camps. Some thought they were charging exorbitant initiation fees and exorbitant dues, but the unions thought they were justified along those lines, that those men just came in there, as you said a few minutes ago in your statement, to reap the harvest of the high wages. Mr. HINES. And to get 40 cents an hour more than they would have gotten if the unions were not there. Great stress has been laid on that by newspaper editorials and newspaper comment. The rates were set by the Government only after negotiation with the unions. The unions had a lot to say--at least, they had a voice in determining wage rates in various localities-and it was because there were strong unions there that the rates were set, as they were. The new fellow who got in received 40 and 50 cents an hour more than he would have received if he had not belonged to the union. Mr. LANDIS. If you were a union man on one job and you paid $75 initiation fee-this would apply to the A. F. of L. and the C. I. O.—and you worked 2 months and the job ran out and you were laid off and then you went on another job, do you think you ought to pay an initiation fee-another one-in the same year? Mr. HINES. That was not done. If I was going to work on a job I would not have to pay an initiation fee, because I would be one of those fellows who had my union card before the job started. I would have had it probably over the years. So I would have walked on the job, transferred my card into that particular locality, and, in accordance with the rules and regulations that were established by me through my representatives in conventions, I would comply with the necessary procedure and deposit my card with the business agent. If I went over there, I would do the same thing. The fellow coming into the union is not entitled to the same privileges. He may complain about the rules. He has just come in. He was not there to make the rules. I cannot complain about the rules of my international union, because I, through representation, made those rules, just the same as I cannot complain about the laws because, through representatives, I helped to make the laws. If I do complain, and there is a law enacted that I do complain against, then I have a right to go to the fellow who represents me or to the representative in convention or assembled in Congress. The same holds true in labor organizations. Mr. SCANLON. Is it not true that in particular the newspaper unions all of them-the printing trades council-have a certain population known as floaters that go all over the country? They have gone as far as British Columbia and they have gone to England to work? Mr. HINES. That is true. Mr. SCANLON. They were never charged another initiation fee, were they? Mr. HINES. They transferred from one local union to another. Mr. SCANLON. Particularly the typographical union, the stereotypers, and the pressmen. Mr. HINES. That is true in the building trades and the metal trades. I have worked in a number of cities, and the card that I took out in 1912 is the same card that I have had all this time, with the exception that I transferred to the local union that I worked under. If it was Rochester, N. Y., I put my card there. If it was New York City, I put my card there. If it was Philadelphia, I put my card there. I became subject to the local rules and regulations of that local union, which in turn was subject to the international. Mr. SCANLON. Have you any questions, Mr. Day, that you want to ask Mr. Hines? Mr. DAY. We have talked a lot about fighting Hitler, but is it not your opinion that one of the first things that Hitler did was to destroy the labor unions? Mr. HINES. It is a historical fact that he did do it. Mussolini did the same thing. Mr. DAY. How did they do it? Mr. HINES. By gradual encroachment upon the constitutional rights of their people. Mr. DAY. It is quite possible by that approach not only to try to stop strikes, but it might result in breaking up the entire labor movement? Mr. HINES. You are going to destroy the morale of the people when it is sorely needed. This is aimed at home? Is it aimed at the one-half of 1 percent or at the 100 percent? It is going to affect the entire 100 percent, and the 99.9 percent are going to resent it. What do you think the worker in the factory who was awarded the Army and Navy E for excellence in production is going to think when he reads in the paper today that they are going to pass a bill like the Smith bill? He is going to say, "What is wrong with me? What have I done to deserve this?" That is fair enough. You cannot expect him to react in any other way. His morale is going to go to pieces. Mr. DAY. It is going to do more harm than good? Mr. HINES. Why do not the sponsors introduce something to give credit to the working man? He has done a better job than anybody in the world. He has produced more planes, more tanks Mr. LANDIS. What bill would you recommend? Mr. HINES. A bill to commend