May I suggest a point that has not been made as to exactly how that would be done. The admitted purpose of the unions which are supporting this bill in their own literature and as stated before this subcommittee is to provide a means whereby construction sites may be captured for the trade unions, and a means whereby nonunion contractors, nonunion employees can be kept away from the construction sites. A correction of the situation such as we have in Baltimore, where the unions abhor the fact that even today nonunion contractors and people that don't belong to unions are still permitted to work on construction and construction sites. The way it would work is this: Gentlemen, this bill has been well planned. I admire the legal talents of the people on the other side of the fence. I have been licked by them now and then. We fought secondary boycott cases a long, long time. The gimmick is beautiful. It is this: At the present time a contractor is permitted to picket a site. He is permitted to picket a site under reasonable rules. He can picket the site whenever the contractor with whom he has a dispute is there. Mr. GRIFFIN. You said a contractor. Did you mean a union?

Mr. MAHIN. I am sorry, a union. A union is permitted to picket a site whenever his contractor is there, subject to rules which the Board has provided. He must be there. The picketing must make it clear that the dispute is with the particular contractor, and it must occur when the contractor is really engaged there and not just stopping by casually.

That is the present situation. So the construction trades now have the opportunity to picket under reasonable conditions.

Now what does the new law do? You remember the proviso in sec-: tion (e) which now permits a union in respect of a construction site to require a contract of a boycott nature, generally interpreted to mean that union A can contract with a contractor; that that contractor will not deal with a nonunion contractor. What does that mean? On a construction site say, 20 contractors, 50 acres, or a hundred acres, whatever it may be, if the union either has a contract with one contractor on that site or is striking for a contract with that contractor, it may under this bill picket the entire site, which could not be done otherwise. It would not in the union's view violate the new 8(b) (7) provision against organizational and recognition picketing because its fight would not be with the others, presumably. It would not be trying to organize the others. It would not be picketing any of the others as such. It would merely be trying to enforce its little gimmick contract with the single contractor that he on that site would not deal with any contractor who was nonunion.

Gentlemen, there is no question but that it would provide absolute means of evading by the building trades unions the antipicketing provisions which were worked out after such long deliberation in this body and the Senate last fall.

It is my experience that the vast majority of the secondary boycotts at construction sites are the result of objections by a construction union to the letting of a contract to a contractor whose employees do not wish to join a union or belong to another union.

This is exactly what was in mind when the 8(e) proviso was passed. Under the proposed legislation, the building trades unions of the AFL-CIO-and I am not criticizing them particularly but that they

in control can do these things-and the Teamster locals, whose members are engaged in hauling to and from building sites, would be permitted to secondary boycott the employees of other construction units not a part of the giant AFL-CIO federation. For example, the United Mine Workers have a group of construction workmen holding membership in good old District 50 of the UMW. If the construction contractors employees happened to prefer membership in the UMW, they would be boycotted off a jobsite if the area is controlled by the AFL-CIO building trades. This same result would occur to any independent building union that might be established in the future. In other words, H.R. 9070 would permit big unions to get bigger at the expense of smaller or independent unions, and no new labor organization could ever be started.

And in the double nature of things no nonunion contractor could ever approach a construction site on which one of these 8(e) contracts was in existence or being struck for.

Further, as you gentlemen well know, one of the problems even today in the building trade setup is that of jurisdictional strikes. It is indisputable that this bill which would permit a trade union, having a dispute with one contractor, jurisdictional or otherwise, to completely close down the site. The situation we had in Chicago in the old days where the whole area was closed down and which led eventually to the Landis award which you gentlemen remember, could be reenacted legally under this bill, which can not be done now because the Labor Board under its reasonable rules has required that if the union has a dispute with a given contractor, his picketing be directed to that contractor. I would like to illustrate that, if I might.

Take the Levitt construction areas and the vast acres you have there, the Nixon projects throughout Chicago, the Metropolitan projects throughout the country, what does this bill mean? It means that out of 20 contractors the union can gain control, dominate and establish closed shop conditions and avoid completely the antipicketing provisions of 8(e) by the simple device of controlling one contractor.

