Joseph Francis Finnegan (September 12, 1904 – February 12, 1964) was an American labor mediator who was appointed by President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower to serve as the fourth Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service from 1955 to 1961, and served as the first director of the equivalent body in New York State.
[2] Finnegan funded his law school education with a job checking cargo on the piers in Brooklyn and as a Wall Street Journal reporter.
[3] Passage of the Wagner Act in 1935 led to a surge in demand for labor law specialists and he pursued the trend and "became an expert awfully fast".
He took office on February 7, 1955, with a commitment that he would not dictate terms to either labor or management, as these are matters at "the very heart and essence of collective bargaining under our free enterprise system" and that the alternative would "invite a totalitarian approach".
[2] Finnegan discussed the issues of workforce changes resulting from increased use of automation, stating in 1960 that employers should not be saddled with "antiquated rules and methods", but that the workers made redundant through new technologies should not be handled as "a robot to be cast on a trash heap".