This provision may mean a great deal or very little, according as the
Court and the higher courts interpret the idea of "reasonable
continuity." If it is taken to mean simply that the enterprises covered
by the act should not limit production in accordance with some agreement
with each other in order to increase profits, or to fight the unions, it
will have little or no importance as regards the question of security of
employment. And that is probably the interpretation that will be given
to it. It will be hardly possible to work out a plan for regularity of
operation by mandate of a court, and under penalty. Such rules and
practices as the Court may lay down will probably take cognizance of the
laws of the market which ordinarily govern business operations. To rule
otherwise would mean embarking upon a comprehensive reform of business
operations; it would necessitate the development of some other gauge of
business operation than business profits.
Only one case which has come before the Court has brought up this
question of continuity of operation. The Court investigated a complaint
that the flour mills at Topeka were reducing production. It found that
the mills were running at sixty per cent. capacity; and that the cause
of this reduced operation was a falling off in the flour market, due to
world-wide economic changes beyond the control of the industry and the
Court. The Court found this limitation of production not unreasonable.
It gave no sign of making any radical use of its powers to control the
regularity of production, nor of interfering with the ordinary processes
of business operation. This policy it tempered with concern for the
workers--suggesting to the millers that they put their "skilled and
faithful" employees on a monthly pay system. It appointed a committee to
draw up rules and regulations to be observed in the operation of the
industry, and to keep it informed.
5.--In the coming years there will take place in the United States much
controversy and a great variety of experiments in wage settlement. To
the realists of all parties, this course of controversy and
experimentation will appear to be only a struggle for power. To the
rest, it may appear that there are ideas at work; ideas springing partly
from the example of political change, and partly from the fact that the
industrial world has undergone such a rapid revolution. It is impossible
to predict the ideas which will have the most abiding force. It is
impossible even to assert that society will make a satisfactory choice
among them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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