Traffic Telephone Federation of New Jersey.

Of current interest to many scholars and politicians is the issue of unionization in government and the industries directly effecting the public health and safety, ie., the public utilities. Various formulas and solutions have been presented by both public and private sources, but most of these do not contain a generally applicable answer to the question of how to provide employees with the right to organize and bargain collectively and yet maintain the vital public services of these institutions.

After a wave of strikes in 1946, the State of New Jersey attempted to solve this problem through passage of a statute providing for seizure of struck public utilities and operation of these utilities by the government for the duration of the strike. This statute was amended in 1947 by a provision for compulsory arbitration of the issues of a work stoppage or the issues preventing new contract determination. A punitive penalty of ten thousand dollars per day was to be levied against any union which struck a public utility with an additional $250-500 penalty to be ordered against any person or persons who aided or abetted such a stoppage. An additional provision stated that each day of work stoppage was to be considered a new offense.

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