independent contractors from the term "employee" (sec. 2 (3)), nowhere is this name defined. This has brought on considerable confusion in our industry since the union will claim independent contractors to be within a bargaining unit. We would urge that the common-law definition be specifically established for the term of independent contractor.

The increase in the period of the statute of limitations for filing unfair labor practice charges would only further instability of labor relations.

As far as our experience is concerned the majority of the unfair labor practice charges filed by unions are intended as bargaining weapons to be withdrawn in return for some concession from the employer rather than as a serious attempt to right a wrong. The salient effect of increasing the period of limitation would be to increase the force of that weapon. To preserve the contract-bar rule in the event of deauthorization elections is to grant the union rights greater than those given the employees whom they supposedly represent. Such a provision would be undemocratic.

Neither Senate bill 1026 nor 1075 appears to be a realistic approach to the monopolistic character of unions and their ability to spill the economic lifeblood of the Nation. If any group within our economy imperils the national health or safety, there is no reason to protect their action while the public suffers. The injunction is an appropriate remedy to cope with such threats to the general welfare. Congress may not always be in session and special sessions are both costly and inconvenient. Furthermore, this would only subject the national health and safety to political pressures and expedience as opposed to established fair rules to which the parties must adhere.

Simply in passing, since it appears some feel the urge for compulsory arbitration as a panacea to labor strife, let the record show that the lumber industry opposes unequivocally this method which is devoid of a true resolution of the dispute (H. R. 132 and H. R. 364).

We urge that the free-speech provisions be extended to representation procedures as well as unfair labor practice situations. It is our belief that Congress intended this originally, but the Board has pursued the language technically in order to circumvent the true intent. We would urge that S. 655 be so modified as to clearly eliminate the last word doctrine of the Bonwit Teller, Inc. (96 N. L. R. B. 608, 1952) and the Metropolitan Auto Parts, Inc. (102 N. L. R. B. No. 171, 1953)

cases.

We also feel that the proposal which prevents payroll deduction of assessments and fines is proper since it will inhibit punitive action by the union against the individual employee (S. 658).

The amendment designed to clarify the present ban on featherbedding is essential if we are to avoid actions costly to the public which in all events finally pays the bill for these matters. The recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States further emphasizes the necessity for H. R. 3146. Featherbedding and payments for unneeded work are unequivocally contrary to the public interest. (See American Newspaper Publishers Association v. National Labor Relations Board, and National Labor Relations Board v. Gamble Enterprises, Inc., both decided March 9, 1953, by the U. S. Supreme Court.) Much has been said in defense of the right to strike. However, it now appears that the Board would deny the right of lockout under the act. It is our firm belief that neither right should ever be made paramount to the public interest. Theretofore, we would urge that if the right to strike is to be preserved, the right to lockout coupled with reasonable precautions which would curtail either from impairing the national health or safety is only equitable and proper. (See In re Morand Bros. Beverage Co. et al., 91 N. L. R. B. No. 58 (1950), remanded in 190 F. (2d) 576 (1951), 99 N. L. R. B. No. 55 (1952); and In re Davis Furniture Co., 94 N. L. R. B. No. 52 (1951), remanded in Leonard v. National Labor Relations Board, 197 F. (2d) 435 (1952), further N. L. R. B. decision at 100 N. L. R. B. No. 158 (1952).)

The definition of supervisors under the act has also come in for criticism. However, this definition is both reasonable and practical and should be retained. It has caused no difficulty to any union within our area of experience and has afforded a positive method of determining who is a supervisor as opposed to leaving this matter for Board interpretation. It is a clear, concise, and exact definition of the management family and should not be modified.

The foregoing observations have been an effort to bring to your attention not only specific examples occurring every day in connection with labor legislation but to also point up the practical effect of some of the major proposed revisions in this law. I understand this is what you want.

In addition to the foregoing, we wish to urge the following recommendations upon your honorable committee:

1. Eliminate any provisions sanctioning the closed shop, union shop, or other forms of compulsory unionism. If you are to continue their legality, then require strict regulation of the union and its hierarchy.

