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.

Mr. SHROYER. Let me say this, Mr. Chairman, that, of course, I have some clients. I would not be in business if I did not have some clients. I am definitely not testifying for any client today.

I also want to say that I have no client who has employed me in

a lobby capacity.

Senator TAFT. Is that sufficient, Senator?

Senator NEELY. Certainly.

TESTIMONY OF THOMAS E. SHROYER, OF THE LAW FIRM OF POOLE, SHROYER & DENBO, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. SHROYER. My name is Thomas E. Shroyer, and my business address is 1625 K Street, Washington, D. C.

When I left here 3 months ago, I am sure that I did not expect to be back this soon. I think that I might say that it was a lot more comfortable on that side of the table than it it here.

What I have tried to do in this statement, and you will notice it is boiled down to 11 pages, is to set forth every provision of the Taft-Hartley law, and to compare it with the Wagner Act. Of course, with respect to every paragraph here, we might discuss it for the entire morning. I expect to depart from the prepared statement from time to time, and some of it I may not read because I do not think it is controversial. I welcome questions at any time.

I propose to discuss with you what I regard as the fundamentals of the Taft-Hartley Act. To some people this law is regarded as creating "slave labor." To others, it is still regarded as being "loaded" in favor of labor. Some editors apparently are not aware that there is anything in the law but the national emergency, 80-day-injunction provision.

Everyone who appears here to testify is going to be considered as prejudiced by one side or the other. I admit I am in favor of the Taft-Hartley Act. I do not think that I ever made any secret of that while I was working for the committee. I was standing by at the birth, having sat through over 6 full weeks of hearings, 7 weeks of almost daily executive sessions of the committee, 3 full weeks of debate on the Senate floor, 2 additional days of debate on the conference report, and finally 48 hours of debate before the Presidential veto was overridden. Even with all this, I was not around when much of the spade work was done.

Listening to Senator Taft tell of all the background, when he first came to the Senate, I have to admit that I really was not around when the real spade work was done.

As I have pointed out in my statement, the long Smith committee investigations of 1939-40, and the Case bill hearings, and debate in 1935 provided much of what finally went into the Taft-Hartley law.

Right at this point let me also say that I was strongly in favor of the Wagner Act. I was regional attorney for the National Labor· Relations Board for 6 years. Quite a bit of that time was spent in Cincinnati and in that office we had jurisdiction of Kentucky, West Virginia, parts of Indiana, and southern Ohio.

Back in those days when the Wagner Act was passed, the total union membership was some 3 million people. Unions were comparatively weak; they needed protection. I am quite proud, Senator

Neely, of some of the cases I tried in your State where I think probably for the first time in company towns, some employees whose only crime was to join the unions found relief.

By the end of the war, union membership, however, had grown to some 15 million. In my opinion, by 1946 there was as much need for some amendments to the Wagner Act as there had been for the enactment of the Wagner Act in the first instance.

The Taft-Hartley Act was an amendment to the Wagner Act. In considering what was the intent and purpose of the Taft-Hartley Act, it is sometimes helpful to point out just how it did amend the Wagner Act.

Section 7 of the act was often called the heart of the Wagner Act. It guaranteed to employees the right to join unions and to engage in concerted activities. The Taft-Hartley Act continued that right and extended it to guarantee the additional right to refrain from any and all of such activities.

I once heard a prominent union attorney attempt to express the differences in the two laws, and he did it this way: He said, "Under the Wagner Act, the Government was saying that your Government wants you to join unions," and he went on to say that "Under the Taft-Hartley Act the Government was saying that it did not give a darn whether you joined unions or not, but it would protect both rights."

The Wagner Act made it an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7, or in other words, the right to join and assist unions. The typical case we had under the Wagner Act under this section was the case where the employer would say, "If you join the union I am going to close down"; or the foreman would say, "If you join a union you will get fired"; or where the foreman would say, "If you do not join the union, we will give you a wage increase."

Now, the Taft-Hartley Act continued that provision and extended it also to make it an unfair labor practice for a labor organization to restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed in section 7. This refers to the extension of section 7, the protection of the right not to engage in concerted activities. I think what Congress was thing of, and surely the cases where the Board has applied this provision, are cases of coercion and mass picketing. If you have a right not to engage in strikes, shall we say, and you are prevented from going to work by coercion and mass picketing, section 8 (b) (1) has been violated.

The Wagner Act required an employer to bargain in good faith with a union which represented the majority of his employees. The Taft-Hartley Act continued that provision and extended it to require unions also to bargain in good faith with employers.

Back in 1947 it was asked, "Why in the world do you have to require unions to bargain? They don't exist for any purpose but to bargain." But there was a lot of bargaining that was not in good faith. A typical example in which this provision has been used is the situation where a union might come in and say: "Here is a contract: take it or leave it." That is not bargaining in good faith.

Or let us say a union came in and said: "We want a closed shop," or "We want a checkoff provision which isn't authorized by the individual