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THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Wheatley.
DELEGATE WHEATLEY: Mr. Chair-
man, fellow delegates, the issue presented
by this amendment, I think is a relatively
clear one: has a right not previously recog-
nized, developed in the last century, which
now warrants constitutional recognition?
Certainly reasonable men and women can
disagree on this answer. I, however, think
that answer should be affirmative. In the
last century the right to bargain collec-
tively by representatives of one's own
choosing has won almost universal accept-
ance.
The issue before us today is not one of
union shop or open shop. These decisions
if made at all, occur as secondary ques-
tions to be reached by the legislature, in
the democratic election process.
The right sought here is a neutral one.
However, without this recognition, which
the amendment suggests, the basic issue
of representation is not resolved. It is
absent and in its place we provide un-
recognized channels and actions that pre-
cipitate unrest and confusion.
I would suggest that attempts to affirm
the rule of reason in this most vital area
could best be made by the adoption of this
amendment, and therefore, Mr. Chairman,
and fellow delegates, I earnestly solicit
your support as reasonable men and rea-
sonable women to weigh the issue before
you and thereby cast your vote in favor of
this amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Kiefer.
DELEGATE KIEFER: Mr. Chairman,
I yield three minutes to Delegate Child.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Child.
DELEGATE CHILD: Mr. Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen of the Committee, I
rise to oppose this amendment.
As I have said before, in the Committee
on Personal Rights and the Preamble, we
had the duty of writing the Bill of Rights.
We had laid down for us by the Commis-
sion, after two years of study, rules and
regulations as to that Bill of Rights, and
one rule, and the cardinal rule, was that
the Bill of Rights should state very briefly
and very clearly the rights which each
individual holds free from governmental
action; in other words, the individual hold-
ing free his personal action as against the
state.
Now, what do we have in this resolu-
tion? We do not have an individual asking
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for a right. We have a class of people, of
employees, asking for a right, not against
the State, if you please, but against an-
other individual.
When we reached that point, I might
say we had many proposals, and many wit-
nesses appearing, asking for something in
the Bill of Rights for this class against
that class, for this individual against that
individual, but we decided that all ques-
tions providing for rights of one individual
against another individual or one class
against another class had no place in the
Bill of Rights of this constitution, and that
is the main reason why this proposal, and
many others like it or similar to it, not on
labor but on many subjects, were excluded
from our consideration.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one-half
minute, Delegate Child.
DELEGATE CHILD: Another reason
why it should be excluded, is that it was
brought out in the testimony before our
Committee that this same remedy had
been sought time and time again from the
legislature of this State, without avail, and
that now they want to force the legisla-
ture to act by putting this subject in the
Bill of Rights.
THE CHAIRMAN: Your time has ex-
pired, Delegate Child.
DELEGATE CHILD: For those two
reasons, the Committee rejected, and I ask
you to rule with the majority of the Com-
mittee and reject this amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Bothe.
DELEGATE BOTHE: I yield two min-
utes to Delegate Kosakowski.
DELEGATE KOSAKOWSKI: Mr.
Chairman, fellow delegates, about forty
years ago there was a terrible fire in New
York City at the Triangle Shirtwaist Fac-
tory. The owner of the factory had not
provided adequate fire escapes. Many of
the employees, mainly women, who had
recently come to this country from Europe,
were trapped in the upper floors where
they had to work twelve to sixteen hours a
day for pitifully low wages.
This tragedy pointed out to the nation
the need of the working man and woman
to have something to say about their wages,
their hours of work, and the conditions
under which they worked.
The Triangle fire was a major factor
leading to the enactment by Congress in
1935 of the Wagner Act. The Wagner Act
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