the problems presented to it objectively, without prejudice for or against either management or labor, and that as far as possible it desires to avoid any partisan division. Our purpose is to develop our labor-relations laws in a way that will build stronger ties between management and labor and contribute to industrial peace.

We meet at a time of urgent emergency. One-third of the human race lives under the iron dictatorship of men who would like to see the United States destroyed. In their world there is no free labor, there is no free enterprise.

The strength and statesmanship of America is the main bulwark of liberty against the tide that would sweep us into servitude. Both our strength and sound statesmanship depend on our unity.

That is the cornerstone of America's material strength. Teamwork between management and labor is a national necessity if we are to survive. Legislation cannot create that unity, but it can help to remove the roadblocks.

All of us as Americans, management and labor, the press, and our Labor Committees of the Senate and House can by our sense of urgency and recognition of our need help to create a climate of understanding. There will, of course, be differences of opinion, but there need not be any division of purpose. If we aim for what is right and just and what is in the best interests of the American people, then these hearings which we are about to hold can make a striking contribution to the strength and statesmanship of our country.

We are eager to demonstrate to the present disordered world in which we are living that in a truly democratic country internal differences can be settled between parties themselves with a minimum of Government intereference or regulation.

Except for providing orderly procedures in the handling of these problems through free collective bargaining, the Government should not actively participate unless and until the safety and welfare of all of our people are affected.

At the outset of our hearings it is our purpose to have the record show briefly the origin of the Taft-Hartley law, its purpose, and the scope of its intended operation.

We have asked our distinguished colleague, Senator Taft, of Ohio, after whom the law is named, to make an opening statement. He will be followed by our first witness, Mr. Thomas Shroyer, a lawyer specializing in management-labor relations, who was a leading member of the staff of the committee when the present law was drafted. He will explain the law to the committee and will point out the provisions of the act which, under our experience, may seem to need either repeal or amendment.

After this opening explanatory statement, it is planned to hear the various groups who have requested to be heard according to the following schedule:

During the week of March 24, 25, and 26, we will hear the general testimony of employer groups.

During the week of March 31, April 1, and 2, we will hear the general testimony of labor groups.

During the weeks of April 7, 8, and 9 and 14, and on the morning of the 15th, we will hear specialized testimony from management witnesses.

During the weeks of April 15 (in the afternoon), April 16, 21, 22, and 23, we will hear specialized testimony from labor witnesses.

During the week of April 28, 29, and 30, we will hear the testimony of expert witnesses, NLRB and others.

I may say that we invited our labor representatives to appear first at these hearings, to express their views as to amendment of the law, but it was inconvenient for them to appear this week and therefore at their request we have asked the management representatives to appear this week, and the labor representatives will appear next week.

It was our original intention to have opening statements made by the Secretary of Labor, Mr. Durkin, and by the Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Weeks. However, under date of March 9 Mr. Durkin wrote the following letter:

DEAR SENATOR SMITH: I wish to express my appreciation for the invitation you so cordially extended to me to appear before the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare recently in connection with the committee's hearings on proposed amendments to the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, amended.

However, owing to matters beyond my control, I should appreciate having my appearence before your committee delayed, if possible, to some future time. Perhaps your committee can find it practicable to proceed with the other witnesses and possibly extend to me the benefit of a later appearance. With best wishes for your continued success, I remain,

Sincerely yours,

MARTIN P. DURKIN,
Secretary of Labor.

I also took the matter up with Secretary Weeks of the Department of Commerce and he suggested that the appearance of the Department of Commerce be postponed until later in the hearings, and after the Department of Labor had appeared.

I have been called suddenly to an emergency meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee of which I am a member, and I am going to ask Senator Taft to take over the chairmanship here for a brief time and also to give us his opening statement on the general background to the Taft-Hartley Act as it originally passed.

