Even with these shortcomings, the courts have held that the Sherman Act was declaratory of common law on restraints of trade so that its general terms were given content and meaning. At that, the administration of the act and those which amended it, has been marked by litigation and uncertainty.

How much more complicated it will be to seek to apply these measures to unions when there is an almost complete lack of precedent to give significance to the very general language of the Sherman Act in this new context.

The courts have been able to impose the sanctions of those laws to unions when it is found that they are not acting for union objectives, but combine with employers for the purpose of excluding sellers from a market and price-fixing, e. g., Allen-Brailley Co. v. Local Union No. 3, IBEW, 325 U. S. 797 (1945). This demonstrates that when unious go beyond their legitimate functions in the opinion of the courts, lezal sanctions will be inflicted. This is not to imply that the holding of the cited case was precisely correct in the opinion of the committee. We only point out that the courts will act against what they deem union action that exceeds normal trade-union purposes.

What is the nature of the alleged "labor monopoly"? Unions do not control the labor supply. They do not agree to provide given numbers of employees on definite terms. Even under the closed shop this was so. The outlawing of the closed shop made it all the more clear that unions do not manipulate pools of labor--withholding or granting units of labor in an effort to exploit the laws of supply and demand. Nor are the characteristics of prices and wages the same or similar. Most prices fluctuate with cost and market conditions. This variability is totally inappropriate to wages and is not to be found. Workers must have some idea of their income. And, indeed, employers must have certainty about their labor costs.

And of course unions cannot set wages unilaterally in the way that an enterprise or group of enterprises in a monopolistic position sets prices. A union must bargain on wages. A business enterprise if it is in a sufficiently strong position can simply announce prices.

It may be argued that a ban on cooperation among locals and their international unions would tend to eliminate uniformity of wage rates in industries or local areas. As any student of wages knows, infinite variations in rates and methods of computing wages is typical of American industry. This is all the more true because of the relative lack of standardization of job content.

Within a few industries there may be some uniformity of jobs and rates. This uniformity, it may be contended, penalizes the efficient producer and bolsters the laggard. A significant segment of American labor believes that competition in wage rates is undesirable as it tends to depress wages in bad times or is disruptive in inflationary periods as employers bid against one another for scarce labor. It is urged that the more efficient producers must rely upon their superior utilization. of workers and other nonwage factors to gain competitive advantage. The committee finds merit in this view.

We have no alternative but to look upon the arguments in favor of applying antitrust laws as spurious. The necessary effect of such legislation would be to create doubt and uncertainty. In the field of labor-management relations such a condition leads to strife as parties tempt to exploit that uncertainty. They tend to construe ambigu

ous and unclear laws so as to be most advantageous to themselves and press for their interpretation until some authoritative body rules against them. Until that happens the process of collective bargaining is wrecked or seriously impaired.

The application of the "antitrust" provisions of S. 3158 or II. R. 9697 or 9698, particularly the latter, would plunge the labor movement of the United States into a total war of law suits. These measures clearly favor employers and would encourage employer resistance to union demands whenever the law seemed to offer a means of defeating them. Such predictions are not fanciful. The 5 years of the TaftHartley Act, which is replete with ambiguities, has demonstrated that employers tend to litigate first and bargain later, if it is still necessary to do so.

If labor legislation is designed to eliminate strife by eliminating or at least subjugating unions, II. R. 9697 and 9698 are admirable means. This committee believes that employers, employees and the public at large will be benefited by a calmer attempt to encourage collective bargaining. We do not counsel forging new weapons for one side or the other. To do so is to encourage tests of strength and weapons.

THE CURRENT STEEL DISPUTE—A CASE IN POINT

At this moment most of the basic steel industry is shut down by a strike. The controversy which gave rise to the strike first began in November 1951, almost 8 months ago. The length of this labor dispute, its severity and potentially grave consequences point to the necessity of a plan to deal with dislocations of this type, which, though rare, are formidable and dangerous.

The history of this dispute demonstrates the difficulty of considering legislation of general application in the broil of a current dispute. At the same time, it is fairly clear that the basic problems involved will not be given serious attention in the absence of compelling need.

