Mr. ROOSEVELT. But that is not the objective here.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Just a minute. Picketing is permitted now when the picketing is so conducted that it is clear that it is primary picketing. Now, a union has a dispute with a subcontractor. It may be because he is nonunion, or it may be because he wants his employees to use spray guns instead of paint brushes, or it could be anything. If the union will picket on the job in such a way as to make it clear that its dispute is with that subcontractor, the picketing can be legally carried on under rules that the NLRB has laid down in Moore Dry Dock case; that is, the union must indicate on its signs which subcontractor it has the dispute with

Mr. ROOSEVELT. But he does not say that was not the case in this instance.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Just a minute.

I do not know what the facts are in that case.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. But all I am objecting to is, he comes up here and gives us a case that does not carry that out.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Further, the union must picket at the entrance, or a place reasonably close to where the dispute is; that would be primary picketing, and even though, in order to do that, it might have an incidental effect of causing other people not to cross the picket line, it would still be all right. In other words, if it is a small job and there is only one entrance to go to work, and the only way they can picket is to picket at that entrance in order to bring the dispute to the attention of those employees, such picketing would be all right under existing law.

Suppose it is a big job, however, and you have a subcontractor who is doing a part of the work over in one corner of a large site. In that circumstance, the dispute is with that subcontractor, and the union can carry on its picketing to bring that matter to the attention of those employees, without shutting down the whole job. In cases where it is possible to do that, why should we not protect the innocent contractor, the third party, and his employees from this labor dispute? That is the whole question involved.

If you will accept amendments along the lines of the rules we are talking about here, I will vote for your bill. But union leaders apparently do not want that. They want the right absolutely to be exempt from the secondary boycott provision and to close down the whole job in every case. That is what this debate is all about. Mr. DENT. Now, wait a minute. How do you close the job down by putting up a picket line?

Mr. GRIFFIN. If a union puts up a picket line around a job and intends that it will cause the carpenters and the plumbers and all of the rest of trades not to cross the picket line, it is not very hard to close the whole job down.

Mr. DENT. What does your law say about restraining a man from crossing a picket line by coercion?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. That has been outlawed.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Theoretically, a man voluntarily, has a choice whether he wants to or not.

Mr. DENT. If these people really want to work, as you say, pleading for them that here are innocent people that want to work, if they are restrained by the sight of a man with a sandwich board on his back they don't want to work very much.

Mr. GRIFFIN. You are getting away from the question of whether we want to permit secondary boycotts in this situation, or do we want to recognize the right to picket but put reasonable restrictions upon it. And I think I have suggested reasonable restrictions: first of all, that the sign indicate which subcontractor it is with whom the union has its dispute.

Mr. DENT. We are not worried about that.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Secondly, that they picket when that subcontractor or his employees are there on the job.

Mr. DENT. What if his employees are not there? Under your law, he has brought in other workers to do the job of these boys that are out on strike.

Mr. GRIFFIN. They can picket.

Mr. DENT. You say that a job is a big, long one, and therefore we have to restrict the area. Suppose that I live right at the east gate of a mile and half job, and I come through that east gate, but you live at the other end of the job, and you come through that particular gate. Are you going to ask for an amendment to allow the contractor to specify the hole through which they are to crawl?

Mr. GRIFFIN. No; I do not think under Moore Dry Dock there would be such a right on the part of the subcontractor.

Mr. DENT. Then, what is the objection to the bill? Ten employees can come in ten different entrances.

Mr. GRIFFIN. I will agree with you that in some cases, and particularly small jobs, in order to protect the right of the union to exercise its right to picket, it will ncessarily involve closing down the whole job. But where this is not the case, where they can carry on their legitimate picketing and advertise their dispute with the primary employer without doing this, why should we allow secondary boycott activity?

