shop. That is the direction in which you gave with this amendment in the Landrum-Griffin bill in the creation of an open shop.

I am sure you know the old adage of the trade union movement that an injury to one is an injury to all. So that is a theory that has been followed through. If we allow this big contractor over here to sublet 12 subcontracts, if you allow him to accept the bid of a nonunion contractor that comes from an area where he has been able to pay any wages in a skilled trade, such as the building trades in most cases, and what does he do? He is competing with a fellow over here that is paying for the same kind of work on a union scale with union conditions. If he is going to get away with it, you and I both know that it institutes a threat to the whole pattern of the community in that particular construction industry.

Certainly I don't think the chamber has ever taken the position, although I will be charitable and say maybe you have given a little lip service, but you have maintained the right of workers to organize. At the same time, if you really believe in collective bargaining, you institute these proceedings to block it by these gimmicks that the legislative bodies now are empowered to put into law. Even the question of organization. You do everything you can in this bill to block it. You make it difficult to hold the standards in this country. I am not going to dodge the fact, and less in the building trades than other there, there has been some skullduggery or misuse of trust.

I would not want you to make the statement here to the carpenters union in my city with about 3,000 members, as a reference to their activities and their relationship in the building trades industry, that you made to Hutcheson.

I don't always accept the theory that I am my brother's keeper. So I have found around the country that you have less of the so-called misuse of power in the building trades than you have any place else. I don't think the contractors in Minneapolis would want to go to the open shop today after the experience that they have had in the past. I think today there are very few jobs. I think in 1959 we had one of the jobs that you lay heavy stress on. That was a Federal job on a Federal building. A roofer came in from New Jersey on one of our arsenal buildings and created quite a mess for one of our good union contractors. I hardly can subscribe to the union's getting something that they have not had.

What they are getting is what they had for years and years. They have had ever since the open shop movement, that is, that right of situs dispute. That was only taken away here recently by the decision of the Denver case. Even after the Denver case in many of your cities, and you know it as well as I do, the construction industry has been almost 100 percent union shops.

The general contractor in any of the large cities is well acquainted with the fact that he is liable to have difficulty if he lets a subcontractor come in who will not meet the conditions of the city in which he is coming, bringing in a crew completely unorganized. He knows that. He is well aware of it because he has been in the business long enough to know and has dealt with these contractors long enough so that these so-called cases that you point out can be remedied by his own foresight. I don't know whether I should go any further into this or not, but I have had a world of experience in the trade union.

movement. I don't think I am giving the building trades anything that they haven't had.

I think the general application of this law applies to subcontractors because there is more of them. The general contractor in the main does work with the hoisting engineers to begin a job, then he goes to the laborers, and then the carpenters come on the job and then the plumbers, sheetmetal workers, and so on. So there are 14 subcontractors on the job as against one general contractor who does business with 5 trades.

So I cannot subscribe to much of what you have pointed out here. Mr. MAHIN. I appreciate the Congressman's comments. I also appreciate that he has had lots of long experience in the building trades. Surprisingly enough I might agree with quite a bit of what you say if we keep our perspective right. I would certainly agree that when you go back to the old days of no holds barred, there were many unreasonable actions on both sides. I know that in 1911 there were open shop associations organized. That followed the first group of organized labor group which got going pretty well about that time. That is true in the past. Then it developed that some of these employers probably were abusing their privileges. They were getting what we called yellow dog contracts.

Mr. Gompers, and some of our partriarchs of the labor movement, were properly vehement in their condemnation of those yellow dog contracts. Then there developed legislation prohibiting them in most States, and so forth. Then there developed the concept of collective bargaining. There is no question but that initially many businessmen opposed the concept of collective bargaining. Maybe that is evolution at work. I don't know.