In December 1950, the principal producers of steel and the United Steelworkers of American (CIO) agreed upon a wage increase of about 16 cents an hour pursuant to a wage reopening clause of then current contracts.'

At the end of January 1951 the newly constituted Economic Stabilization Agency and its Wage Stabilization Board "froze" wage rates as of January 25, 1951, and thereafter issued a series of regulations which modified the freeze in limited fashion. The regulations consisted of formulas beyond which wages and other compensation could not be adjusted.

On December 31, 1951, the collective-bargaining agreements in the basic steel industry were to expire. In conformity with the 60 day notice provisions of section 8 (d) of the Taft-Hartley Act, the USW (CIO) gave notice at the end of October 1951 of a desire to negotiate a new agreement.

Negotiations were slow in getting under way. The union, after informal approaches to the companies, presented its demands for new rates and conditions to the United States Steel Co. in carly December. That company indicated a desire to study the demands, but made no counter-offer.

The actual increase varied from company to company-16 cents was the approximate average increase.

The Union voted to strike at midnight December 31, 1951, when the contract was to end. On December 22, the President of the United States referred the dispute to the Wage Stabilization Board pursuant to Executive Orders 10161 and 10233. This was not the first dispute referred to the Board by the President. In addition to cases certified by the President the Board had accepted dispute cases voluntarily submitted by the parties. The latter type involved a commitment that the parties would be bound by the Board's decision. Cases certified by the President result in recommendations only. There was widespread public confusion on this point, due, in large part, to steel company literature and advertisements protesting the possible "imposition" of the union shop by the WSB.

In response to the President's request to defer the strike during the period of WSB consideration of the case, the union postponed it for a fixed time. It also put off the trke deadline twice thereafter to permit the Beard to conclude its he rings and deli! erations.

As dozens of companies were involved in the dispute, they combined for purposes of presenting their case to the Board. They established common headquarters in New York.

The Board appointed a 6-man tripartite panel to hear the partics present their case. Some 20 subjects were in dispute which could be further subdivided so that a total of about 100 issues was before the Board. Chief among these were a general wage increase, holiday pay, shift differential pay, Sunday pay, and union security.

The parties were heard over a period of many weeks. Some issues were withdrawn by agreement of the parties during the hearing. The panel summarized the contentions of the parties and the factual material submitted. This report was submitted to the WSB without recommendations.

The Board after considering the report and the record issued its recommendations on March 20, 1952.

Of the twenty-odd major issues involved, the Beard's recommendations rejected three union demands in toto, suggested that the parties attempt to negotiate on 10, and contained affirmative proposals on those remaining. In no instance did the Board recommend the granting of a union demand in full.

The merits of the various emergency disputes bills have been considered against the background of the steel dispute. In fact, during 6 days of hearings, the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee heard from authoritative spokesmen of all of the parties at interest in that dispute.

To the extent that the steel dispute provides us with a case history of an emergency dispute, it is important that the committee appraise some of the controversial aspects of that dispute.

One finding which the committee will not make, nor do we deem it necessary that it be made at all, is whether the recommendations of the Wage Stabilization Board in the steel dispute were the best récommendations which could have been appropriately made. This committee will not constitute itself as a tribunal to reassess the facts and to remake recommendations. We do believe, however, from the extensive record before us that procedure followed in this dispute and the recommendations of the Wage Stabilization Board were not unreasonable. The reasons for this judgment we set forth in summary form below:

(1) The allegedly unstabilizing effect of the Board's recommendations.There was not a single fact brought to our attention in the course of these extensive hearings which demonstrated in a convincing manner that the Board's recommendations, if put into effect, would be unstabilizing. There were, to be sure, sharp differences of opinions on the methods of making wage comparisons. This is no more than should be expected from an aggrieved party. The argument that the Board's recommendations would be unstabilizing was based principally upon the contention that they exceeded what was permissible under existing ́ regulations. This contention was not substantiated and we feel that the Board, after hearing proof and argument from all parties in interest, is in the best position to determine what its own regulations allow. (2) Price and wage controls. A settlement of this dispute was made infinitely more difficult by the existence of price and wage controls. If price and wage controls had not been in operation, a settlement by the parties on their own power would have come forth more easily. In this case even if the parties had been able to conclude a bargain they would have had no certainty that their agreement was permissible under stabilization policies. More than that, the bargaining process was complicated by the differing contentions of the parties as to whether various demands made by the union were allowable under stabilization regulations. The record before the Beard shows that this was a potent force operating against private bargaining. But these controls had been established by Congress on the conviction that they were essential to maintain economic stability and conformity to them was indispensable to a final agreement.

