The basic policies of the A.F. of L. remained unchanged during the first year of the war. In all of its official pronouncements the Federation urged the continued practice of free collective bargaining and deplored suggestions that working conditions be regulated or that unions be subjected to control. The problems of war man-power requirements, the Federation insisted, should be handled by voluntary, and not compulsory, measures. It successfully opposed proposals to freeze labor on the job or to punish absenteeism except where such arrangements were voluntarily entered into through agreements between labor and employers. The 40-hour week, which together with the additional hours worked in the form of overtime left the total hours per week substantially lower in the United States than in England or other warring countries, was retained on the grounds that organized labor should not be required to surrender any of its peace-time gains. Organizing activities, which doubtless had some effect on war production, were continued on a grander scale than ever, as the figures of growth in membership show.
By agreeing to suspend the right to strike for the duration of the war, the A.F. of L., in common with the C.I.O., looked to the Government for those concessions which it was now unable to win by collective bargaining or striking. In spite of the efforts of the Government to stabilize the cost of living, a goal which if achieved would be of profound benefit to labor, the program of wage control devised by the War Labor Board and aimed to keep wages from rising more than 15 per cent above their level of January 1941, permitted wages to increase, though perhaps not as fast as they would have moved in the absence of control. For the year as a whole factory wages advanced more than 10 per cent, not much less than in the year before.
Similarly the solution of the closed-shop issue, adopted by the War Labor Board, involved no great loss to the A.F. of L. Many of the affiliates of this organization, being old and firmly established, had in the past won closed-shop contracts in various industries. As war orders raised employment in these industries, the A.F. of L. unions were able to extend the closed-shop provisions to new plants and new employees. Where they were not so established, the maintenance of membership formula of the War Labor Board enabled them to keep in the union such members as they had and to require them to assume their union obligations.
Within its own ranks the Federation faced several disturbing jurisdiction disputes and the perennial problem of what to do about the mismanagement of constituent unions. Of the jurisdiction quarrels the most serious was the revolt of the welders against the machinists and other A.F. of L. unions. Working in a craft which had rapidly expanded during the war, the welders rebelled against joining and paying dues in more than one A.F. of L. union and against the management of their affairs by the parent organization. The result was a series of strikes in war plants and the formation of an independent welders' union. Issues concerning the conduct of affiliated unions were raised by charges and evidence of graft, racketeering and the like in the hod carriers' union. But in this case, as with the theatrical stage employees the year before, the Federation showed itself unable to reform the conduct of its national affiliates.
On several occasions unions of the Federation and the Federation itself came into conflict with the antitrust division of the Department of Justice. Mr. Thurman Arnold, director of that division, moved against Petrillo and the musicians' union for placing embargoes on certain types of broadcasts. In these proceedings, Arnold pursued the policy of holding unions responsible under the nation's anti-trust laws in respect of restrictive, anti-social, and monopolistic practices. The A.F. of L. adhered to its traditional position that unions were not intended to be subject to anti-trust legislation. In this position the A.F. of L. was supported by the Supreme Court which, in a decision issued March 2, held that the teamsters' union had not violated the federal anti-racketeering law when by threats and violence it forced truck owners to employ extra and useless help on their trucks.
Outwardly relations between the A.F. of L. and the C.I.O. seemed more friendly than ever before. They joined in supporting many measures of national labor policy. Representatives of both organizations met amicably on the joint labor committee, created by the President for consultation with him. On Dec. 2, the peace committee of the C.I.O. and the A.F. of L. decided that inter-union disputes be settled by a mutually-agreed upon arbitration machinery. But the principles which would be needed to guide such an arbitration board were not settled and existing jurisdictional quarrels threatened to leave peace negotiations as difficult as they had been since 1937, when the C.I.O. started on its career as a full-fledged federation of labor.
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