Certainly long before the Wagner Act, this association went on record as favoring collective bargaining, but with the elimination of yellow-dog contracts the thing kind of switched around in reverse a little bit. By the time of the Taft-Hartley considerations in 1947, closed shop conditions had reached such an intolerable situation, at least in the thinking at the time, that they should be corrected. I think there is some consistency in their approach. Just as you state, it is wrong for employers to get together and say "We will hire only nonunion men; equally is it wrong as a matter of basic principle for the unions to get together and say you must hire only union men." The principle is the same. That is the reason that the Taft-Hartley Act originally outlawed the closed shop. Then that was modified gradually.

As you say, there is no point to belabor that because it represents a different viewpoint. Our view is that section 7, as the heart and guts of the Taft-Hartley law, is right.

Mr. WIER. Let me ask a question right there. Neither the chamber nor the general contractors from the period 1947 until about a year ago cared to take up the issue of the closed shop contractors in the building industry. All those years they permitted it to be effectively carried on. About a year ago, Secretary Mitchell called the attention. of the building and construction trades to the fact that you people are operating in violation of the provision of the Taft-Hartley Act by having closed shop in your contract. Take closed shop out of your contract and that will probably cure the situation.

Mr. MAHIN. Of course, that was not a new enactment. That was just a little delay in getting around to what Congress had clearly directed in 1947.

Mr. WIER. It was what?

Mr. MAHIN. Closed shop after 1947 was clearly illegal. There are many cases that involved it. But the administrative agency did not get around until it got to the Brown-Olds remedy that they found anything that they thought could be too effective. But nevertheless, it was still law and policy up until the present time.

I think the Congressman has met this issue fairly, and I think this is the issue on which the question should be resolved. Not on the question, we need to picket construction sites because the building trades now can do that. The flat question is, as they have represented it, and as you have stated it: Do we want to restore closed shop in the construction industry, or do we want to preserve section 7, where the individual has a right to choose or not choose on his own. This bill will answer that question. But it leads to another question. If closed shop is right in the construction industry, why not in every industry?

It is our position that it is not right in any industry, including the construction industry. We represent a difference of thinking. But I think the issue has been very clearly stated.

Mr. PERKINS. Mr. Griffin.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Mr. Mahin, in Michigan we have an organization which is quite active, known as the Christian Labor Association, partially in the western part of Michigan, in the building and construction industry. You also mentioned district 50 of the United Mine Workers being active in the building and construction industry. Is it your position that we would in effect be putting those labor organizations out of business by passing this law?"

Mr. MAHIN. Not exactly that, Mr. Congressman.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Could you elaborate a little more on what the effect would be, in your opinion, on those organizations?

Mr. MAHIN. Suppose you have two boys fighting in the street. One is 200 pounds, got knuckles and everything else. The other fellow he is fighting is a little fellow, 115 pounds, with a milktoast face. The little fellow may lick the big one, I know, but what this bill does is to give the big guy another club in this sense. When you give a union the right to close a construction site by having one dispute with one contractor, the ability to close the construction site, you give the dominant union the power to control that site. It is perfectly obvious.

Since the AFL-CIO is by all odds the dominant union, the power which this bill would give them could be utilized, and I have no doubt will be utilized, to take all the jobs they can to the prejudice of the smaller fellows.

Mr. PERKINS. Would the gentleman yield to me at this point?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes.

Mr. PERKINS. Now, if your Christian Labor Association had the original contract and some other subcontractor came in there with nonunion labor and then the Christian Labor Association under this bill would have the same rights that it would give the building trades. Is my statement correct or not?

Mr. MAHIN. Very true. It reveals so well the vice of this bill.

Mr. PERKINS. Then one further question: Then the building trades could not usurp the contract that the Christian Labor Association had with the general contractor?

Mr. MAHIN. No. But the dominant union then closes the construction site, and in your experience in jurisdictional contests when a construction site is closed, which union always wins? The dominant union, without question. That is the point I am making. I think I referred in my testimony to the fact that this could not help but foster jurisdictional strikes. My point is this: Whether you are talking about the big union or the little union, the club which they do not have, the club to close down a construction site against the acceptance of their demands is not good.

Mr. PERKINS. You would agree that the purpose of the legislation is to organize the unorganized of a subcontractor. Is that statement correct?