I will take one of my own friends, the Glaziers, in Chicago. I was privileged to be involved in the Joliet contractor's case. The Glaziers at one spot on the Levitt construction project may be putting in windows which will take them 4 hours. If the union has a dispute with that particular contract under present laws they can picket that location, provided they do it while the employees of that particular contractor are there, and make it known that is what they are doing. Under this bill, gentlemen, it is inescapable that that Glaziers Union could shut down the entire construction site in furtherance of its own dispute, a most inequitable result not only to the public and the people that live there, but to the many other unions whose employees otherwise would be perfectly happy to continue to work and would continue to work in large part under the Board's present rules.

I think it is fruitful, too, when the people are asking for the first apple to see who may warrant the first apple.

I would like to refer to a few statistics. An examination of these boycott statistics supplied by the Labor Board for the past 3 years reveals that the building trades unions are the greatest exploiters of the secondary boycott. They were the ones in the middle of the Bradley case which was the real reason for the original provisions. But the Teamsters run a close second.

For the calender year 1958, Board records show that there were 520 boycott charges filed. The Teamsters had 22 percent plus. The unions in the building and construction field had 41 percent of all boycotts filed in these United States.

My statement contains a breakdown for that year. In 1957 there were 508 boycott cases filed. The Teamsters had 31 plus; the building trades 32. They are neck and neck that year. The next year, 1956, there were 447 boycott cases filed. This year Teamsters had 28 percent and the building trades more than 36 percent; 1959 figures are not available.

Thus the above statistics indicate, gentlemen, that we are passing legislation to help these underprivileged unions, yet the underprivileged unions, according to their statement, are the ones who have most exploited the secondary boycott in violation of the existing law-41 percent in 1958 building trades; 32 percent, 1957, building trades; 36 percent, 1956, building trades.

The Teamsters get into the act, of course, because your lumber dealers who supply the yards and the contractors who have their own trucks employ Teamster employees. When you add the two together, gentlemen, you have a situation such that by opening the door to secondary boycotts in the construction area you emasculate 50 percent or more, approximately, of the Taft-Hartley prohibitions against secondary boycotts.

Thus we have a strange paradox. Many unions that have had their names involved in various scandals and wrongdoings and whose officials, both large and small, have been investigated by congressional committees, are now before the Congress seeking more power over rank-and-file members and over industry.

I do not want to be misunderstood in that and the succeeding comment. I have dealt with many respectable Carpenters Unions. I have dealt with some respectable Teamsters Unions. I am speaking now not of any particular person or any particular union, except as I might mention them. I am speaking of the fact that we have a group which admittedly represents the strongest combination of union power probably in the country seeking relief by way of more power to enforce closed shop conditions on construction sites.

Mr. WIER. Would you yield right there?

Mr. MAHIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. WIER. What do you mean when you refer to a trade union as respectable? How do you come to use that phrase?

Mr. MAHIN. I would give them the benefit of the doubt, Mr. Congressman. I would say anybody who didn't get embroiled against sound truth in the recent disclosures that you gentlemen had and others, I would give them the benefit of being respectable. I would feel one as to whom the proof showed definite dishonesty, abuse of power, and that sort of thing, as not being respectable.

Mr. WIER. I was wondering how you arrived at that phrase because I never referred to employers as employers of "respectability" or employers of "unrespectability." I have always referred to them as employers, "fair" and "reasonable."

Mr. MAHIN. I think those terms could well have been substituted for the word "respectable." I meant the same thing.

Mr. WIER. I have a philosophy that that word “respectable”.
Mr. MAHIN. Is "irrespectable."

Mr. WIER. It could be interpreted that way. I do not think it applies here in terms of respect. I think it is more of a phrase that should be used that this is a clean, reasonable union. Reasonable union. I have heard most employers refer to business agents and officers of unions in terms of that he is a reasonable fellow. He is not respectable. I would say that some of the fellows that probably got the most going-over here in the Congress and many men that might be referred to in some circles as very respectable, driving a Cadillac car, owning a $35,000 home, living in an elite area and they are looked upon as respectable.

Mr. MAHIN. That, I assure you, is not what I had in mind.

Mr. WIER. I was wondering.

