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be the abstract right to bargain collec-
tively, organize and bargain collectively,
through representatives of their own choos-
ing. That is correct.
THE PRESIDENT,: Is there any other
discussion?
Delegate Maurer.
DELEGATE MAURER: A question for
Delegate Kiefer, please.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other dele-
gate desire to discuss the question?
Delegate Willoner.
DELEGATE WILLONER: Mr. Chair-
man, members of the Convention —
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Maurer,
the Chair will recognize you after discus-
sion.
DELEGATE WILLONER: I had not ex-
pected to speak on this particular issue at
all. However, in line with some of the re-
marks made by Delegate Kiefer I thought
for the sake of the history of this record
I should point out that when this issue of
public employees was brought up in our
Committee there was, in fact, a majority
of the members of our Committee who
wanted to relieve the problems that had
been raised before us about public employ-
ees. The problem was that the Chairman
put the question so badly that nobody ever
got a chance to vote on it. I might point
out that the testimony that we heard was
that public employees had sought to bar-
gain collectively and their employers
wanted to bargain with them, but they
said the case law prevented them from
bargaining. We felt that we could free the
legislature's hands so that they could, in
fact, provide for negotiations between em-
ployees of the State and the state govern-
ment.
I might point out that this would fall
into the category of a technical provision
because this would be a prohibition against
preventing the State from negotiating with
its employees. At the time they are not
permitted to negotiate with their em-
ployees.
T,his was the thing that the majority of
our Committee felt was a problem and
needed to be resolved. Leaving it in the
hands of the legislature allows flexibility.
In case the situation ever arises when
there is a need for such a situation or when
labor peace may be served by this, it is
here in the hands of the legislature.
This amendment really is worse and
would result in, I think, more problems in
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the present situation than we have in the
Constitution now.
THE PRESIDENT.: Delegate Mitchell,
do you desire to speak for or against
Amendment No. 15?
DELEGATE MITCHELL: Mr. Chair-
man, I desire to speak against the amend-
ment.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed.
DELEGATE MITCHELL: I rise because
I am afraid I have to leave my good friend,
Chairman Kiefer, and good Presbyterian
leader, good Boy Scout leader, outstanding
citizen. I speak also because I have been
moved over the weekend. I have been close
to death. In fact, I came here to this Con-
vention from the funeral of my secretary's
mother whom I have known from her girl-
hood and when we come close to death, we
have a tendency to say to ourselves, there,
but for the grace of God go I. Then, as I
look at the empty seat next to me, I think
of my good friend, Delegate Miller who has
a very serious illness, who may soon know
and be able to answer the unanswerable
questions. I remember him from when I
was a girl when my mother used to come
down to this legislature seeking justice.
He knew no race prejudice because he said
his mother was a Quaker and he lived on
the Eastern Shore, but in spite of the poli-
cies and practices he took a stand; and
there was a time when we had to look to
him when we could look to no others.
I had the experience of looking at Mar-
tin Agronsky and the television chain as
they questioned four of our young men who
had left the armed service and fled to
Sweden. One of them comes from Catons-
ville, from Maryland, one is the son of a
naval leader. They were not hoodlums. They
had performed well in the Service but they
had found asylum in Sweden because they
just could not accept our ambivalence and
our compromising, continually compromis-
ing, with the things that we preach and
our every day practices. I thought of those
four young men lost to us and how we have
failed them, and I think of all of the other
people of the State and how we too fail
them in this Constitutional Convention.
It was Plato who first said that the
creation of an orderly world is the victory
of persuasion over force. All of us know
that when the industrial revolution as-
cended in this country and throughout the
world, justice and equality were unheard of
and it was the working people who finally
evolved through many bloody days this im-
portant technique in our industrial age,
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