Mr. MAHIN. It could be; or the converse.

Mr. PERKINS. That is all.

Mr. WIER. Will you yield for one more question?

You mentioned two organizations. I think we heard the testimony of the Christian Labor Union. Here is our experience in my community. Personally I hold no brief for Lewis Local No. 50. They came into our community in about 1934 following depression years and tried to break into the building and construction trades relationships with the general contractors. What was their offer? Contract with at least a fourth less wages in order to get into the industry. I think throughout the States their policy generally was not bona fide agreements, but moving in. They moved into our grain industry in my city. Lewis has two or three grain plants. In the construction industry, their whole objective, regardless of the wages being paid or regardless of the working conditions, let us get into this industry where we can spread out. We cannot compete with the construction trades either in labor in giving them the labor that they want, nor can we compete in workmanship. So they started with the laborers' union. But they took an awful licking there and our contractors felt that they did not want a situation like that, where they had to deal with two unions. So that has been the policy. I sit on this committee with rather rigid ideas of conditions in district 50. That is my answer.

I have no question on the Christian Labor because I think he sat here and admitted that their efforts are all voluntary. They try to win their membership without the use of strike and without the use of any of the so-called weapons. I asked him how he gets contracts. They don't ask anybody else to help. They just depend on those people who believe in their cause. I believe that was his whole program. I do not know whether they are going to make it. They did win a victory in the Labor Board election in North Dakota. They still have a contract up there with the contractors in North Dakota.

Mr. MAHIN. I appreciate that problem in any competition. We have it on the business side of the fence. When you have to work with competition it is a problem sometimes. We can not agree with other businessmen what our prices are going to be although that would greatly help our profit structure. It is our position that a

union, even the building trades unions, do not need a monopoly of your Minneapolis area in order to obtain fair wage rates.

Mr. WIER. How do you know I come from Minneapolis?

Mr. MAHIN. I was briefed. Are you from Minneapolis?

Mr. WIER. You guessed it.

Mr. MAHIN. You talked about that area.

Mr. WIER. I never mentioned it.

Mr. MAHIN. I am sorry.

Mr. WIER. I mean I never mentioned the word "Minneapolis." Mr. MAHIN. The point we make is that you do not need a union monopoly in order to maintain and obtain fair rates any more than businessmen need a monopoly in order to obtain the proper prices for their products. That gets back to our basic difference. We do not believe in a closed shop in your industry. You do.

Mr. WIER. And the workers do. I was going to question you about your statement, on page 2:

But these 18 lines are the first wedge to weaken the protection offered the American workmen.

Mr. MAHIN. It should be afforded. I am sorry.

Mr. GRIFFIN. I have no more questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PERKINS. Are there any other questions?

Mr. GRIFFIN. I would like to raise one point that may have been raised before. As a practicing attorney I used to represent some school boards. Certainly as a moral obligation and in many States as a legal obligation, when you are going to build a school building the school board must advertise for bids, and is expected or required by law to award the contracts to the lowest bidders for the various contracts.

Mr. WIER. Lowest responsible bidder.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Lowest responsible bidder in heating, plumbing, electrical, et cetera. It would seem to me that we would in effect be saying to the States which have such laws on the books that only a union contractor-perhaps only an AFL contractor could qualify as a lowest responsible bidder. Would you care to comment on that situation? Do you see what I am getting at?

Mr. MAHIN. Yes, sir. The effect would be that in this way: The law does not directly enforce that but when you read it in conjunction with 8(e) which was obviously drafted in contemplation of it, your contractor in the area where the school district is would have a clause requiring that he deal only with union contractors. The result of that would be that he could not deal with any other contractor such as you suggest, with the result that as a practical matter the board would have to accept his bid if it was going to get the construction done.

As Congressman Wier has pointed out in these major construction areas, the situation is such that if you have a union contractor in control of the job you can't get it done unless you meet the terms of his contract. Does that answer your question? That would be the practical result of it.

Mr. GRIFFIN. I think it a matter that we want to look into some

more.