Extracted text

OCR Page 1 of 10
CRAVIONAL ARCHIVES AND 5th SERVICE SECOND DRAFT pain TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: All who think seriously about the problem of reconversion - of changing our economy from werr to peace - realize that the transition is a difficult and dangerous task. There are some who would have the Government, during the reconversion period, continue telling our citizens what to do, as was so often necessary when the very life of our nation was at stake during the period of world conflict. That however is not the polioy of the Government. The policy REMOVE is to necersery wartime controls as repidly as possible, and to return the free management of business to those concerned with it. It was for the express purpose of getting away a.s soon as possible from some of the wartime powers and controls that the recent National Labor-Management Conference was called in Washington. Instead of retaining in the Federal Government the power over wages and labor agreements and industrial relations which a global war had made necessary, the top leaders of management and labor were invited to recommend a program under which labor relations would be turned back into the hands of those involved. It was decided that full responsibility for reaching agreement on such a program would be left with the representatives of labor and management. Accordingly the conference was made up of leaders of labor and management only. Government representatives partici- merely pated onty as observers, without vote. The agenda and the entire program were worked out by the leaders themselves.