2. Outlaw unequivocally organizational strikes and picketing and require both unions and employers to submit to the representation procedures of the act to resolve these matters. I cannot stress this matter too strongly.

3. When the employer submits an offer which he is willing to state is his last offer prior to strike action, such offer must be voted upon by all employees to be affected by the proposed strike action before strike action can be taken. Said election should be conducted by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and require the majority approval of the employees affected in order to authorize a legal strike.

4. Require that any notices to be posted by the union as a result of unfair labor practices be also posted on the premises of the employer against whom or upon whose premises said unfair labor practices were committed.

5. Require bargaining rights to terminate with a bona fide sale of the employer's premises and plant.

6. An employer need not furnish data to the union in the collective-bargaining process until it is clearly shown that: (1) Such data is patently relevant to the issue involved; (2) it is not confidential information to management; and (3) it is not available to the union from other sources.

7. In order to speed up the procedures of the Board, we would urge that a complaint must be filed within 3 months of the date a charge is filed and a decision rendered within an additional 3 months. Failure to do so should limit the back-pay award so that in no event will it exceed the difference between what the employee involved lost from the date of wrongful discharge to a date 6 months thereafter minus his actual earnings in that period.

8. The filing of an unfair labor practice charge should not prevent the conduct of a representation election unless the charge specifically alleges that the unfair labor practices prevent a free and unfettered election at the time and it is clearly demonstrated to the Board by evidence submitted within 10 days after the charge is filed that such is the case.

9. By no means return the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to the Labor Department or assign them to the Commerce Department if you expect to retain the current efficiency and high standing of the Service with the parties. 10. Investigate the hiring policies of the National Labor Relations Board and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. If you feel that it is necessary that they hire from the ranks of professional unioneers or management industrial relations personnel, insure that there be equal representation in hirings from the management, as well as the union side of the table. This should also apply to the members of the Board. However, we would urge that only those who can fully qualify as impartial be given these positions.

11. Provide for a 12-month period during which no further representation petitions may be filed by a union or a local thereof when such a union or local has filed a petition for a representation election, irrespective of whether the union pursues that procedure through to an election or withdraws the petition. 12. We can see no reason to provide economic strikers who have been permanently replaced with the right to vote in representation elections. This is neither union busting nor conducive to the theory that the union is the agent of the employer.

13. By all means keep the judicial and prosecuting functions of the Board separate and distince from each other.

14. Preserve the non-Communist oath by broadening it to apply to anyone who has been a Communist within 5 or 10 years and make the law clear as to who shall sign and provide for stringent enforcement.

15. Do not eliminate the mandatory injunction if you are to avoid the harm of the vicious secondary boycott.

16. Require the Board to adopt a set of governing principles which will be determinative of the appropriate unit and specifically provide that each situation must be judged on the basis of those principles and not on the wishes of the union.

17. Extend free speech to representation matters and eliminate the last-word doctrine established in the Bonuit Teller, Inc., case.

18. Ban featherbedding and payment for unneeded work.

19. Reestablish unequivocally the right to lockout on a par with the right to strike but permit neither to adversely affect the national economy.

20. Define independent contractor in the act so as to give it is common-law definition.

Mr. TICHY. In addition, I wish also at this time to offer into the record the statement of Mr. C. L. Irving, who has had more than 20 years' experience in this field. Mr. Irving is secretary and manager of the Pine Industrial Relations Committee with headquarters in Klamath Falls, Oreg.

Senator IVES. Without objection that will be so incorporated. (The statement referred to follows.)

STATEMENT OF C. L. IRVING, KLAMATH FALLS, OREG., IN BEHALF OF THE WESTERN PINE LUMBER INDUSTRY

My name is C. L. Irving. I am secretary-manager of the Pine Industrial Relations Committee, Inc., an employers' industrial relations service organization. We serve 150 lumber employers in the western pine-producing area of central and southern Oregon and northern and central California, from a headquarters office in Klamath Falls, Oreg. We are a small-business industry. Our members have an average of only 130 employees per employer.

I am appearing here at the request of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association. I represent the entire western pine lumber industry in 12 Western States. This includes loggers, lumber manufacturers and remanufacturers, plywood plants, and wood byproducts producers.

