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I want to bear down on that point. But
perhaps my experience as a government
officer will be of some use to you, because
a great deal has been said about the right
of public employees to organize.
When federal statutes and executive or-
ders authorized employees to organize, I
was very apprehensive about it as being in
charge of 5,000 custodial officers engaged
in law enforcement.
There could be no group more vital to
the safety of our country, and I was most
apprehensive about it, but as time went
on, I came to accept it and believed that
it was a great morale builder for the em-
ployees, much help to the administrator,
and of real significance in promoting bet-
ter relations between management and the
employees.
We talked about such things as work
schedules; we talked about promotion poli-
cies; we talked about and set up methods
of selection procedures, grievance proce-
dures, organizations or organized social
functions, all of which contributed to the
well being of our people.
Since this organization has been in ef-
fect, the turn-over in our service has de-
creased and the turn-over among a group
of this kind, where manpower is so short,
has heretofore been great.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one-quar-
ter minute, Delegate Bennett.
DELEGATE BENNETT: Our employees
of course, could not strike but this oppor-
tunity to organize goes beyond that. Its
great importance and significance is as a
morale builder and an opportunity for
people to speak with their bosses. I hope
this amendment passes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any delegate
desire to speak in opposition? Delegate
Marvin Smith.
DELEGATE M. SMITH: Mr. Chair-
man, my inherited prejudices, if one could
have such, would be on the side of labor.
My father spent his entire life working
as a printer for others. His father before
him worked with his hands for his entire
adult life.
Now, Mr. Chairman, really what is be-
ing attempted to accomplish here is to or-
ganize public employees. This is a matter
that should be studied by the General As-
sembly, not done here.
Reference has been made to the number
of agricultural workers. The average
farmer employs an insufficient number of
people to be worth an attempt to organize.
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Yes, reference has been made to migra-
tory workers and there are times when a
farmer will employ a number of migratory
workers, but for very short periods of
time and the Department of Agriculture
represents those people and tells a farmer
what he must pay. What we are really
talking about here is an attempt on the
part of organized labor to reach out and
to pick up the public employees, and I say
to you sir, that this is a matter for General
Assembly action.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in favor of the
amendment?
Delegate Mitchell.
DELEGATE MITCHELL: Mr. Presi-
dent and fellow delegates, the preamble
to the federal Constitution says what is
the purpose of all constitutions, that we
the people, in order to form a more perfect
union and to establish justice and insure
domestic tranquility, and so forth.
I would say that it is unrealistic not to
recognize that the substitution in American
life of the bargaining table instead of the
streets and the riots that preceded the
recognition of the exploitation of human
labor in this country has been an im-
portant gain in the growth of our nation,
and I want to speak from the standpoint
of peace, the assurance of domestic peace.
It seems to me that this technique which
we have evolved out of the painful years,
when there was no recognition of the right
of working people to organize, to insure
that their labor, which was all that they
had to offer in the marketplace, would not
be exploited, so that they could protect
their homes and their children and them-
selves from the bitter fruits of that ex-
ploitation, has given to the working people
hope and faith in the founding principles
of this country. When you take the aver-
age employee in a position of asking for
his rights, and the position of the employer,
you have a basic inequality, because the
employer is at the highest point in that
relationship of power.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one-half
minute, Delegate Mitchell.
DELEGATE MITCHELL: Therefore,
the hope that it has given the individual
worker against the exploitation of his
labor has been his right to join with his
fellow workers and sit down as equals at
the bargaining table with the employer.
I would say that the history of organized
labor in this country which has been rec-
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