention and where the de- mands of any group must be good to get by the others. This is de- mocracy’s own technique, learned in the shop committee, seasoned by wage negotiations with indus- try, and now applied to the big show itself. The lines run sure and fast from the people to their leaders, and through them into national action toward Victory. EOUALITY OF SACRIFICE Since this is a people’s war, it _ will be fought with equality of sacrifice. Except when the stand- ard of sacrifice is death in action. There is no parity for a leg lost at Bataan. You can’t bargain collectively with a torpedo com- ing broadside at a tanker. Equal~ ity of sacrifice is a yardstick for use at home. The dirt farmer with his boys gone off to war sleeps with his boots on. The Worker comes home on the bus, dog-tired. His turret lathe and the farmer’s cow have this much in common——they take a lot of tending. There is not much ease in life these days, either for the general manager of a bomber plant or for the general manager of Joe Doak’s household. Who gains? .‘§X'/hat makes sacri- fice Vital to winning the war? . . . The United States is a com- . plicated industrial n a t i o ,n——-a gigantic balance between many group interests—and the speed and quantity of war production stimulates economic fevers which peacetime remedies can’t cure. Those fevers weakened us in the_ last World War. They threaten us now. . . . IT ALL HAPPENE BEFORE - In 1917 war workers jitneyed from town to town insearch of higher wages. They tripled up in “hot” beds. Employers pirated skilled workers. Wage rates va- ried for the same job in adjoining plants. Tempers went high and morale low. There were 4,450 strikes in 1917. And there were the same crack- ‘ downs. The Government seized the plants of employers who re- fused to obey the War Labor Board. Wildcat strikers were told to Work or fight. In time of war,_ collective bargaining must flow between narrower banks. In 1918 the cost of living went ‘right out of bounds. Salariea workers took it on the chin, and even the high-wage war industry Workers had most of their gains taken away from them by high prices. The bituminous coal miner had his wages doubled; but the higher cost of living left his purchasing power at less than 50 cents a day higher than it had . been 4 years before in 1914. WE GATT LET THAT HAPPEN NOW All we have, and all we ever hope to have, is at stake. The German and Japanese gamblers have greedy eyes on our harbors, our wheat fields, our mines and our mills.» We didn’t ask to sit in on this global red-dog game, but We’re in it. One lucky_break . . . We saw it coming. ' Instead of Waiting for one year to set up a War Labor Board (as happened in 1917) We put the National Defense Media- tion Board into operation 9 months before Pearl Harbor, and a seasoned War Labor Board 5 weeks after the Japs struck. We had to be better this time; 1917 pr.oduction was simple. Standardized uniforms, rifles, guns, trucks, ships, -and a few small tanks and a few light airplanes. It was a manpower war. Today the first line is still the fighting man+but he‘ must have the most technically perfect tanks, mosquito boats, and pursuit planes you can‘ give him. No American worker is being kidded when he is told today that the life of a man in uniform lies in his hands. Labor made the sacrifices in- volved in conversion and de- manded more and faster conver- sion. I.abor’s no~strike pledge had rank and file conviction behind it. American workers only Wanted assurance that there would be machinery to adjust the wage disputes which, because of the war, they could no longer settle on the picket line. The decisions of the War Labor Board stuck, because labor had a share in making them. But in its first months the ‘War Labor Board itself was navigating in tricky tides of rising prices and rising production costs. If work-. ers should agree to tie their wages to the cost of living, what might happen if prices skyrocketed? A 10-cent-an-hour raise in nor- mal times means that $4 more worth of goods can be bought on Saturday night. But supposing that prices meanwhile rise high enough to absorb that $4-then what has been the use of the long arguments before a Government agency to Win that 10 cents an hour? None! On April 27, 1942, President Roosevelt spoke . . . Wage and farm prices must be stabilized, excess profits taxed away, ceilings placed on rents and prices. The worker,’ the farmer, and the businessman must pull together. Democracies move slowly be- cause a majority has to be con- vinced. From May to October 1942 was a period for tooling-up ideas . . . converting a loose sys— tem into an over-all plan. Farm prices inched ahead. Wages made some gains. It seemed clear that excess profits and