811F.504/12–348
The Ambassador in Panama (Davis) to
the Secretary of State
No. 713
Panama, December 3,
1948.
Subject: Army Memorandum Regarding Employment Practices
in Canal Zone
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the
Embassy’s airgram No. A–793 of October 29, 19481 reporting the announcement in
the local press that a full-scale study of all labor problems in the
Canal Zone was being conducted as a result of a letter addressed to the
Secretary of Defense by the Secretary of State and to the Embassy’s
despatch No. 672 of November 15, 19481 entitled “Army’s Reclassification Act Affecting
Non-United States Citizens in the Canal Zone” and to forward attached a
copy of a memorandum, with enclosure,2 prepared for and
forwarded to the Secretary of the Army by the Commander in Chief,
Caribbean Command, subject: “Canal Zone Personnel Problems”, which
apparently constitutes a study of present employment and personnel
practices in the Canal Zone undertaken as a direct result of the
Secretary of State’s letter to the Secretary of Defense.
Respectfully yours,
For the Ambassador:
Edward W. Clark
Second Secretary of Embassy
[Enclosure]
Memorandum for the Secretary of the Army
Subject: Canal Zone Personnel Problems
- 1.
- On September 15, 1948 the Secretary of Defense sent you a
memorandum including with it a letter to Mm from the Secretary
of State of 7 September 1948. The latter dealt with certain
Canal Zone employment problems and personnel practices analyzed
in a report by Brigadier General F. J. McSherry.
- 2.
- In an enclosure accompanying his letter, the Secretary of
State listed three “specific steps” which the letter itself
stated “this Government can and should take without undue delay
to carry out certain of the recommendations made by General
McSherry”. These three “steps” relate to wages, leave and retirement.
- 3.
- The general nature and scope of this group of interrelated
problems is well known to you. The action taken on them here
within the past year may not be. It is stated in the enclosure
herewith, which summarizes a recent analysis made by the Canal
Zone Personnel Board. This summary supplements Governor
Newcomer’s interim report to you of 21 October 1948.
- 4.
- Every analysis of this group of problems and of their possible
solutions is fundamentally affected by two factors which follow:
-
a.
- First, the provisions contained in notes accessory to
the 1936 Treaty relative to the principle of equality of
opportunity and treatment to be accorded employees of
Panamanian and United States citizenship (Treaty Series
No. 945, Page 56; 53 Stat. (pt. 3) 1807, 1868), pertain
expressly to employees of the Panama Canal and Railroad.
Those provisions have no application whatever to any
elements of our National Military Establishment.
-
b.
- Second, the Panama Canal Administration is highly
localized. Its labor practices have been and are largely
conditioned upon its local environment. It does not
employ personnel in other foreign overseas areas. On the
other hand, that part of our Military Establishment
located within the Canal Zone is but a small fraction of
the whole. Its personnel practices, in contrast to those
of the Panama Canal Administration, have evolved from
and function as a result of labor employment rules and
regulations in current use by our Armed Services
throughout the world. Major changes in those rules and
regulations would inevitably produce major reactions in
other overseas employment areas of the Military
Establishment, as well as call for appreciably larger
appropriations here.
- 5.
- The core of this whole problem is the fact that most of the
criticism directed at U.S. agencies on this subject is the
result of reasoning which begins with two premises—first, that
there should be uniformity
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between corresponding personnel practices
of The Panama Canal and Railroad and other U.S. agencies in the
Canal Zone, and second, that all U.S. agencies here should
provide equal pay for equal work.
- 6.
- Acceptance of either premise has not yet been shown to be in
the overall best interests of the United States. In fact, both
are at least partly fallacious, by reason of the major
dislocations their adoption would provoke in other important
United States interests here and in other overseas areas.
- 7.
- For the Panama Canal and the agencies of the U.S. Military
Establishment in the Canal Zone to attain uniformity in
personnel practices, policies and procedures, it will be
necessary either to amend those laws and departmental
regulations presently binding upon our Military Estaiblishment
here and in all other overseas areas merely to meet a problem
which concerns only Panamanians in the Panama area, or to
negotiate new treaty provisions with Panama so as to permit
changes in those in current use by the Panama Canal and
Railroad.
- 8.
- Neither of these alternatives promises any early practicable
solution though both deserve and will continue to be subjected
to thorough examination in search of any partial remedies which
they may offer.
- 9.
- It is hoped that this letter and enclosure may furnish means
for eliminating much unjustified criticism and also for replying
to criticism which is honest and constructive.
M. B. Ridgway
Lieutenant General, U.S. Army
Commander in Chief
