Open Shop--No Issue

Open Shop--No Issue

It is reported that some of President Harding's vacation advisers urged him to inaugurate an "open shop " campaign with a view to making the so-called "American plan " of labor policy a Republican plank in the next election. President Gompers of the A. F. of L. immediately issued an emphatic protest in which he compared the " open shop " advocates to the Italian Fascisti and wondered who would be their Mussolini.

President Harding, however, has shown both by his action and his words in the railroad and coal strikes that he is reluctant to take sides in industrial controversies. He expressly refused to associate himself with the earlier " open shop " propaganda which was successful in all but the strongest unions in 1920 and 1921, and denounced it as one of the most fruitful causes of industrial strife during the past twelve months. As a practical politician he doubtless realizes that an "open shop " campaign has little chance of success in a rising tabor market. When business conditions are bad and the surplus of workers is great, the unions can be weakened, if not actually destroyed, by "open shop" contracts which penalize the worker with discharge if he keeps his union card. But when business begins to revive, as it is reviving now, and unemployment vanishes, the demand for labor is too keen, and the opportunities of quick profits are too tempting to hazard the cost and wastefulness of strikes. It is then more feasible to admit unionism, even the closed shop, and to grant wage increases commensurate with the rise in prices.

The recent general wage advance in the textile industry is a case in point. As business continues to improve wage scales will rise in other basic industries. Political experts in the daily press declare that the leaders of both major parties are too shrewd and practical to make class conflict an issue in election campaigns. The probability of alienating the 5,000,000 organized labor votes in the country is too great.