income needed paring down. Congress and the country listened to group claims. Anri«—by way of contrast to the deliberate, powerful strides of de- mocracy——.in those same 5 months French Workers were being shot for sabotage, Dutch Workers were being shanghaied to slavery, and Poles were matching with shovels on their shoulders to dig their own graves. Nazi methods and ours were never further apart than on October 3, 1942. Here is the over-all pro- gram which the President’s Executive Order that day laid down: 6 The D nomié Stabilization will be in Command. It will be his duty for the duration to keep wages, farm prices, and incomes in 21 fixed re- lationship to each other. " csss mm: TAX Corporations will not profiteer. War products are intended to be blown up in Hit1er’s face. They. can never return a cent to the investor, Government. The cost of bombs is a tax on us all, and excess profits from making them shall be taxed back into the Treas- ury of the Government.- s25,oooLm1r i iprofiteer. The salary limit of $2 5,000 after obligations is a token that managerial talent must accept limited reward. ndiuls will not‘ Prics paid to farmers, market-basket prices, and rents will be’ held level. The War Labor Board, composed of public, labor, and industry members, will carry out wage policy. WLB is Nationvaide. x @ WLB must a.pprov.e all Wage Changes. It will approve increases only if “such increase is necessary gm to correct maladjustments or inequalities, to eliminate substandards i of living, to correct gross inequities, or to aid in the eflective prosecution of the war.” The hard-won rights bf labor shall not be 0st. The Wage and Hour law remains. So does the protection of the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act. The labor standards for Government,’ contractors, as setfin the Walsh§Healey and "ADavis-‘Bacon Acts, shall 'ii.1ij_1ot "be abandoned because of war. The policy of the’%;Governmen;t to en- courage ‘free collectiire bar- gaining is reaffirmed. NOW AND LATER Union and nonunion ‘Workers, women new to overalls, nonwar workers, the old ship’s carpenter and the kid who quit high school to make P-47’s—they all come under the protection and the re- straints of democratic controls. Wages are stabilized, not frozen. To freeze wages would be to freeze injustices. The War Labor Board, through 10 regional 3r1.d_ more than 70 Wage-Hour Division oPfices, is now set up to speed field action and Board rul- ings on Wage adjustment requests. Th€f_€ is nO_ pretending that col1€Ct1Ve bargalfling can operate without restrictions during war, The Government is charged with producing the right weapons and enough of them to defeat a pow- erful enemy. War cannot permit the free play between proposal and counterproposal which is the essence of negotiation in time of peace. This would get out of hand, delaying and defeating pro- duction, ruining the lives of Work- ers by letting wages and prices play dangerous tag with each other. Remember, the highest industrial wage scales in the world were being nibbled away until we acted to plug the rat- holes. Collective bargaining is not dead. It is mobilized for the duration. There is still ample room for it to operate where wage scales are grossly unequal or living standards are endangered. Its greatest opportunity lies in carrying on the War effort by di- recting labor’s collective strength and skill toithe goal of maximum national production. After the war, whether at home or in that outraged Europe Where fat Hermann Goering is starving workers to feed his pigs, we Americans are going to have a job to do. The World we want is one in which the Norwegian sailor can drop into see his sister in Brook- lyn; the Minnesota farmer can sell his crop for use either in Connecticut flapjacks or _in bread to feed a French kid; where Lidice, Illinois, can drink Wiscon- sin milk out of Czech tumblers. To win our Way through to a sane, friendly world We must practice national thrift, so that, today, we can have reasonably priced bombs to blast Berlin,‘ and, tomorrow, reasonably priced Wheat to feed ourselves and to strengthen the weakened bodies of the world’s maltreated peoples. Vice President Wallace summed up our aims when he said: “Strong in the strength of the Lord, We who fight in the people's cause will never stop until that cause is won." This is a publication about ‘the war. When you have finished reading it, please pass it on to a neighbor or a friend for further circulation. For additional copies, write to DIVISION OF PUBLIC INQUIRIES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION Washington, D. G. --ts‘ -— ,,g;:’/ ;?:_.;/;A 7; i”1I?eiii()\s’l 1; —.\’-’. ././2: S -I; III,';;4'/,_'k3‘4'~K,é\)"\‘~“-‘ s ' / ”«///’// nln '\‘_Ii xx _\‘0“--