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原文:Job Security in the Building Industry And High Quality Low-Rent Housing This article is concerned with the labor and the urban renewal aspects of theproblems of job security in the building industry and high quality low-rent housing.The author is an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York. HE SUPREME COURT DECISION that collective bargaining agreements in thebuilding trades may permit employees to re-fuse to work on prefabricated materialsfocuses attention on the problem of job security in the building industryand how itcan be protected at the same time that high quality housing at low rents is provided forthose not now able to obtain it.Groups Involved in This Problem Building trades employees are vitally concerned about the security of their jobswhich may be threatened by building methods which use less labor. This concerncomes on top of job insecurity due to the ups and downs of construction, the seasonalnature of some types of construction work, and the fact that there is usually nopermanent employer, but merely jobs on particular pieces of construction work. Citizens living in overcrowded or dilapidated housing who cannot afford to payluxury apartment rents are vitally affected by the high level of building costs. This isparticularly true of those whose access to the housing market is limited by racialdiscrimination. All citizens in metropolitan areas are affected by blight caused in part bysubstandard housing, which i f not eliminated, tends to spread. Taxpayers are necessarily affected by the amount of housing which can beobtained in return for public investment in housing programs. The nation as a whole is affected both by the degree to which high and steady employment at good rates of pay can be assured in major industries of whichconstruction is one of the most important,and by the degree to which the problems ofour central cities can be effectively dealt with for the benefit of all and as an examplepertinent to the struggle for mens minds throughout the world. The vital character of each of these interests is clear. The importance of jobsecurity to employees hardly needs underlining. And one of the primary purposes oftrade unionism has always been to promote job protection. This function isparticularly crucial in the building industry because of seasonal and other changes inconstruction activity and the absence of any single long-term employer for theparticular employee.Employees in widely differing industries have reacted to thethreat posed by job insecurity in a variety of ways,including:Formal and informal restrictios on the amount of work an employee may do in orderthat the employees do not work themselves out of a job, a danger which can affectthe livelihood of each member of the group; Refusal to work on prefabricated materials which pose a threat to jobs or toutilize technological devices such as paint rollers which might eliminate the need for labor; Use of influence to obtain legislation requiring standards of various kinds whichmaximize the amount of labor needed of which the ful crew laws in the railroadfield are an example ; Inclusion of restrictions in union laws and constitutions dealing with who is to beallowed to do particular types of work and how it is to be done; Limitations of various kinds on the possibility of outside employees competingfor scarce jobs; Efforts to compensate for periods of lack of availability of work, includingseasonal slack periods, by ob taining high hourly wage rates for work performed.Government Action Unsuccessful Governmental action has been attempted from time to time to break up thesepractices, but it has not been accompanied by any substitute means of assuring jobsecurity to the em,ployees involved. Perhaps in part for this reason, it has proved unsuccessful.On the other hand, in several industries in different situations, ways ofprotecting employees threatened with job loss due to technological change have beenworked out so as to permit an end to practices otherwise considered necessary tomaintain the number of available jobs. The arbitration award in the 1963 railwaydispute rendered under a federal statute providing for compulsory arbitration limitedto the specific dispute provided for elimination of some railway jobs but protectionof jobs of existing employees. The additional positions when vacant were,in general,simply not to be filled.Such an approach could be considered because railroads arestrongly stable institutions with identifiable employees who have built up senioritywith particular carriers.Present Methods LackingThe vital and legitimate interest of building trades employees and their unions injob protection is of inescapable importance in considering how to promote highquality low-rent housing. But the consequences of our
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