for the act in the first place. What was it? The Bradley case. Again and again and again it was pointed out that the problem was that the electrical workers on construction sites in New York City were contending that as a condition of employment they had a right to insist that their people took apart and put back together the electrical fixtures which came on the jobs. If anything led to the secondary boycott prohibitions that did.

Gentlemen, this bill before you would cut directly across that picture and put the electrical workers under the Bradley case situation directly back in business. There is no question about it. They are real secondary boycotts. They are separate employers. They are not a common entity.

In that connection, the people supporting this bill complain about the Board's common situs rules. They say these rules frustrate their objectives. What are their objectives? As stated before this committee yesterday, and in the literature they have distributed to their own members, their objective is the unionization of construction sites, the restoration of the closed shop. There is no debate about it. It is admitted. I say this: So long as the objectives of the trade unions. are in furtherance of the legitimate objectives of the law, they have full right to picket now. To the extent that they want the right to enforce secondary boycotts on construction sites in order to restore closed shop conditions and evade the picketing provisions of the Landrum-Griffin law, they need this new bill, because that will let them do it. Why do I say this? I am not sure that the supporters of this bill on the other side have made it clear that they now have full right to picket construction sites.

I read some statements that indicated they might feel they did not. What is the fact? The construction site situation occurs when you have several people who by virtue of their work, are working in the same general area. What rules does the Board now apply? It is well established, the rules have been affirmed by the courts and by the Supreme Court throughout the years.

A contractor can now be picketed by any union with whom he has a dispute on the site, subject merely to these reasonable rules. The picketing takes place when he is there. He is the one with whom the dispute is. When he is there engaged in his regular business, not just there visiting someone. The picketing is limited to times and places reasonably close to where his people are working. It is they with whom the dispute exists. He must disclose whom he is fighting with.

A more reasonable set of rules it would be difficult to get. In that way the Board has balanced this problem of protecting the rights of a trade union to conduct its primary dispute without infringing on the right of neutral employers who are not involved in this dispute and they are not involved in the thing even though they may be performing work in the same vicinity. Thus under the present law the building trades are permitted to picket building sites under the fair and liberal conditions set out by the Labor Board.

The unions by H.R. 9070 would seek to sweep away the safeguard for other parties. Their claim that they do not have picketing rights now is specious. They want unlimited secondary boycott picketing, a right permitted no other unions. Their purpose is not to catch

up with other unions, but to gain additional advantages over other unions. Their purpose unequivocally is to force all people on construction sites to be union contractors and union employees.

The third comment that has been made has to do with this: A factory can be picketed, why not a construction site?

Gentlemen, the same rules apply exactly to both. If there is only one contractor on a construction site, as there is in some areas, the general contractor may be doing all the work, he can be picketed in entirety. The factory can be picketed in the same way. If the circumstances show a common situs situation, that is, other employers are in the vicinity, then the Board's rules apply, you can keep on picketing him but you have to do it in a way which does not unnecessarily interfere with neutral employers. There are cases about it. General Electric in Louisville has a large plant. It had an argument with the electrical workers, International Union of Electrical Workers, which is an industrial union, as you know. A basic primary dispute of the whole plant. It happened that under the circumstances there were other employers in the vicinity. Extensive construction was going on, remodeling of the building, and so on. So there was an entrance for the contractors. Now, what happened? The industrial union moved its pickets over in front of the contractor's entrance. Two employers in the same vicinity. The Labor Board applying their rules said, no, you can picket the factory all you wish, but you don't have a dispute with the contractor. You can't picket him. He is not involved in the dispute. So in a factory situation the same rules were applied.

