that right being granted to companies under those conditions. (2) An amendment to the act which would permit a company to cease from recognizing a union which promotes, instigates, or tolerates work stoppages, slowdowns, interference with production, in violation of the contractual provisions and agreements between them.

I think that that is perfectly sound, and is a reasonable amendment to the Taft-Hartley Act to strengthen it. The Lord knows, we do not want it weakened back to where it was when I used to come down here to Washington, and Nathan Witt and some of his crowd were running the Board. I reached the epitome of frustration with the laughter and the disrespect which was shown to me in my arguments before the Board representing manufacturers.

I think there has been a tremendous improvement in that respect since the Taft-Hartley Act was enacted. I think that the philosophy-I do not know about that of the Board, but that of the men in the field has changed. I find that we are getting along better than we were before.

That does not mean we have achieved perfection. I do think the act should be amended to give the employer some rights which he would be entitled to, to have a fair balance of power between himself and the unions with respect to the men in whom they are both interested.

I will be very glad to submit this statement.

(The information referred to appears at the close of witness' testimony.)

(A subsequent letter, dated March 17, 1953, addressed to the Hon. Samuel K. McConnell, Jr., was received and made a part of the permanent files of the committee.)

Chairman McCONNELL. Mr. Rogerson, how does your first point fit in with this provision of the Taft-Hartley Act, section 9 (c) (1) (B):

By an employer, alleging that one or more individuals or labor organizations have presented to him a claim to be recognized as the representative defined in section 9 (a).

Does not that partly answer what you are after here in the first place?

Mr. ROGERSON. That does not answer it. There is where another union might come in and present evidence, but here is where

Chairman McCONNELL. But you spoke about another union. They got in some other representative there.

Mr. ROGERSON. They did in this Sylvania case, on my recommendation that it would be the easiest way out. The AF of L union went in there and won the election against the CIO.

But here is a place where you have 100 employees. Ninety-nine of them signed a petition that they wanted to get rid of this union. They did not want another union. They wanted to get rid of that union. Who is to institute the action in order to have that union decertified? No one except the men in the plant or another union representing such men. The company has nothing to do about it, in the face of absolute proof that the union does not represent a majority of the men.

Chairman MCCONNELL. You are correct on the decertification. Mr. ROGERSON. That is what I am speaking of.

Chairman McCONNELL. You had spoken about another union coming in, and the employer there would have that right.

Mr. ROGERSON. Yes. He did in this case. The IAM came in there. This committee of employees went to the IAM union and they came in there and filed a petition, and there was an election, and they won it. I am speaking of the case where there is no other union. The men want to get out. Who can take the action? Only the men.

They haven't the ability, they haven't the funds, they haven't the know-how to do those things.

Chairman McCONNELL. Mr. Rogerson, I do not want to detain you here, but I would like to ask one or two questions.

Mr. ROGERSON. Yes, certainly.

Chairman McCONNELL. It has been very noticeable to me as I have listened to testimony the last 2 weeks, and also as I have had interviews with different people, that invariably there is the statement made that the intent of Congress or the general philosophy or pinciple of the Taft-Hartley Act has been violated by some decision or action of the National Labor Relations Board. That seems to crop up continually. It undoubtedly behooves us to consider how we are going to change a situation of that nature.

Both labor and management have complained about delay in handling cases. Is it your judgment that this situation can be cured by an enlargement of the Board, by some type of change in the present procedure, or by an entirely new set-up in the handling of labormanagement relations cases, bearing in mind the status of the present employees and all that sort of thing?

Mr. ROGERSON. If I had the potential power to do what I wish, I would abolish the whole National Labor Relations Board, together with all of its members and all of its field agents, and particularly all of its trial officers, and create a new board, with new members, and with a new organization throughout the field entirely.

If I had the power, I would see that such members and such field agents and hearing officers were pledged to carry out the provisions of the law impartially. I do not believe you will ever get that result with the membership as it is now.

Chairman MCCONNELL. Would you make any changes in the present setup-I should say, the procedure or the approach to this problem? Or would you just say a brand new board?

