Slichter Praises Unique Economy

Sumner H. Slichter, Lamont University Professor, said yesterday the American system of industrial relations "would probably not work anywhere else but it gives the American worker better protection and it puts American employers under greater pressure. . . to raise productivity."

Slichter told the National Academy of Arbitrators:

"I think that the United States should consider itself lucky. It possesses a system of industrial relations that in its basic characteristics, fits conditions here reasonably well. The system has developed without begin planned.

"Prehaps that is why it represents a pretty good adaptation to conditions--it is simply the sum total of various efforts to solve problems rather than the expression of a plan which might faithfully reflect certain principles but which, because of that very fact, might not very well fit conditions.

"The unions is the United States are much more concerned with raising wages than the unions in Britain and Sweden, and the unions here are frequently not concerned at all with either the general level of employment or the competitive position of the country.

"The trade unions in both Britain and Sweden have developed a willingness to accept central direction which enables them to go far in cooperating with governments."