Mr. DENT. What we are trying to do is to keep from giving an economic power to the nonunion employer to force the union employer to discard and throw out his contracts. And here is a perfect example. [Showing payroll tickets] Here is a man who worked 601/2 hours a week at $2.50 an hour without any overtime pay, doing identically the same job on the same contract, doing identically the same job as another man who works 50 hours a week at $3.75 for another subcontractor; because subcontractors are often split into two or more subcontracts on a big job.

Mr. GRIFFIN. If I were one of those fellows, I would probably join the union. Why don't they?

Mr. DENT. Because he would get fired. He works for a nonunion contractor. You evidently have not had much experience with human nature, sir.

Mr. PERKINS. I want to take a long-distance call. Are you through? Mr. KELLER. I am through; yes, sir.

Mr. PERKINS. All right, the next witness will come up, please. Mr. TELLER. Will you give your name and whom you represent?

STATEMENT OF JACK KNOTT, MANAGER, ASSOCIATED GENERAL CONTRACTORS OF WYOMING

Mr. KNOTT. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Jack Knott. My home is in Cheyenne, Wyo. I am the manager of the Associated General Contractors of Wyoming, an association of general contractors doing a large part of the major construction within our State. My purpose here today is to give you their views on the legislation presently under consideration.

I wish to call to your attention for your consideration how enactment by the Congress of H.R. 9070 or similar legislation legalizing secondary boycotts in the construction industry would not be in the public interest.

As you know, the first combat-ready Atlas missile launchers are at present being constructed in our State. This construction to date has been comparatively free of major labor disputes and strikes. However, in my opinion, enactment of legislation such as that embodied in H.R. 9070 would lead to endless labor trouble on this and similar type construction.

These projects, by their very complex and costly nature, usually require either a joint venture of several contractors or require the prime contractor to have contracts on these sites at the same time, and they usually have one or more subcontractors. Needless to say, such a situation can lead to labor problems.

The few work stoppages that have occurred on this work, in my opinion, would have been prolonged and increased in number if provisions such as are contained in H.R. 9070 were passed into law.

My reasoning is that, first of all, any such work stoppage would more frequently result because the particular labor organization involved would be inclined to make free use of the secondary boycott strike against neutral contractors in order to exert as much coercion as possible upon the contractor having the labor dispute with the union. Under the Landrum-Griffin law, such strike activity is

outlawed.

A work stoppage of this nature could result from nearly any one of the employer-employee disputes which occur between any of the subcontractors or the prime contractors and any of the 16 or 18 different crafts employed on such a project.

Any dissatisfied or irresponsible union representative, of which there usually are a few, could disrupt and stop all construction at any time for any reason. Any unhappy subcontractor not caring about the other subs or the prime could do the same thing.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Mr. Witness, I just wonder if I understood you right. Did you make a statement that picketing of a secondary boycott nature which would be legalized under this bill is outlawed by the Landrum-Griffin Act? I would like to make it clear that the kind of picketing to which this bill is directed was illegal before the 1959 Labor Act was adopted

Mr. KNOTT. I believe that is true, Mr. Griffin.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Under the Denver Building Trades case, as an interpretation of the Taft-Hartley Act. The act passed last year did not touch the legality or the illegality of this particular activity. I just want the record to indicate that.

Mr. KNOTT. I agree with you, sir, and my words were unfortunate in that case.

We know that in some cases such work stoppages or strikes might still be illegal, but from experience we also know that separating and defining the issues, let alone whether they are legal or illegal, often is more difficult than arriving at a mutually satisfactory solution.

Under H.R. 9070, a minor dispute between a small subcontractor employing three or four men and a labor organization could legally stop all construction work on any construction site under the terms of this bill.

In the case of missile base construction, the result would be complete stopping of the building of what the country vitally needs for its defense.

On other construction, the result most often would be in loss of wages to employees not involved in the dispute, the involvement of employers other than the one directly concerned, and the long-term result will be worsening of labor-management relations.

The relationship between the prime contractor and a subcontractor is generally such that the prime contractor employs the subcontractor to perform only a particular part of the work to be done on the job. For example, the relationship between a prime and a painting subcontractor doing painting work is no more than the fact that the prime makes a contractual arangement with the painting sub to do all the painting.