Mr. ROGERSON. The procedure is awkward. We have the field officers who come down to make their examination. Then, of course, if they rocommend that the charge be prosecuted, they make their report to the Board, and you have a trial examiner come in, who takes testimony. He, in turn, simply makes a recommendation.

They have changed the procedure in that respect. All he can make is a recommendation.

Then the case is transferred to the Board by order. Then, of course, they act upon his recommendation.

In all fairness, I have had occasions recently where the Board has reversed the trial examiner, which never happened back before the enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act, because you had the rule then that if there was any evidence upon which the findings of fact could be based, it had to be sustained through to the United States Supreme Court. Then, of course, that was set aside, and the ruling was made that such a finding had to be based upon all the evidence.

I do not know that it changed the decisions of the circuit court, at least of the second circuit in New York, or that it changed the decisions of the Supreme Court to speak of. But we have had a little better results in getting the Board to reverse the findings of the trial examiners since the enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act in the past 2 years. It is an awkward procedure. I have not made enough of a study of that particular thing to make any specific recommendations.

Chairman McCONNELL. The suggestion has been made that the Board, the new setup, whatever you wish to call it, would handle only representation cases, and the enforcement would be put in the Department of Justice or some comparable agency.

Mr. ROGERSON. I would be very much for that, Mr Chairman, so as to divorce the enforcement from the administrative features of the act, yes. That definitely should be done.

Chairman MCCONNELL. Mr. Barden?

Mr. BARDEN. I was interested in your suggestion that the Board be abolished and set up another Board. At my home, I had some steps. I do not mean this is my interpretation, but somebody defined a "board" as something long and narrow and wooden. I had some wooden steps at my house. They were pine lumber. They gave way and decayed. They then said, "If you will put cypress, that will last forever." So I got me some more boards, and I built some cypress steps; and they went out, too. Then I tore the whole works out and put concrete steps in.

Mr. ROGERSON. That was certainly an improvement.

Mr. BARDEN. We have tried pine boards and cypress boards and gum boards, and every kind of a board that you can think of, in the 20 years that I have been here in Congress and I have not seen any of them yet that did not decay and give way. They will go to seed or they will give way. The sap will show up.

So my suggestion now is somewhat akin to yours: That we just do away with it and put some concrete in. I am not so sure but what the suggestion I made a while ago has some merit in it, and that is just to set up the various United States district courts in the United States, take one man from the district in New York, one from Tennessee, one from Oklahoma, to hear these cases, just as they hear cases in the Federal court, for, say, a period of 60 days. That would be their assignment for that period. The next 60 days, you would go to California, Seattle, Washington, and Florida, and bring in three

more.

I have about reached the conclusion that that is the only way in the world we will ever do away with this business of partiality, under the banner of a court.

I wonder if you think there is any merit at all to my suggestion. Mr. ROGERSON. I think that is the soundest suggestion I have heard. Of course, we have to be practical about these things. I hope that you can do that, Mr. Congressman. I hope you can make that change in the enforcement of this code of conduct between management and employees. But in the absence of that, if you cannot go that far, give us a little relief, particularly against work stoppages, which is the most costly and irritating thing now existing between management and labor in the operation of these plants.

Mr. BARDEN. In other words, your attitude is that you have "never had it so bad"?

Mr. ROGERSON. That is right.

Mr. BARDEN. That is all I have.

Chairman MCCONNELL. Mr. Miller?

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Rogerson, I do not have a great deal to say at this time, except perhaps that in view of what has been said within the last few minutes, I might just say I am inclined to second the motion.

However, you did make as one of your main complaints, work stoppages on the part of labor induced by labor unions.

Mr. ROGERSON. That is right.

Mr. MILLER. And that it should not be required of management that they should recognize labor unions which indulge in slow-downs, is that right?

Mr. ROGERSON. That is right.

Mr. MILLER. You can tell when work is stopped. It might be a little more difficult to tell when it has been slowed down.

I was wondering what criteria you could use, how you would prove a slow-down?

