-* not self-executing. In other words, legis-
lation would have to be passed in order
to enforce that provision of the constitu-
tion.

To have the amendment ruled as self-

“

|
{

,

a

enforcing in a state court, Watson
brought suit against several Florida em-
ployers who had signed closed shop
agreements with the unions represent-
ing their employees after the constitu-
tional amendment had been ratified. The
suits failed and essentially said that the
amendment was not self-executing.

It is interesting to note that the Florida
publishers, those who printed the State’s
major newspapers, had also signed a
closed shop agreement after the amend-
ment had passed, but they were not in-
cluded in the suit brought by Watson
against other employers who had done
the same thing. It is obvious that Watson
had no desire to alienate or bring the
wrath of the Florida newspaper

publishers down on his head.

.

»

WENT TO UNIONS

Having failed to have the amendment
backed up in the courts, Watson now
went to the unions and the employers
and asked for voluntary compliance with
the amendment. It appears that neither
the majority of employers nor unions
were in favour of voluntary compliance
and this initiative also failed.

Watson was still unwilling to accept
defeat. With all the avenues of law and
voluntary compliance exhausted,
Watson turned to the only road left open
to him, the violent one. He brought into
the State a privately organized and fi-
nanced open shop outfit from Arkansas
to start a similar organization in Florida.
On May 26, 1946 Watson announced that

a Veterans Industrial Association (VIA) -

had been chartered in Florida to “back
up” the State’s “right to work” policy.

JAMES KARAM LEADER

The VIA was lead by a man named
James Karam who had started the or-
ganization in Arkansas to enforce that
State’s right to work constitutional
amendment through the use of violence,
threats and intimidation. The VIA main-
tained that it was not “anti-labour,” (in

_ fact the organization had organized

some workers into open shop unions), it
Was just “anti-closed shop.” However,
whether or not the VIA was really not
anti-labour is debatable. The following
significant statement, attributed to VIA
sident James Karam in the Miami

7 leaves doubts as to how pro-
ur the VIA really was. The story said
the VIA would fight against the
' ? ia if the law refuses its

.

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

statement Karam also said that the VIA
intended to set up units in a total of
fifteen southern states “‘to prevent the
labour unions from controlling the south
as they do the north.”

It should be noted that Attorney
General Watson, an elected representa-
tive of the people, invited this type of or-
ganization into the State, to harass and
intimidate the very people he was sworn
to protect.

In fact Watson was quoted as saying
he “rejoiced” at the arrival of Karam and
his VIA in Florida. Watson knew full well
the kinds of tactics that the VIA had
used to enforce so-called right to work in
Arkansas and he was obviously prepared
to see and support the same kinds of
things in his own state.

A split developed between Watson
and Karam shortly after the VIA arrival in
Florida. Apparently Watson refused to
support a strike at Orlando which the
VIA had started after the employer re-
fused to recognize the VIA as bargaining
agent. The Florida press had a field day
with the squabbles between Watson and
Karam with both parties levelling vicious
charges at each other. Karam insisted
that Watson was just plain anti-labour
and not only anti-closed shop. Karam left
Florida still owing wages to a number of
men he had hired to act as “enforcers.”

Shortly after his flight from Florida it
was reported that the VIA head office in
Little Rock, Arkansas had closed and
Karam had disappeared owing wages to
his employees and other bills.

DEMISE OF VIA

So ended Watson’s attempt to enforce
the right to work in Florida. Shortly after
the demise of the VIA, Watson again
came to the fore with an announcement
that he and others were forming a
national open shop union. Following an
initial meeting to get the new “union” on
the road nothing was heard of it again.

It is farily obvious that the so-called
right to work movement between 1941
and 1946 was really no different than the
open shop drive at the turn of the cen-
tury or the “American Plan” campaign
after World War |. The major difference
between the right to work movement in
Washington and Florida and its prede-

_ cessors was that the open shop drive and

the American Plan made no pretext of
being anything other than a movement
to end the closed shop. They did not
cloak their purpose in patriotism, they
accused no one of collecting tribute,
they accused no one of any illegal action,
they simply said they refused to
recognize the closed shop and would do
everything in their power to see that it
did not directly affect them. Blatantly
anti-worker and anti-labour yes
dishonest no.

One thing that becomes very clear
from looking at the earliest beginnings

the term

of right to work is the fact that it had no
resemblance in definition to that which
we hear today. Nowhere during its
history did anyone ever assume that
such legislation would give anyone any
rights or jobs by the legislation alone.
The authors of the legislation never used
“right to work’ as meaning
rights or developing employment for the
unemployed, as those who now support
right to work will give working people
rights and work is just that — a myth. It
is a myth perpetrated on working people
by those who would see profits increase
at the expense of working people’s right
to organize and bargain collectively.

Although Attorney General Watson
was not successful in his bid to see
Florida’s right to work amendment en-
forced, he did not have to wait long for
the Federal government to pass legisla-
tion that would allow the states, at their
discretion, to pass enabling legislation
that outlawed the closed shop and
destroyed union security.

NOT ONLY BATTLE

The battle in Florida to. introduce and
enforce the so-called right to work law
was not the only battle going on to get —
rid of the closed shop and destroy union
security. In Arkansas, another southern
state, a similar constitutional amend-
ment outlawing the closed shop was
passed in 1944 shortly after Florida had
done so. Arkansas was followed by

Arizona, Nebraska and South Dakota in!
1946.

Like Florida, the other states that
passed constitutional amendments
without enabling legislation were faced
with the problem of enforcing the
constitution. None of the amendments
were self-executing and industry and
labour were not excited by the govern-
ment’s offer of voluntary compliance.

In 1947 the center of attention shifted
from those states who were struggling
to enact and enforce their own open
shop laws, back to the Federal scene,

where a piece of legislation \ was being
introduced.

TAFT-HARTLEY ACT

The new legislation was the Taft-
Hartley, Act.. Taft-Hartley. was really
nothing more than a series of right wing
amendments to the Wagner Act of 1935. ©
With regards to the so-called right to
work plan, the Taft-Hartley Bill did a
number of things. It introduced what
was to become the “‘union shop”, a
method by which a union and
management could negotiate a clause
into a collective agreement that made it
a condition of employment for new

employees to join the union thirty days —
after being hired.

TO BE CONTINUED —