Senator Taft, I will turn the meeting over to you, and I will wait for a few minutes and then step out to this other meeting to which I have been called.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT A. TAFT, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ΟΗΙΟ

Senator TAFT. Mr. Chairman, the so-called Taft-Hartley law was passed in 1947. There had been a good many laws dealing directly and indirectly with labor-management relations before that time, notably the Norris-LaGuardia Act, the Clayton Act, and the Wagner Act.

In general, those acts accomplished two things for the workingman. They set up a system of collective bargaining and required the employers to engage in collective bargaining under the Wagner Act, on the theory that labor was at a great disadvantage; that as long as one employer could deal with a thousand men, one at a time, the employer had a great advantage in the economic bargaining.

The Norris-LaGuardia Act put an end to the practice of injunctions, which had grown to a point where the Federal courts granted injunc

tions freely in almost any strike case and, in the opinion of Congress, very unfairly to the position of labor unions.

When I first came here in 1939, the first hearing I attended was a hearing on proposed amendments to the Wagner Act. There was a tremendous protest against the Wagner Act, the most violent protest at that time being on the part of Mr. Green and Mr. Padway, of the A. F. of L. against the alleged pro-CIO attitude of the Labor Board. We had hearings, I think, for 2 months, and nothing was done.

In 1946 the rash of national strikes became so heavy that Congress dealt several times with the problem. Mr. Truman presented one bill at one time which undertook to give him the right to draft people into the Army as a drastic method of stopping a national railroad and coal strike which happened at the same time.

In 1946, the Congress enacted the so-called Case bill which undertook to correct alleged inequities in the Wagner Act. That was vetoed by President Truman and it did not become a law.

In 1947, when I became chairman of the Labor Committee, we were practically compelled to undertake a complete study and revision of the labor-management relations laws. There was no bill introduced; I introduced no bill. I think in the House that committee prepared a bill in the beginning. However in the Senate, at least, our procedure was simply to take the bills that were introduced-and there were many of them-and hold hearings on all of the proposed amendments to the law.

We held hearings for 6 weeks, and we heard from every labor leader and most of the industrial leaders. We made no decision at that time. At the end of that time we employed two lawyers primarily, and there may have been some others, Mr. Jerry Reilly, who had been a member of the National Labor Relations Board, and Mr. Thomas Shroyer, who had been a field representative of that Board. They sat through the hearings and when we got through the committee. instructed them to go through those hearings to pick out the abuses that they thought they had found under the existing law, and to draft a bill.

They drafted that bill. The committee considered it and disputed and argued and changed its provisions, and finally I think with almost unanimity, possibly all but two members-I think all of the members on the Republican side-approved that bill.

I was instructed to introduce it as chairman of the committee. In other words, what I introduced was not my bill; it was a committee bill.

Mr. Shroyer will explain what the bill did, but in general it endeavored to correct inequities, one-sided appearances or features of the Wagner Act, and to deal with the national emergency strikes.

The bill went to the floor. Some of us who thought the bill was not quite strong enough introduced some amendments, and I think in the Senate three amendments were adopted somewhat stronger than the committee bill. From there it went to conference.

The House had passed a much more drastic bill, and in conference most of the House provisions were eliminated, although some House provisions were added to the bill that had been passed by the Senate. It was, in fact, a compromise.

Then the bill was passed, was vetoed by the President, and was then passed over the President's veto.

That bill has now been in effect for 6 years. From time to time various matters have been called to my attention of cases in which the bill has not worked well, or in which some mistake was made.

In the case of the anti-Communist oath it has become gradually ineffective. It has been open to avoidance and has been avoided.

There are respects in which the Board went, I think, beyond what the committee intended. There are other respects in which they did not go as far as the committee intended.

Altogether, there are a good many different features in the law that at least, I myself, would like to see amended.

