up to and all parties concerned live up to the agreements in the contracts?

Mr. DOHERTY. I feel very happy about the fact that every union that I know about in the radio industry scrupulously lives up to its contracts We may have the usual difficulties in negotiating those contracts, but I wish publicly to laud the leadership of the radio unions for their adherence to the terms of the contract.

Now, in getting into the main body of my presentation, I would like to make 2 or 3 comments.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Doherty, you have had a great deal to say about the necessity of good union relationships and collective bargaining in general. Do you feel that international unions are a good thing as far as that is concerned, or a bad thing?

Mr. DOHERTY. Congressman Smith, I believe that in view of the economic development of the United States, and I refer to what might be called the basic soundness in the development of large-scale production, in the development of companies with farflung subsidiaries, the very mode of American economic life makes almost untenable a concept that would prevent the existence of international unions. When you say international unions, do you mean unions covering the whole Nation?

Mr. SMITH. Yes, as they use that term, where you have an international union and they control all of the people.

Mr. DOHERTY. I think the so-called international unions, that is, unions operating on a national scale, are compatible with the economic development of the country?

Mr. SMITH. How do you account for the fact that the Lincoln Electric and the Eastman, and the National Cash Register, and Palmolive-Peet, have probably the finest employee relationship there is in this country?

Mr. DOHERTY. Mr. Chairman, I am glad that you brought the question up. I have elaborated to some extent on my text and I did not get to that point yet, but I did point out this angle, and I am not trying to digress, that the thing that we are concerned with, so far as conomic welfare of the country is concerned, is sound employer-employee relations.

Within the area in which the employer-employee relationship is not conducted on a collective-bargaining basis, we do have many fine examples, outstandingly fine examples of sound and progressive employer-employee relationships. You have mentioned some of the cases in the United States where, not paternalism, but genuine recognition of the need for progressive and sound employer-employee relations have prompted management to develop what I consider to be a genuine and effective relationship with their employees.

Mr. SMITH. That was not brought about by law.

Mr. DOHERTY. No; I grant that. I do not believe that a law can ever create through legislative fiat good employer-employee relationships whether it exists under a union contract or not. It is something that must exist between the individual plant or operating unit.

I do not believe that collective bargaining of itself guarantees progressive, sound, and harmonious employer-employee relationships. Neither do I believe that collective bargaining of itself destroys sound,

progressive employer-employee relationships. Where collective bargaining exists, we get sound employer-employee relationships when both parties, management and labor, recognize their responsibilities to workers involved and exercise those responsibilities in the development of genuinely sound collective-bargaining patterns for employeremployee relationships.

Mr. SMITH. You do not think, then, in the companies that I have indicated here, the fact that that is an independent union had anything to do with making sound relationships.

Mr. DOHERTY. We have many cases where there is no union of any kind, but where excellent employer-employee relationships exist. I referred another time, for example, to the Monthly Labor Review of January 1953, in which there is a general statistical record of the percent and degree of unionism in different areas of the country, and by types of activities.

Now, you can take some of those cities, for example, Hartford, which is a very important insurance and financial center, and where the percent of unionism is very small. Yet, I think that the statistical records would indicate that wages and working conditions in Hartford, Conn., are on an extremely high-grade level.

One point I wish to emphasize, or two points I wish to emphasize before getting to the main body of my proposals, are: First, I honestly believe that the main body of the Labor-Management Relations Act has proven to be sound, and has given us an effective national labor policy. I shall show, in the next few minutes, that I believe that there are some areas of the National Labor Relations Act which need correction and improvement.

I wish to emphasize, secondly, that I find less objection to the main body of NLBR decisions than some people. Now, let me hasten to add that there have been some cases and some decisions which certainly go beyond my power to rationalize or consider, but the chief fault I have to find with the Board decisions and policies, I honestly believe arise out of loopholes which exist in certain provisions of the Labor-Management Relations Act, or arise out of inadequate coverage of a problem by the Labor-Management Relations Act.

I am going to concentrate my attention here today principally upon five points, and not bore you with elaboration of many problems and amendments which have been discussed.

These five points are things which I feel more competent to discuss than some of the others. I refer therefore to the definition of supervisor, compulsory unionism, secondary boycotts, welfare funds, and national-emergency strikes. On these I have specific propoals to lay before you.

