Search results

The Landrum-Griffin Act emerged from an emo tional climate of concern over the union practices revealed by the McClellan Committee. Although aimed primarily at the Teamsters Union, the act visits hardships upon small business men and small local unions, particularly through amendments to the Taft-Hartley Act contained in Title Seven. There is more to the Landrum-Griffin Act than the publicized "Bill of Rights" for union members. It can be argued that the act is a series of compromises lacking agreement on basic principles. This view is supported by the specific exemptions provided for the garment and the construction industries. These ex emptions granted to certain small businesses and not available to other small industries may well undermine the constitution ality of the Landrum-Griffin Act. In effect, the act, in its at tempt to curtail the disreputable practices of a few union lead ers, discourages the efforts at statesmanship of the union leaders who are more concerned with long-range benefits for the workers than with short-term victories. Large, nationally organized companies are not particularly affected by the new act, but smaller employers who are already unionized are placed at a disadvantage by the improved position of their nonunionized competitors who wish to resist unionization. The fact that time is required for the Landrum-Griffin Act to be interpreted and understood will be to the further detriment of the small employer.

The city of Philadelphia is tapping a new source of revenue for $18,000,000 in 1940. Events leading to its adoption have their basis in the past ten years of financial distress. These events were not peculiar to Philadelphia. They may be found in one form or another as budgetary problems in many leading municipalities of the nation. Outstanding among the factors causing distress in Philadelphia was a 25 per cent decline in the assessed valuation of real property since the peak year 1931. This represented over a billion dollars of valuation and a loss of $20,000,000 in current real estate tax levy. Since current real estate has been the chief source of the city's annual income, the decline resulted in curtailment of essential city services and reduction of personnel.For some years, curtailment of services, reduction in personnel, and the fortunate receipt of large annual sums from delinquent taxes enabled the city to survive the difficulties of the depression. However, the point was reached when these factors no longer sufficed to balance the budget. They were followed by more doubtful financial expedients, namely, overestimating of yearly receipts, floating of current deficits by means of temporary loans, and short-changing of sinking funds through excessive valuation of sinking-fund assets.