I have worked in intimate contact with the Wagner Act and the Taft-Hartley Act since 1935, when the Wagner Act was first enacted. In 1942 I helped the Pine Industrial Relations Committee, Inc., get started, and I've been its operating head for the past 9 years.

For the record, I would like to submit my statement which covers my own personal experiences and my own personal ideas about a proper Federal law and Federal labor policy. It is, I believe, representative of the views throughout the western pine lumber industry.

Group, industry area, or industry bargaining

The goal of collective bargaining is agreement. No restrictions should be placed on any type of good faith bargaining if it can ever be helpful in reaching agreement. There are times when all methods must be explored and used in solving one problem.

It is my belief that statutory regulation should enter the picture only when collective bargaining has failed. A union should be required to leave strike decisions to their members, as expressed in supervised secret-ballot elections, and each contracting unit of employees should have statutory protection from coercion or intimidation in making and living with its own decisions. Appropriate collective bargaining unit, as determined by the NLRB, has no worthwhile meaning if it isn't appropriate for determining whether or not to strike. (For a more complete analysis of and recommendations on this problem, plus an actual illustration, see pp. 19 and 20 of full statement.)

A new approach to Federal labor law administration

I suggest the creation of an Office of Labor Relations. It should be headed by an Administrator. He should serve in the capacity of a business manager and absorb all administrative and public pressures. The NLRB should serve under the Administrator as a judicial body only. The General Counsel should function, under the Administrator, as a legal department handling prosecution duties (see pp. 14 and 15 of statement).

Union shop in terms of politics and religion

We hear much of the need to protect racial and religious minorities. Why not extend protection to the worker whose religious beliefs are not compatible with union membership?

Unions today apply their tremendous force to economic and political domination as against the Gompers tradition of concentrating on wages, hours, and working conditions. With such changed fields there has developed a need for

statutory prohibition of compulsory union membership (see pp. 12 and 13 of statement).

Recognition strikes

Recognition or organizing strikes should be prohibited. The secret-ballot election is fundamental to the American way. Employer recognition without such an election should be unlawful. The small employer and his employees need this assistance (see pp. 18 and 19 of statement).

Fundamentals of a Federal labor law

A Federal labor law, to be effective in promoting the national welfare, must contain several essential features. It is no longer sufficient to lay down vague rules and generalizations for the guidance of parties to collective bargaining, or of Government administrative agencies regulating collective bargaining.

Practicing industrial relations men know that neither employers nor unions should be the prime beneficiaries of the law. Rather, the law should be aimed toward protection of the consuming public, and individual employees. The following points are essential in any fair labor law :

1. The rights of the consuming public should be recognized and protected. Only Government can give that protection. It should intervene in work stoppages affecting the national health and welfare, and our national labor law should outline a procedure for so doing.

2. The rights of individual citizens must be recognized, and vigorously protected. A labor law that subverts individual employee rights to the development of big unionism is a poor law. The Wagner Act talked of employee rights, but interpretation twisted the language to mean "big union" rights. The LaborManagement Relations Act, 1947, recognized some of these evils by spelling out certain employee rights that could not be interpreted away. There is need for more of this kind of protection of employee freedom and rights.

3. There must be equality for employers, employees, and employee representatives before the law and before the governmental agencies charged with enforcing the law or assisting the parties. Rules, or their enforcement, cannot be successful unless the enforcement agencies and tribunals evidence fairness and impartiality toward all parties.

4. The jurisdiction of States should be recognized and encouraged. The desires of their citizens to regulate according to localized needs should supersede Federal law and not be wiped out by Federal law, in the absence of a real need in the national interest.

5. The right of redress through the courts, both for enforcement and for damages, should be outlined as to procedure, and be available to governmental agencies and the parties in industrial relations, as it is to all citizens This is especially true as to contractual obligations. Industrial relations, as to employer, employee, or employee representatives, should operate on sound business principles. The emotional approach to labor relations has been too costly to our country in terms of strikes and loss of productivity, damages and losses in wages, and loss of profits and taxes.

6. A labor law should be definite and clear. It should be a complete law, and not one to be developed by administrative action or court interpretation. 7. Bipartisanship in politics is a necessary ingredient to the formulation of sound Government policy in industrial relations.

