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Labor Mediator Theodore Kheel proposes enjoining only those strikes that affect public health and safety; others, he feels, can be managed within the strategies of arbitration. Michigan State University Economist Jack Stieber would group government employees into three categories, only the first of which—possibly limited to policemen and firemen—would not be allowed to strike. Strikes instigated in less essential services would be tacitly tolerated, at least until their cumulative effect went beyond inconvenience.
The difficulty with such distinctions is that they are likely to work better on paper than in the field. A study committee headed by Pennsylvania's George Taylor has termed them "administratively impossible." Where do teachers fit, for example? Do strikes in the public schools imperil either the public health or safety? And where is the line drawn in the staffs of government hospitals? Are nurses more essential than, say, laboratory technicians? In any case, there are fluctuating degrees of essentiality that defy easy definition. New York City's transit strike turned intolerable within days. But this year, residents of Rochester endured the loss of their public transportation system for nine weeks.
Compulsory arbitration is now being suggested in some quarters as a last-ditch solution. Both management and labor are generally against it in the private sector, on the grounds that it undermines the collective-bargaining process. For the public sector, A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany has suggested what he calls "voluntary arbitration"—the intercession of an informed and mutually acceptable third party to engineer a settlement. One difficulty here is the genuine doubt that representative government, which receives its mandate from the public, can legally bind itself to an outside judgment.
The University of Wisconsin's Nathan Feinsinger, who serves as a special labor consultant to Governor Warren P. Knowles, has proposed the principle of "voluntaryism," a term he borrowed from George Taylor. "In my judgment," says Feinsinger, "a voluntary agreement not to strike is much more apt to work than a system of fines or imprisonment. This is because a no-strike agreement is the product of negotiations and not imposed from above." Feinsinger would introduce what he calls a "neutral," appointed by both sides, who would audit negotiations as a detached and dispassionate observer, making nonbinding recommendations on request. In the event of a bargaining deadlock, the neutral could break it, again by common consent, with a "final and binding arbitration award." Adds Feinsinger: "Since this procedure would be the product of mutual agreement, there would be an incentive to make it work."