Mr. MAHIN. I am sure you recall Senator McClellan's now muchquoted comment on the Operating Engineers Union:

It is hard to imagine how democracy could be more stifled than it is within the International Union of Operating Engineers. The union officials milk thousands of dollars out of the union treasury and put it in their own pockets.

The president of the Carpenters, Maurice Hutcheson, is now under indictment by both the United States and the State of Indiana; yet, he continues to hold a vice presidency in the AFL-CIO. When Dave Beck, the Teamster boss, was indicted, he and his union were expelled from the AFL-CIO. Not so with the boss of a building trades unit. The McClellan committee charged Hutcheson's union was a seriously mismanaged organization. A member of the Carpenters executive board, one Charles Johnson, Jr., was disclosed by the McClellan committee to have

received $96,500 in commissions for petroleum products sold by the Penn Products Co. to major construction firms with which the Carpenters have collective bargaining agreements.

The committee considered this "one of the most gross conflict of interest cases."

When a business agent of Local 106 in Des Moines sought to clean up his union, the McClellan committee showed he was threatened by armed men and told he would be sent home in a "wooden overcoat."

The House Labor Committee last year investigated conditions in the Plumbers Union in Indiana. I'm sure you recall the testimony of a rank-and-file plumber that the members of his local have nothing to say about contract negotiations or the approval of labor contracts.

I might interject there that a review of the antitrust cases by the U.S. Department of Justice I think reveals more cases of boycotts by the Plumbers Union than almost any other. You will also recall how the union controlled jobs so as to give preference to certain Chicago members.

In 1954 the House Labor Committee investigated officers of the Hod Carriers and Building Laborers Union about kickbacks paid for arranging to have certain men act as administrators of union pension and welfare funds.

I mention these as not all-inclusive but to illustrate a few of the construction unions that would win more power by the enactment of H.R. 9070. These are the kinds of scandal-ridden unions that rank

and-file workmen would be forced to join if this bill becomes law. They would be forced to pay dues to such union officials because the secondary boycott power would compel them to do so. I don't limit that comment to unions who have had some bad publicity, putting it lightly.

I extend that to any union. I think it is wrong for any union to be able to force and compel people on a contract job, or any job, for that matter, to belong to the union in order to work there, and to force a contractor not to deal with anybody that is not union in that sense.

Now we have referred to the general and overall effects on the construction unions if this bill were to be enacted and to give them an opportunity to apply boycotts to neutrals. I would like to comment briefly on some of the union contentions that have been presented. I don't think they have a sound case. The officials of the building trades would have the public believe that there is no secondary boycott involved in their attempts to keep nonunion workmen off construction projects.

They reach this conclusion by arguing that there are no true secondary employers involved in the construction of a home, a factory, an office building or a public structure. In their view, there is but one contractor-the general contractor. All of the some 20 various subcontractors, the plumbers, the electricians, the masons, the glaziers, are really one employer. Union officials refuse to accept the reality that these various craftsmen are the employees of independent contractors whose employees have the right to join or refrain from joining a labor organization.

The Supreme Court considered this contention when it decided the Denver Building Trades case in 1951. The Court found that there is not one employer at a construction site, but that each subcontractor is an individual independent employer. Here is the Court's statement:

We agree with the Board also in its conclusion that the fact that the contractor and subcontractor were engaged in the same construction project, and that the contractor had some supervision over the subcontractor's work, did not eliminate the status of each as an independent contractor or make the employees of one the employees of the other. The business relationship between independent contractors is too well established in the law to be overridden without clear language doing so.

Moreover, gentlemen, there is a practical reason, too, that there is not one entity on a construction site. This is not a situation of one big general contractor dealing with two or three fly-by-night subcontractors. Throughout the United States some of the most responsible and extended construction organizations are subcontractors. We represent the Acoustical Contractors Association, substantial organizations, maybe operating on 50 sites at the same time. They have their own business establishments. That is one of their projects.

That is true of many of the contracting groups. In other words, those men are employers, and their employees are employees under the act and entitled to the advantages and protections of the act. The fact that on some occasion they may do part of their work on a construction site certainly should not give any trade union license to picket the construction site and compel the unionization of them and their employees.

This is fiction, the statement that you do not have secondary boycotts enacted on a construction site. I take you back to the reason