Some Comments on Labor Dispute Settlement Processes

The question mark at the end of this recent headline on a syndi- cated newspaper column suggests appropriate skepticism about the substance therein, even though the column reported that the first eleven months of 1973 had been "the most serene labor climate in a decade with manhours lost at a 10-year low."' Well before the year-end "energy crisis" and attendant economic dislocations, how- ever, questions such as the following, far from being in the realm of idle conjecture, were becoming increasingly pertinent: Will the travail of this gloomy period be the fullness of time for the emer- gence of significant new developments in labor peacemaking? Will pervasive fears and drives to satisfy divergent needs in difficult times coalesce the forces moving toward more rational and less costly methods of resolving labor conflicts? Will the necessity of developing legal alternatives for the illegal strike in the public sector (governmental employment) lead to improved methods of peaceful settlement in the private sector? A number of signs point to affirmative answers to these questions.