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THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Sherbow,
do you yield to a question?
DELEGATE SHERBOW: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Bothe.
DELEGATE BOTHE: Is it your inten-
tion by this amendment to say that the
nurses at the University Hospital can't
strike, but that the nurses at Johns Hop-
kins or other private institutions may?
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Sherbow.
DELEGATE SHERBOW: I can only say
this, that if they are employees of the
State they should not legally have the
right to strike. If you are going to give
them the right to strike, everybody else
has it, but I do not know how to write into
a constitution that employees of private
corporations shall not have the right to
strike as long as you have this provision in
the constitution that you are voting for.
Maybe they will not have the right. The
kinds of nurses that I have known, dedi-
cated ones, I do not think would ever strike,
but when these pressures get to what they
are, I do not know what they would do. I
can only say that when the legislature gets
to the point where it passes laws dealing
with private employees it will make sure
they cannot strike, but what I am saying
to you where you represent the State of
Maryland you make sure in the constitu-
tion that as to the State of Maryland and
its subdivisions and its agencies employees
cannot legally strike.
THE PRESIDENT: Any other delegate
desire to speak in opposition to the amend-
ment?
Delegate Kirkland.
DELEGATE KIRKLAND: Mr. Presi-
dent, certainly over a period of clays, weeks,
and months, I have listened to Judge Sher-
bow with relation to this, and he certainly
has an emotional appeal anyhow, but up
to this point he has not gotten to me and I
am not going to let him get to me at this
time.
I feel very strongly that this amendment
is entirely out of order. It is not needed.
He does not realize it. I think that section
1.17 will minimize the possibility of strikes.
I think one of the reasons why we have
had striikes on the part of public em-
ployees today is because of the fact that
they have not had the opportunity to bar-
gain collectively. Therefore, I see this thing
working in favor of the public. I see it
minimizing the opportunity for a strike
from the standpoint that if they can bar-
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gain collectively, they will not want to
strike.
It is because we have had autocratic
boards of education throughout the nation
who were unwilling to sit down at the table
and bargain collectively with teachers that
you have had as many teacher strikes
throughout the nation.
I would say this. I am extremely opposed
to Judge Sherbow's amendment.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in favor of the amend-
ment?
Delegate Harry Taylor.
DELEGATE H. TAYLOR: Mr. President
and ladies and gentlemen, first I want to
wish you all a Happy New Year and to tell
you that I took the President's advice and
I made resolutions concerning love and
kindness and sweetness and I resolved to
come down here to love labor and to love
management and to do the best I could to
work with you in drawing a constitution
for the people of Maryland that all of us
can be proud of.
I think of this constitution as a beautiful
woman and I think we all have a part in
keeping her beautiful, but I think what we
are about to do is to put a wart on her
nose by putting something in the constitu-
tion that may allow public employees to
strike.
Somewhere I heard that the links lie so
close near the mill that almost every day
the little children look out at the men at
play.
We have come a long way. Profit is the
reason we had organized labor because
people were being exploited for profit.
There is no profit in governmental opera-
tions. When you organize government em-
ployees, you do not organize against an
exploiting profiteering: robber baron such
as we have been brought up to think of as
the reason for the existence of units. You
organize against the tax-payer.
Now, people have a right to go into pri-
vate enterprise or they have a right to go
into government and I submit to you that
there is certain security, there are certain
benefits in public employment whether it
be in a county or a federal government.
Each man has a right to make this selec-
tion.
Now, if they elect to go into the govern-
ment employ, then they elect not to have
a right to strike, not to join unions. This
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