Labor disputes

General Motors Corporation, through it's Counsel, Walter G. Merritt, pictured here, told President Harry S. Truman's fact-finding panel that it will withdraw from the proceedings if the panel considers prices and profits in making a wage recommendation for settlement of the strike against the company. From: Beth Gore.

John L. Lewis, President of the United Mine Workers, shown leaving the Shoreham Hotel after walking out on the soft coal wage conference. Lewis quit the conference when the coal operators voted, over his objections to seat Joseph E. Moody, President of the Southern Coal Producers Association. From: Beth Gore

Photo of John L. Lewis, President of the United Mine Workers, shaking hands with Cyrus S. Ching, Federal Mediation Director, prior to a luncheon where they discussed the pending miner's strike. Government officials had expressed fear that the soft coal strike might weaken the United States' position in the "cold war" against Russia. They are at the Carlton Hotel in Washington, D. C. From: Beth Gore.

Office of Economic Stabilization Director William H. Davis, also former head of the War Labor Board, telling Congress that "settlement of labor disputes by government is destructive of all the creative values of collective bargaining." Compulsion, Davis said, should be used only in war time or in peace time cases involving public utilities. From: Beth Gore.

A photo of Cyrus S. Ching, 71 year old labor relations expert of the U. S. Rubber Company, after his appointment by President Harry S. Truman to be the Director of the new Independent Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service created by the Taft-Hartley Labor Law. From: Beth Gore.

Conciliation Chief Cyrus S. Ching testifying before the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy. He indicated that atomic energy workers should be rewarded if they are denied the right to strike. "Although strikes in these plants cannot be tolerated," Ching said, "we want to get the best possible people and have them proud to be there." From: Beth Gore.

An informal photo of Cyrus S. Ching, new director of the new Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. From: Beth Gore.

Copies of pages from the New York Daily News with articles on the coal strike of 1946 and the disagreement between President Harry S. Truman and John L. Lewis in the time frame between November 18 and December 8, 1946. From: John W. Cassidy, President, Harry S. Truman Chapter, A.P.I.C.