An even more recent case involved one of these huge safety markets that involved acres, many of them larger than construction sites. They are growing larger all the time. What is the situation there? Inherently you have numerous employers on the spot. What happened? A grocer's union had a fight with one of the big people there. So the grocers' union started picketing all over the place. Seven of eleven entrances, I believe. The Labor Board said "No, that is too much. You have your dispute with your grocer, you may picket him, you may publicize your dispute, subject only to the fact that you do not unneces sarily interfere with other people." That had nothing to do with construction, yet it is the same principle. So when the trade unions come in and tell you that they are being discriminated against by Board rules, I suggest you not believe them, because it is not the fact. Take the next situation. Suppose you give the construction unions the right to picket an entire construction site, close down Chicago, if you please that might be a good idea-close down the whole area, for one dispute. What are you going to do when you come to the Teamsters, a most common situation. The books are full of cases where they use this device. They come to a common trucking terminal. Numerous companies, regularly picking up materials. The Teamsters have a fight with one of the trucking companies. So what do they say? We are entitled to close down the whole thing. The Labor Board has said "No."

That is a common situs situation, you can picket that truck while the truck is there and the people are there, and so forth, but you cannot close down the whole thing because that unduly protects your

rights against the primary employer to the prejudice of neutrals who are not involved in your dispute.

Gentlemen, the principle is identical. Take the matter a step farther. Take this situation of these extensive shops I have talked about. What are you going to do there? The common situs rules they can close the whole place down. Take it a step farther in principle. Take any area as in Chicago where you have a number of independent factories making parts or components that go into a completed entity of some kind or a product, are we going to say to the automobile workers, to the electrical workers, these parts eventually get into the same radio. Therefore we should consider them all as one employer. Of course not. Yet, gentlemen, the principle is the same. Within a two-block area you may have a half dozen different companies contributing to that one radio, an area much less than most construction sites in size. Mr. Reuther hears about it and then what do you get to? In principle, Government contracts or company contracts. We all know that the wheels are made one place, the chassis another place, the speedometers another place. Is the fact that they all enter the same automobile in the end entitle Mr. Reuther to picket these other locations? I have dwelled on that a little bit to urge that there is nothng in my judgment to this discrimination argument that the unions are talking about in respect of common situs picketing. I don't see how the Labor Board could have possibly devised a fairer arrangement to safeguard the rights both of the unions who have the dispute with A and the rights of the other employers and neutrals. Now I would like to suggest this. I hope I am not presumptuous. It seems to me that we have an awfully clear issue here, gentlemen. You don't have to look very far to know why the trade unions want this bill. It is perfectly obvious. They admit it. They want it because they want to increase their authority. They want to increase their control, as Mr. Gray said yesterday in questioning, as I understand it. We don't want nonunion people on the job. Now, how more honest and frank can you be than that? They want to employ the secondary boycott device on construction sites to restore closed shop conditions in the construction industry. They want Baltimore closed shop. They want every open shop area in the South and West and elsewhere closed shop.

Gentlemen, they have the gimmick to do it if you will but give it to them. So it seems to me that a legislature, also hoping not to be presumptuous, has a simple choice here. If you want to restore closed shop conditions in the industry, if you feel that the building trades are underprivileged, haven't enough power, are being discriminated against in respect of other unions, if you feel that is what is needed, you have no choice but to vote for this bill.

On the other hand, if you kind of feel maybe in your own mind that the trade unions are pretty strong already, that they have things pretty well buttoned up, that they have not had too good a record on fair dealing with the people they would like to force into the unions. If you feel it is not right to establish closed shop conditions through secondary boycott provisions on a construction site, you have not any choice. You have to vote against the bill, because those are the two results.

Instead of considering ways to weaken the present labor laws and permit more secondary boycotts, we urge the committee to strengthen the act as now amended and restore some of these original provisions which were watered down by the Senate conferees.

If secondary boycotts are evil, they should not be permitted by any union. The recent law gives free license and establishes an open zone for secondary boycotts in the clothing industry. We do not think that is right in principle. The law in this section 8(e) I am talking about grants the building trade unions the right to get contracts or seek contracts which prevent nonunion people from being on a construction job.

We think that clearly should be eliminated. We also don't like the other parts of section (e) which do pretty much to button up the control of labor on construction sites. We think that should be eliminated. We also think that the other compulsory unionism given to the building trades in section 8(f) should be repealed.