(3) Price bargaining.-Ostensibly the union and managements were bargaining over wages. Actually the outcome of the bargaining between union and managements had to wait on the outcome of a more crucial bargain--the bargain between the Government and the industry with respect to the price of steel. Here again, an element of stabilization policy complicated bargaining. It is clear as this report is being written that no bargain can be concluded until the price bargain is finally determined.

(4) The disputes functions of the Wage Stabilization Board.-There is nothing in the record which effectively contradicts the conclusion that the Wage Stabilization Board has been able generally to discharge the disputes authority granted it in a capable manner. If the test of effective administration of the disputes function is the avoidance of strikes, then the Wage Stabilization Board must be accounted successful in every case which it handled except the steel dispute. And even in the steel case the President of the United States was successful in holding back a strike through the voluntary acquiescence of the union for 100 days, or 20 days more than the statutory Taft-Hartley period, on the inducement that there existed a Government tribunal with authority to recommend a settlement.

(5) The union-shop recommendation.There is no question that the union shop is a proper subject of collective bargaining between union and management and is consistent with public policy. The LaborManagement Relations Act of 1947, as later amended to make the union shop easier to negotiate by eliminating the requirement for a union-shop-authorization election, the amendment to the Railway Labor Act legalizing the union shop in railroad union-management

agreements, all suggest that the union shop is proper if the parties want it.

The issue in the steel dispute is much narrower than this, however. It is whether it is appropriate for a Government agency to recommend the union shop.

The majority of the committee felt that (a) the union-shop issue was within the framework of the dispute as submitted to it by the President of the United States under Executive Order No. 10233; (b) The public members initially proposed to the Board that the union shop should be referred back to the parties with the Board retaining jurisdiction if agreement were not reached. Industry members of the Board insisted that the Board recommend against the union-shop demand. The labor members insisted that the union shop be granted. Faced with these alternatives the public members accepted the labor members' alternative as the less unreasonable of the two.

Senator Morse, however, feels that under no circumstances should the Government put its force behind a recommendation which he feels would have the effect of compelling union membership.

Much has been said to the effect that recommendations of the WSB in a dispute are tantamount to a compulsory arbitration. The successful rejection of the WSB's steel recommendations is concrete evidence of the difference between recommendations and compulsory arbitration.

(6) Tripartitism.-It is difficult to see why this should have been an issue in the Wage Stabilization Board's handling of the steel dispute. There is nothing in the record to suggest that the recommendations would have been any better or any worse or that the recommendations would have been more acceptable if there had been an all-public board or a tripartite board weighted in favor of the public members. The plain fact is that the party to the dispute which feels it is aggrieved will always set up a clamor whether the recommendations emanate from a tripartite board or an all-public board.

(7) Alleged bias of public members.-There is not a shred of credible evidence in this record which can be used to substantiate a bias on the part of the public members in favor of labor. Indeed, the most reprehensible aspect of this dispute has been the reflection which it was found necessary to cast upon the integrity of the public members, in order to justify disagreement with the Board's recommendations. The malicious half-truth or half-lie, that several of the public members had been on the payroll of a union cannot be sufficiently condemned. This allegation was based solely on the fact that some of the public members had been arbitrators in labor-management cases. One member is the impartial chairman of a board which decides jurisdictional disputes. Employers contribute to defraying the expenses of that board which performs a function of value to both unions and management in the industry concerned. Of course, an arbitrator who renders a decision in a voluntary arbitration case upon the voluntary request of the union and management involved is paid by the union but he is also paid by management. It would be just as accurate or inaccurate to say that these same public members were on the payroll of industry, and indeed, the president of a corporation who echoed this charge must know that his own corporation has participated in such arbitration arrangements.

The record before us compels the conclusion that the outpouring of propaganda and scare advertisements before, during, and after the