Mr. ROGERSON. It would be a matter of proof, of course. You can prove it very readily. I will show you another example I have had within the past year, where between wage reopening they wanted to get a voluntary increase, so they asked for it and the company refused it. So the next day, on the 13th day of December 86 employees reported sick at 11 o'clock in the morning and went home. On the next day, 45; the next day, 158; the next day, 64; the next day, 190; the next day, 258; and it went that way for 21 working days, until the company gave them a 10-cents an hour voluntary wage increase. And that was the medicine that cured all this illness.

In circumstances like that, would there be any question about its being an illegal stoppage of work, or a slow-down or an interference with production in violation of the contract?

Mr. MILLER. There may not be any question in the mind of the management or labor, but where are you going take this matter? What is the mechanics of proving it? How would you do it?

Mr. ROGERSON. It is an unfair labor practice for a company to refuse to bargain with the duly designated representatives of its employees, and that continues on. There is no way that can be terminated, except by another certification or a decertification to the effect that they no longer have to do it. If this should happen, if you had this same thing happen again, the company would immediately refuse to bargain with the union, and that would be the end of it until the union might cite them for an unfair labor practice. They would have to prove that these slow-downs had occurred in violation of the contract, and there definitely could be no finding of an unfair labor practice under those conditions.

I have a specific amendment which I would like to put in the act. I would like to have it provide that

Where the Board shall be of the opinion that a labor organization or its agents have instigated, promoted, or tolerated slow-downs, stoppages, or interference with normal production in violation of the terms and conditions of a contract between such labor organization and an employer or employers

Mr. MILLER. That is all right. You had not read that to us, had you?

Mr. ROGERSON. No; I had not read that.

Mr. MILLER. I did not know it was in there.

Mr. ROGERSON. I have specific amendments in my statement here which I will submit to you, and I will send mimeographed copies to every member of the committee.

Mr. MILLER. Just one more question. You spoke of reasonable grounds on the part of the company for asking decertification. How would you arrive at "reasonable grounds" in a case of that kind?

Mr. ROGERSON. It would be for the Board to determine the reasonable grounds, I would say if a company received a petition signed by more than 50 percent of its employees, that would be reasonable grounds to believe that the union no longer represented the majority of the employees.

Mr. MILLER. Do you have an amendment offered to that effect?
Mr. ROGERSON. Yes; I have an exact amendment.

Mr. MILLER. That is all I wanted to know.

That is all the questions I have, thank you.

Chairman MCCONNELL. Does that conclude your testimony?
Mr. ROGERSON. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman McCONNELL. I want to thank you very much, Mr. Rogerson, for your appearance here. You have been very helpful, and I regret that we have delayed you. We appreciate your appearance here today.

Mr. ROGERSON. Thank you very much.

Chairman McCONNELL. Without objection, your prepared statement will be made a part of the record.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT BY J. RUSSELL ROGERSON, JAMESTOWN, N. Y.

I am appearing before your honorable committee on behalf of 60 industrial corporations located in the city of Jamestown, N. Y., a community which, we are proud to state, is within the district of Mr. Daniel A. Reed, our valiant Representative for more than 34 years. The corporations for whom I speak are named on the annexed exhibit.

The city of Jamestown is a small industrial city of 45,000 people tucked away in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains in southwestern New York. None of its industries are big business or even a part of big business. Its plants employ from 10 to 1.000 employees and they are almost entirely owned and managed by local people. To state it briefly, I am a small-town lawyer speaking for a remote group of small businesses which are trying to operate under the impact of terrific taxes and against the combined opposition of international unions with hundreds of thousands of members and millions of dollars in their treasuries.

We, of course, are interested in the implications of industrywide bargaining, but not a single plant out of the 60 in Jamestown is directly affected by that issue. We wholeheartedly subscribe to the proposition that local conditions and factors require bargaining on a local plant basis in order to secure proper management and employee relations.

These are all matters of great importance, but fundamentally we are here as little people asking for relief from those labor union abuses which have not been cured by the Taft-Hartley Act.

I believe it is conceded to be true that the Wagner Act as originally enacted and interpreted by the Board and lower courts was designed to and did protect the interest of the unions and ignored the rights of the public, management, and employees. The constitutional right of free speech was denied and a chasm was created between management and employees which has only been partially closed by the Taft-Hartley Act. The Wagner Act deliberately failed to recognize