In conclusion, I should like to summarize briefly.

H.R. 9070 and similar measures are an attempt to give more power to a group of labor unions that already are far on the way to controlling the construction industry. Adoption of this bill would strengthen the monopoly hold which the building trade unions have by giving them the right to use secondary boycotts at construction sites. Instead of limiting labor disputes to the parties, the bill would permit economic pressure on innocent third persons, employees and employers, and make them take sides to help the union.

Even the most ardent unionist, District 50 or any place, should recognize the great dangers in this legislation. It helps give one federation absolute control. Properly employed by the dominant union I don't see how any independent union or new labor organization could have been successfully formed and established as long as the AFL building trades is given this license.

How could it be? If by control of one contractor the construction site can be shut down if another one enters it, how could it possibly be?

The statistics of the Labor Board reveal that over the recent 3 years for which figures are available from 50 to 40 percent of the secondary boycott complaints before the Board are against the unions that are now before you asking for this legislation. Add to these figures the number of secondary boycotts caused by the Teamster unions operating in the world of construction and nearly half of the present boycotts would be permitted.

A review of the number of unions that have been called before the congressional committees studying labor racketeering and dictatorship over rank-and-file members in the past few years would show that many are in the construction field. Are these the kinds of unions that Congress wants to add greater power? Are these the kinds of unions for whom Congress wants to legalize secondary boycotts?

I firmly suggest that the American people, seeing and understanding the issues, would give a resounding no in answer to these questions. The national chamber joins in this answer. We urge unequivocal rejection of House bill 9070.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. PERKINS. Are there any questions, Mr. Wier?

Mr. WIER. Mr. Chairman, I don't know that I have any questions, because as the witness followed through on his presentation I remembered back to the days of 1920, 1921, 1922, when the national chamber felt that they were in an economic condition that would serve their purpose well by instituting a national open shop movement in which they themselves were very instrumental in a national boycott. In the community in which I live you just about destroyed most of the unions. You cut them down, several.

In the construction industry, I am reciting past history but the procedure has changed from an economic fight with your national chamber to a legislative fight. I had the occasion a number of times to find that a reasonable employer who wanted a new building constructed, and was not endowed with a great amount of finances, appeared before a grand jury in Minneapolis when the issue became ripe and indicated beyond a question of a doubt unless he built that plant on the open shop basis the banks would turn him down. I am pointing to the extreme now. Contractors were in the main boycotted by firms that wanted to do construction work on the basis that if they were going to operate an open shop in our city-I mean if they were going to do it on a union basis-they would have to find other means of doing it rather than employing union labor.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. WIER. Yes.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Does the gentleman approve of employers or contractors using a boycott?

Mr. WIER. I am not using that as an issue. I am just pointing out the policies of the chamber.

Mr. GRIFFIN. I agree with you that if employers or contractors used such policies that would be bad. We would not want to permit that, would we?

Mr. WIER. We meet them. Coming to the contracting business particularly, I think out of about 30 general contractors that we had at that time, there were only 2 of them left who used the hiring hall for their help. We went all through that and chaos reigned through the industry. I heard one of our so-called very reasonable general contractors, that then and now has considerable work and is well thought of in the construction business, say he would never go through that again. They have a competitive situation today. When they bid they want to feel they can bid soundly, wisely, and with hopes of making a profit, which they could not do in those days because of the law of the jungle.

You refer to the right of these building trades unions to use their economic power to maintain their standards. Your efforts since 1940, when you entered the legislative halls of every legislature in the States and the National Congress to carry out the intent you started in 1920 with your open shop drive, have only one purpose in mind as I watched it here, and I watched it in the State legislature in my State, where the State organizations of the chamber carried on their appeal to the legislature for crippling labor legislation. I don't think in my community that there is any great desire of the contractors, although I have a letter from the secretary of the association opposing this-I don't know why he writes to me because he ought to know better, but he carries out his job you create by this action an open