FREE

AND

RESPONSIBLE

COLLECTIVE

BARGAINING

AND

INDUSTRIAL PEACE

Collective bargaining is an essential element of economic democracy,

The freedom-of-choice elements in collective bargaining derive from the basic principles of the free society and must be carefully preserved to help achieve our national goals.

It is equally important, at a time when world tensions underscore the need for democracy's institutions to work most effectively, that collective bargaining be responsive to the public, or common, interest.

The service of these coordinate purposes war. rants attention to two interrelated courses of action:

First, development by the parties to collective bargaining of improved methods for reconciling their separate and mutual interests with those of the larger community, and for reducing still further the extent of avoidable interruptions of operations:

Second, improvement in the procedures for enlisting the services of Government for the aid of collective bargaining when needed, particularly by strengthening the mediation process and by improving the procedures for handling disputes which threaten the national health and safety. I. Progress of Collective Bargaining

By free collective bargaining we mean the opportunity for labor and management to work out their own problems and to arrive at voluntary agreement concerning them. All members of this Committee are convinced that free collective bargaining should constitute the primary procedure by which the essential terms and conditions of employment shall be determined. Indeed, this is today, as it has been for at least a quartercentury, our declared national labor policy.

When obstinate industrial disputes have occurred, involving strikes in important industries. there has been an inclination to question the efficacy of collective bargaining. Its record emerges, nevertheless, as one of outstanding progress within a single generation. As a Nation we have acknowledged the right and desirability of workers to organize, to speak through representatives of their own choosing, and to negotiate with management over rates of pay, working conditions, job protection, and a variety of other forms of employee benefits.

Since 1947 the amount of working time lost because of strikes has averaged less than one-third of 1 percent. The record for the past 8-year period has been better than this. The total num. ber of work stoppages continues to decline, and the average length of strikes on the whole is decreasing.

Strikes over grievances have been substantially eradicated, by providing through collective bargaining for the use of voluntary, binding arbitration.

II. The Essential Freedom-of-Choice Elements in Collective Bargaining Must Be Preserved

The continuing recognition of the right of em ployers and unions to reject a proffered agreement, even at the expense of interrupting operations, has constituted an essential feature of free collective bargaining.

Recognizing this, we count it important to minimize interruptions of operations without destroying or impairing the essential economic motive force of free collective bargaining.

We note the importance of recognizing that the representatives of the parties have a duty to be responsive to the desires of their respective constituencies.

We are opposed to any governmental imposition in peacetime of substantive terms and conditions on the parties.

We reject the idea that there should be any legal requirement that disputes be resolved through compulsory arbitration. If the parties choose to submit their differences to arbitration, in which the award is final and binding, that is of course proper and compatible with the concept of free collective bargaining.

In the institution of free collective bargaining the objective is voluntary agreement arrived at through the process of reasoning and persuasion.

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As time moves on, we will expect to see less of the hostility which characterized collective bargaining in its early stages, and a greater degree of social responsibility. To the extent that it is possible to assist or encourage the parties to make better use of collective bargaining in the sense that they move more readily toward the desired objective, the process of free collective bargaining is promoted and effectuated. In proposing improved procedures, we seek to have collective bargaining become more effective and responsible, so that it may remain free.

III. Collective Bargaining Can and Should Be Strengthened by Making It More Responsive to the Public, or Common, Interest

Preserving the free and voluntary nature of decision making which collective bargaining represents requires a full realization by representatives of labor and management that the privilege they enjoy to agree or disagree on terms and conditions of employment can be preserved only if it is exercised responsibly.

We believe that the parties have for the most part learned to respect each other's responsibilities, with management recognizing the union's representative functions to advance the welfare of its

constituency and labor acknowledging the responsibilities which a system of private ownership and free competitive enterprise places on management to operate efficiently and profitably.

The growing complexities of our own indus trial society and the instabilities of the international setting now require that the parties recog nize not only their own individual responsibilities but their joint responsibility to the society of which they constitute an important and integra! part. This calls for improved private and public procedures and techniques and above all for an increased measure of maturity.

A. The Most Promising Opportunities for Making Cel lective Bargaining More Responsive to the Public Interest Lie With the Parties Themselves Collective bargaining implies necessarily the right of the parties to disagree. We also believe that in a mature labor-management relationship economic force should be resorted to only as an ultimate weapon and reserved for disputes which do not respond to other and more reasonable means of resolution. Its frequent and repeated use is a sign not only of unimaginativeness but also of a considerable degree of irresponsible inflexibility in one or both parties.

The role of the United States in its relations with the other nations of the world, its programs

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