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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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State Department and the other groups engaged in preparing these munitions either for our allies or for our own future possible use.

That was why this Defense Labor Board had been established. It followed to a certain extent the pattern that had been used by the War Labor Industries Board established in the First World War under Wilson. It had the tripartite element in it - equal numbers of labor, public and employer members. That is a scheme that doesn't work well except when you've got a small board that relates to a particular industry. Then you can get a labor man from that industry, an employer from that industry, and a public member who may know something about the industry. They can discuss it competently. But when you attempt to use that same technique over a large area where a number of industries are involved, you don't get the competence, the knowhow, people either on labor's side or the employer's side who know anything about the business in hand, or how you make uniforms, or how you make steel. It's senseless to say that a shoe manufacturer, because he's a manufacturer can sit with competence, intelligence and justice on a board determining wages and hours in the steel industry, because he doesn't know anything about the steel industry. To him the necessary continuous process doesn't mean anything. The same thing happens with the labor people. If you put a plumber on the board, he's a labor man all right, but he





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