I have no bill to propose. The administration has no bill to propose. My theory of these hearings is that we go through just exactly as we did 6 years ago, that we hear everybody who has something to say, that we have our attorneys keep careful track of the different proposed amendments, and that when we get through, the committee sit down and write a committee bill. I feel that there will be a very considerable number of matters in the 1947 act which should definitely be amended. I introduced some amendments myself, more to start the ball rolling than to indicate that they have any official standing or that they may finally be adopted by the committee. On a number of subjects in which I am interested I introduced no amendments at all, and either left it to others or I might propose something later.

Those who testify are not confined to any particular amendments before the Senate. They are free to suggest amendments of their own, and their proposals will be given consideration just as if, I think, those proposed amendments had been introduced as separate bills. Mr. Shroyer will describe the law in detail and indicate what matters are likely to be of interest to the committee.

Just from an overall standpoint and rather casually, the matters that have been brought to my attention as likely to be the subject of controversy and consideration are those relating to the voting rights of strikers who have been replaced by permanent replacements-referred to, I think, once or twice by President Eisenhower during the campaign.

There is the question of the anti-Communist oath, and whether it can be replaced by some provision that will directly disqualify a Communist-dominated union from recognition and from appearance on the ballot. If so, what kind of machinery could be effective for that purpose and would be just?

There are questions of the national emergency strikes. I think since the Taft-Hartley law was passed, there have been probably more different proposals for methods of dealing with national emergency strikes than any other feature of the law. I have still to be convinced that any particular change in that provision is going to improve it, although I realize the tremendous difficulty of dealing with that kind of strike which reaches the entire Nation and threatens the health or welfare of the Nation.

There is the question of secondary boycotts, and what constitutes a secondary boycott and what does not. There is the question of whether or to what extent temporary injunctions may be sought from the courts by the Government against unfair labor practices, particularly secondary boycotts or other practices on the part of employers.

There is a question of whether those injunctions should be mandatory in some cases as at present, or whether they should be discretionary, or whether they should be entirely eliminated, or whether they should be subject to the O. K. of the Board before they are sought.

There is a question relating to the closed shop in some industries. There are questions relating to the organization of the Board, and improvements in the procedure of the Board.

Personally, I have always been much interested in union welfare funds and the certainty that we are protecting the rights of the employees by the proper legislation in any welfare funds that are set up, either jointly or from employers' funds or from workers' funds.

Those are only some of the highlights that I think will be subject to consideration.

All that I want to say, fundamentally, is that the committee is going to try to approach all of these problems in a completely objective manner. When the hearings are completed the committee will work out its own solution and its own amendments to the act of 1947. I think I should say that when the effort was made to repeal the law in 1949, the Senate passed a number of amendments at that time. Those amendments went over to the House and were never reported by the House committee. The House came within a very few votes of passing somewhat similar amendments in the so-called Wood bill.

However, last year there was an amendment dealing with the abolishing of the necessity of voting in cases of union-shop agreements. There have perhaps been one or two minor amendments, but substantially the law stands as it did 6 years ago, and we will consider for the first time comprehensive amendments to that act.

If any other members of the committee wish to make a preliminary statement before we go ahead with Mr. Shroyer, I should be glad to have them do so.

Senator MURRAY. Mr. Chairman, we had no understanding that statements of this kind would be made.

Senator TAFT. Statements by members of the committee are always in order when witnesses are on or before, I think, in committee meetings, and I would be very glad to have any statement you wish to make.

Senator MURRAY. At some later time when we can produce the witnesses that we have in mind, the minority will make some statements. Senator TAFT. All right.

Senator NEELY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that all who testify during this hearing except members of the Congress and public officials such as the Secretaries of Labor and State, disclose of record whom they represent.

Senator TAFT. Is there any objection whatever to that proposal? I think it is perfectly fair and customary, so far as I know, Senator. Without objection, that will be done.

I may say that Mr. Shroyer appears at my request. He had been counsel for this committee for a period of 6 years until the 1st of January, when he started a law practice of his own. He does not appear for any client. He may have some clients, and if he wishes to tell us who they are he may do so. I do not know that the members of the committee want it or if you want to go into that.