It is my belief that the Labor-Management Relations Act, 1947, is such a law as I have described. It has worked well for 6 years. If amendments are found necessary or desirable, they should be made in the public interest, with a view to recovering and promoting individual freedom, and not in the interest of any particular organized segment of our economy.

PART I

LABOR MANAGEMENT RELATIONS ACT, 1947

Short title and declaration of policy

The language in the short title and declaration of policy is useful. It is a necessary declaration of intention.

"Labor" and "union" may be synonymous terms, but only when the rank and file determines policy and issues the instructions to the hired men. A reverse theory has been discouraged by this law.

The public is entitled to the consideration it receives.

Title I-Amendment of National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) Section 101-Finding and policies.-The general knowledge that unions are recognized to have certain obligations in the sphere of collective bargaining has had a stabilizing influence.

The Labor-Management Relations Act, for the first time, spells out the responsibilities of unions and employers to the American public. The public likes this recognition. The further declaration of intention is helpful.

Definitions. "Working foremen" are a problem. They will be a problem so long as unions contend that supervisors shall do no work. Efficiency of operation-with a view to a lower-priced product-demands productive work on the part of this type of man. These facts are especially applicable to small business. Supervisors should be excluded from the employee definition. They are a part of management. Supervisors cannot be part of management if they are to be in unions. Unrealistic and unhealthy realinement that divorces supervision from management means a higher price to the buying public because of inefficiency.

Commerce that is interstate in character should be more narrowly defined. Interpretations placed upon the coverage of the Labor-Management Relations Act, 1947, have been too broad, with the Federal law assuming too much jurisdiction. It leaves too little to State law. The States should be expected to assume responsibility for local business.

It is helpful to have the definitions in the law.

National Labor Relations Board.-A 5-member Board, working in 3-member panels, has been able to get the work done.

A new note of equality has been injected into proceedings before the Board. The separation of policing and prosecution functions from judicial functions is necessary to impartial administration.

Rights of employees.-Individual dignity, freedom, and initiative in thinking and action builds up and sustains a high average in welfare and progress. The rights of individuals and minorities should be afforded all possible protection, as provided by this law.

Unfair labor practices.-Some abuse of compulsory union membership has been removed by specifying the situations in which an employee can lose his job.

The right to petition for decertification is sound. Employees have little objection to paying their freight. Employees do not, in general, approve of closed shops or closed unions. They realize that union-controlled hiring is susceptible to discrimination. They appreciate their right guaranteed by the Labor-Management Relations Act, 1947, to petition for the chance to unload an unsatisfactory union, or its compulsory membership requirements. They object to the many internal control abuses inflicted upon them by unions that ignore or trample over the rights of individuals and minorities.

It is significant that the industries that have experienced difficulty as the result of the prohibition of the closed-shop contract have been the printing industries, the maritime industries, and the building trades industries. It is more significant that it is in these industries that the public has paid the highest price for one-sided bargaining because of overwhelming strength on the side of the unions. Employers in these industries, long ago, grew discouraged. Here, it seem, exists a situation whereby collective bargaining is a process by which there is a mutual determination of how much the consumer will pay.

The closed shop should be prohibited. The rights of the employees to petition to have the union-shop authority of the union denied or removed from the contract should be preserved because it is the best safeguard against uncontrolled union leadership, and rampant majority domination. Employee decertification procedures should be less restricted.

The employee right to petition for decertification of the union, or withdrawal of the right to include a union-shop provision, removes a cause of misunderstanding between employers and employees, and employers and unions. Under the Labor-Management Relations Act, 1947, the employer can refer disgruntled employees to the NLRB, and a cause for friction has been removed.

Union unfair labor practices.-Unions can and do commit unfair labor practices. Many of their unfair practices have now been defined and prohibited. Most of the unfair practices outlined in the act for unions are also unfair when committed by employers. This is equality in the eyes of the law, and is as it should be. There can be no legitimate defense of secondary boycotts, hot cargo, jurisdictional strikes in the face of certifications by the National Labor Relations Board, excessive fees and dues, featherbedding, or any other form of coercion or