Franklin D. Roosevelt

Statement on a Conference on Wartime Labor Policy.

December 11, 1941

The President today issued invitations for a conference to be held between industry and labor to consider the problem of labor disputes during the war.

The President invited the Presidents of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations each to designate six representatives from different unions affiliated with their organizations. He also invited the Chairman of the Business Advisory Council of the Department of Commerce to choose, after appropriate consultation, twelve representatives of industrial management. He will later appoint someone to serve as Moderator and Associate Moderator.

The conference will be held at Washington and will commence during the early part of the week of December 15.

The first and essential objective of the conference will be to reach a unanimous agreement to prevent the interruption of production by labor disputes during the period of the war. It is not expected that there will be any hesitation on the part of either labor or industry to accept this basic condition of the Nation's safety.

The conferees doubtless will find it necessary to agree upon machinery by which these disputes may amicably and finally be Settled. It is thought this machinery might include appropriate procedures for adjusting disputes, for mediation, and for resort in defense industries to some tribunal whose decisions will be binding by agreement on all parties. But it is for the conferees to decide what form the machinery shall take so long only as an agreement is reached. Since the efficacy of that agreement will depend upon the voluntary cooperation of all concerned, emphasis is placed on the fact that it must represent a unanimous accord.

The agreement, it is pointed out, might include or be followed by an agreement defining appropriate practices for both labor and management to secure maximum production for war needs. In view of the gravity of the emergency now confronting this country, the President urges that the conferees reach a conclusion, at least upon the primary agreement preventing interruptions to production, and report to him within a very few days after convening.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Statement on a Conference on Wartime Labor Policy. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/210435

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