people in the factories. Mr. LANDIS. We have made speeches. Mr. HINES. Speeches are not enough. Award the Congressional Medal of Honor for having done a good job instead of harassing him with this kind of legislation. This is just a lead-up to what is going to happen after the war. We are probably going to have 20,000,000 at least temporarily unemployed as a result of transferring from war production to peacetime pursuits. We are going to have a large group of men and women out of the armed forces who are entitled to good jobs and who deserve good jobs. The jobs won't be there. They are going to pounce on the situation to try to demoralize labor organizations by pitting one labor organization against another. They are going to deny them all the things they have fought for over the century, and the progress made over the last decade is going to be swept away by legislation. Mr. SCANLON. Mr. Kelley, do you have any questions? Mr. KELLEY. I was interested in Mr. Hines' statement that there were about 500,000 members of the American Federation of Labor in the armed forces. I was just wondering what the total membership of the entire organization is. Mr. HINES. Over 6,000,000. I think that is a fair estimate, because it runs slightly under the estimates of other groups, such as the miners and the young fellow here who talked about the 175,000 out of 900,000. I think a half million is a pretty fair estimate. Mr. SCANLON. That would be due to the fact that many of the A. F. of L. organizations have older members? Mr. HINES. Yes. That does not include the fact that their sons and brothers are fighting in the armed forces. Mr. KELLEY. I was just going to mention that feature of it. There is a vast group of men in the armed services who are being stabbed in the back while they are fighting being stabbed in the back by legislation such as the Smith bill. Mr. HINES. Well, if I were in the armed forces-and, incidentally, I tried to get in but they would not accept me-I would feel very keenly about the fact that while I was wearing the uniform of my country and carrying a gun on my shoulder my rights as a union member back home were being attacked. I would not feel very kindly. Mr. KELLEY. Not only that, but the patriotism of the people back home is being impugned. Mr. HINES. Let me say this to you. When you are going to start to ask the unions to file financial accounts from their treasuries, you are going to find that we have billions of War bonds in our treasury. Those billions of War bonds are there not because we had to have Hollywood send their beautiful, glamorous girls around, but because of an appeal made by the leaders of the federation and the intense patriotism of our people, which was sufficient to have them pitch in and set aside a part of their salaries. They are doing more and more every day, and they are going without beefsteak in many instances and going without the things that they formerly enjoyed or should enjoy. Mr. LANDIS. Would not that be a good point to bring out? That would be a good point to bring out to the people-that they bought so many bonds and so many War Savings stamps. Mr. HINES. We are a little modest about that. We could tell you, but we are just a little modest. Perhaps some day the Federation may issue a public statement of the number of bonds held not only by individuals but by the unions themselves. This money that came in in initiation fees and dues, and so forth, was turned into bonds. Mr. LANDIS. Have you checked over the Smith bill? Mr. HINES. Indeed I have. Mr. LANDIS. Which would you consider the worst features? Have you figured that out? Mr. HINES. You mean, start with the worst and go back to the least worst? Mr. LANDIS. Yes. Mr. HINES. Well, it is all so bad that it is hard to differentiate. There again they are going to put into the hands of the War Labor Board the same power that your bill would put in the hands of the Secretary of Labor. They are going to set up another bureaucratic agency or bureaucratic method of controlling labor. I am surprised at some of the people in Congress who have been yelling their heads off about the bureaucracies in Washington introducing this kind of legislation, if you get what I mean. Mr. DAY. In fact, Mr. Smith introduced a bill himself to investigate the bureaucracies. Mr. LANDIS. Could you tell us something about jurisdictional strikes? Mr. HINES. Jurisdictional strikes in the American Federation of Labor amount to a very negligible number. You asked a question of the young man a minute ago: Was it fair to the employer? I do not know whether you take into account that many times the employer is responsible for the jurisdictional fights. Many times the employers will hire the members of this union because the wage scale is less or because he has a certain favoritism that he wants to show, and that results in the other union's objecting to that, because they feel that they have the