The general or prime contractor has no means of control over the labor policy of a particular subcontractor, nor can he interfere in the manner in which the subcontractor handles his labor problems. If the contrary were true, it would be a relatively simple problem for the prime to solve any of the labor problems occurring on the site. But the plain facts of life are that the prime contractor in construction today has no such control, and it would be impractical for him to do so in most cases, because the subcontractor is performing a specialized function of which the prime has little or no knowledge of the work or of the labor problems of the subcontractor.

I might say at this point that on Atlas base construction we have a contract at the present time that is in three States. It is approximately 360 miles driving time from one site to all of the nine sites. Under this bill, as I understand it, a relatively minor problem on any one of those sites could result in legal picketing on all the sites, against all the subcontractors, the prime contractor, and perhaps other primes who were working on those sites.

Under the provisions of this bill, the prime contractor and his work could be directly involved in the labor problems of his painting sub, even though he would have no knowledge or experience with the particular labor problems.

I also believe that under this bill it would be possible for a small local union which was conducting what the employer believed to be an illegal discriminatory hiring hall to cause a stoppage of work to force the employer to use those facilities.

In Wyoming, we are of the opinion that one or two hiring halls are not being conducted according to the dictates of the National Labor Relations Board.

Yet, if H.R. 9070 were enacted, I feel that these organizations probably would strike any project, including the missile construction, to force the employers to use their hiring facilities exclusively. Mr. DENT. May I interrupt there?

If these halls are illegal, operated illegally, what can we do in the way of enacting a law, if they will not enforce the law that is now in existence?

say

Mr. KNOTT. My statement will cover that, sir, if I might read it. I in the next sentence: Since no case has come before the National Labor Relations Board involving these locals to prove our belief that their hiring halls are run illegally, a strike could be considered legal under this bill.

Mr. DENT. Now, who are you to assume that they are illegal? And if you think they are, why do you not bring suit? It seems to me it is not fair to let things into the record on the assumption that something is illegal, and because that may be illegal in your opinion, that it have a bearing upon whether Congress ought to pass this bill. Mr. KNOTT. The charge of discrimination as to whether a hiring hall is run legally or not is usually brought by an employee, or pros pective employee, who feels he has been discriminated against. The way we handle it, when we have doubts about whether the hiring hall is run legally or not, we take certain precautions, which include posting at the job site simultaneously when the hiring hall is called that there is a need for workmen of a particular type, so that the employer can be sure that he is doing everything possible to assure that, as far as he is concerned, discrimination is not practiced. Mr. DENT. What kind of discrimination?

Mr. KNOTT. Discrimination as to the referral of men.

Mr. DENT. You mean the men cannot police that themselves; the employer does it for them?

Mr. KNOTT. I do not understand your question, sir.

Mr. DENT. Well, if the hiring hall is referring illegally or contrary to what you think is legal, the employer sets up notices and he guarantees the referral according to his terms; is that right?

Mr. KNOTT. Under the way that we practice it, if we have doubts about the legality of the hiring hall-and of course the hiring hall can be run legally, and our people are mostly union contractors; we use hiring halls. If we have doubts about the legality of the conduct of the hiring hall, we simultaneously, at the time that the order goes to the hiring hall for the need for workmen, post at the jobsite or at the company office, in some cases, concurrently, the need for workmen as well. Then, the first qualified man who arrives is hired, whether it be from the hiring hall or from the notice posted.

Mr. DENT. How would that change under this bill? Can you explain that to me?

Mr. KNOTT. As I said, we have two locals that in our opinion are running their hiring halls not according to the regulations laid down by the National Labor Relations Board. It is our opinion that since there have been no cases brought up before the NLRB to prove that these are illegal, and it is only our opinion based upon what knowledge we have of this situation, that those crafts could very well picket, and that picket would be legal, to force the contractor to abide by the provisions of the contract which was between the employer and the