Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
All of us realize that productivity--increased output per man--is in the
long run the basis of our standard of living. Management especially must
realize that if labor is to work wholeheartedly for an increase in
production, workers must be given a just share of increased output in
higher wages.
Most industries and most companies have adequate leeway within which to
grant substantial wage increases. These increases will have a direct effect
in increasing consumer demand to the high levels needed. Substantial wage
increases are good business for business because they assure a large market
for their products; substantial wage increases are good business for labor
because they increase labor's standard of living; substantial wage
increases are good business for the country as a whole because capacity
production means an active, healthy, friendly citizenry enjoying the
benefits of democracy under our free enterprise system.
Labor and management in many industries have been operating successfully
under the Government's wage-price policy. Upward revisions of wage scales
have been made in thousands of establishments throughout the Nation since
VJ-day. It is estimated that about 6 million workers, or more than 20
percent of all employees in nonagricultural and nongovernmental
establishments, have received wage increases since August 18, 1945. The
amounts of increases given by individual employers concentrate between 10
and 15 percent, but range from less than 5 percent to over 30 percent.
The United States Conciliation Service since VJ-day has settled over 3,000
disputes affecting over 1,300,000 workers without a strike threat and has
assisted in settling about 1,300 disputes where strikes were threatened
which involved about 500,000 workers. Only workers directly involved, and
not those in related industries who might have been indirectly affected,
are included in these estimates.
Many of these adjustments have occurred in key industries and would have
seemed to us major crises if they had not been settled peaceably.
Within the framework of the wage-price policy there has been definite
success, and it is to be expected that this success will continue in a vast
majority of the cases arising in the months ahead.
However, everyone who realizes the extreme need for a swift and orderly
reconversion must feel a deep concern about the number of major strikes now
in progress. If long continued, these strikes could put a heavy brake on
our program.
I have already made recommendations to the Congress as to the procedure
best adapted to meeting the threat of work stoppages in Nation-wide
industries without sacrificing the fundamental rights of labor to bargain
collectively and ultimately to strike in support of their position.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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