right to do that kind of work. It is a matter of human nature. You are not going to get this thing down perfectly. Mr. LANDIS. How about the National Labor Relations Board? What effect does the delay of the National Labor Relations Board have in regard to calling an election? Mr. HINES. I would say that that is a very big factor in all case> of uneasiness that results in strikes. Mr. LANDIS. We had this example, which looked bad, and I think we had it before the Labor Committee 2 years. It involved the Busch brewery at St. Louis. Mr. Busch wanted to hire either the millwrights or the carpenters to do the job, and the information we received was that he did not care which one was hired. He wanted the job done. If he hired the millwrights, the carpenters would go on strike. If he hired the carpenters, the millwrights would go on strike. It looked unfair to him, because when he did hire one group the other one went on strike and picketed his company. Mr. HINES. That is just one illustration. You cannot legislate industrial relations. I have had a world of experience with it. I was the secretary of labor and industry at Harrisburg. I have been in every kind of industrial dispute. I have been in every town and hamlet in Pennsylvania. I know something of the psychology of both labor and industry. I have sat across the table many times negotiating contracts myself, and obviously I must know something about that. I was secretary of labor and industry for 4 years. There is always a better way and a surer way than through legislation, and that is by having people get together through conciliation and mediation. I wish I had time to tell you about the excellent results obtained by one branch of Government you hear very little about, and that is the Conciliation Service. Mr. SCANLON. Mr. Hines, I want to thank you on behalf of the committee. We will adjourn until next Tuesday morning at 10:30. (Whereupon, at 12:25 p. m., an adjournment was taken until Tuesday, May 18, 1943, at 10:30 a. m.) TO REGULATE LABOR ORGANIZATIONS TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1943 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The Committee on Labor met in the committee room, Old House Office Building, at 10:30 a. m., Hon. Thomas E. Scanlon, acting chairman, presiding. Members present were: Hon. Augustine B. Kelley, Hon. Thomas F. Burchill, of New York, Hon. Gerald W. Landis, and Hon. Stephen A. Day. Mr. SCANLON. The meeting will come to order. The first witness this morning will be Mr. T. R. Owens, representing the United Rubber Workers of the C. I. O. Mr. Owens, will you please come forward. STATEMENT OF T. R. OWENS, UNITED RUBBER WORKERS, C. I. O. I Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. might say that I am appearing in behalf of Mr. Nathan Cowan, legislative representative of the C. I. O. He was unable to be here this morning but I, being a member of the committee representing the United Rubber Workers of America, am presenting a statement in behalf of Mr. Cowan on the Woodruff bill, H. R. 804, and the Landis bill, H. R. 1483. This is the statement of Mr. Cowan, of our legislative committee (reading): I am greatly disturbed to learn that the House Labor Committee has found it necessary to undertake a serious consideration of two bills such as those now pending before this subcommittee. I shall address myself to the contents and merits of these bills in a moment. I should like, however, to take this opportunity to make some brief comments at the outset on the general situation which now confronts Congress and this committee, particularly with reference to labor problems. These comments are directly related to the committee's consideration of the two bills before it. The labor movement in this country is being precipitated by policies which have been pushed in Congress and elsewhere into what may be a very real crisis. You are all undoubtedly aware that wage levels, particularly since the President's hold-the-line order of April 8, have been substantially frozen or, at best, very severely limited in their movement. On the other hand, you are all aware that although wage levels were fixed under the Little Steel formula on the basis of the cost of living increases up to May 1942, the fact is that price levels have spiralled far above the levels of a year ago. Even the general statistics covering general price increases are deceptive, since food prices, particularly in many individual important items, have arisen far above the general levels of increase. In large measure these uncontrolled price increases have developed from the pressures of private business groups which have forced the O. P. A. into the establishment of ceilings far above previous levels. Even where ceilings have been fixed, we are faced with the horrifying spectacle of widespread violation. Only two days ago the O. P. A. itself released the results of one of its own surveys, which 93 |