I think with regard to supervisors, I can save a lot of time by merely expressing my fundamental thinking emanating from experiences in the radio and television industry that the prevailing labor-management relations definition of supervisor has proved sound and workable for the purpose intended. It has provided an adequate standard for Board interpretation, and that nothing should be enacted which would in any way derogate from the basic concept of "supervisor" as now expressed in the Labor-Management Relations Act.

Our experience in broadcasting warrants this assumption, and also warrants my assumption that some of the proposed changes in the definition of supervisor might well lead to substantial confusion.

Secondly, with regard to compulsory unionism, I am approaching this subject on the assumption that we are not really debating the question of whether or not closed shops should be permitted back in our economic system. Yet I realize that some efforts are being made to weaken the compulsory union barriers which were erected under the Labor-Management Relations Act.

I do not think that we should, for a minute, in considering some of these proposals for a weakening of the fabric, at least in certain directions, forget the case histories that were presented to Congress, both the House and Senate, in 1947 on compulsory unionism. Because of this rather sordid experience of many workers and employers, Congress at that time saw fit to do something about compulsory unionism, and the degree to which we loosen the fabric of compulsory union regulation is the degree to which we are perfectly willing, if we take that road, to permit some of these same case histories to now be the future history of workers and employers.

To me, the closed shop is of necessity synonymous with the hiring hall, and the closed shop hiring hall to me is fundamentally a monopoly mechanism. I believe it is an insidiously undemocratic imposition upon the worker himself, because, even more than the monopoly control which exists over the labor supply which the employer uses, is the fact that the union possesses a monopoly control over the very people who belong to the union.

In periods when the labor market is not tight this monopoly hold which the union leaders have over job placements can easily produce terrifying membership subservience, based upon fear and favor.

Some persons seem to have uneasy conflicts between their own conscience and their adherence to democratic principles and their full recognition of the evils of the closed shop. Yet they do not wish to be labeled anti-union, and tend to compromise. They tend to find some gadget or gimmick or approach that will permit the closed shop to exist under certain conditions. One of these is the condition that the closed shop might conceivably not be bad if it were coupled with free access to union membership.

Now, do these people propose that along with free access to the union that necessary safeguards are going to be set up to protect the workers against minority discrimination within the union? That is, not with regard to getting membership, but with regard to job placement under a hiring hall. Is there any way we can guarantee that minority groups within certain unions would get an equal shake of the dice in the placement on jobs, particularly when times were not as good as they are today?

Is there any way that we can guarantee against favoritism in the placement of members upon jobs based upon, shall we call it, political friends and supporters within the union as against those members of the union who are not politically lined up with the particular officers? What are we going to do against the established membership rules which require 6 or 12 months' residence in a local community before membership in the union is permissive and hence jobs available, as we find in Mr. Petrillo's American Federation of Musicians in certain localities.

What about punishing those political opponents which invariably develop because within every union we have the normal political processes of individuals seeking to get the top position? Would free

entrance into unions mean adequate regulations covering apprenticeship? We know it has not, and yet America, facing the prospect of emergency production for military purposes of one kind or another, is well aware of the fact that there have been and continue to be shortages of certain skilled crafts. Are the unions who want the closed shop, even under free access to unionism, willing to provide for widespread apprenticeship?

What about job mobility? That is a characteristic of American economic life. Look at the Bureau of Labor statistics that show the movement of people between places of employment, and even between industries. It is a substantial figure. At the present time it is running at about 4 percent. This, we know, is good for America. Does it mean that every time a person moves that he must, prior to and as a prerequisite to getting a new job, join a new union and hence hold cards in 8 or 9, or 10 different unions?

That, in itself, is not a serious problem to me, but the thing that is more serious is how are we going to guarantee that the newcomer to a union local will receive equal job opportunities with the hometown members who have been in that local for some period of time?

Now, to me, if you are going to have free access to the union, these are still problems which can only be solved adequately through law. I do not believe that unions want laws governing their internal operations, and I do not blame them a bit. Therefore, it seems to me that Congress should weigh very carefully the compulsory union provisions contained in the Labor-Management Relations Act, which, as we know, clearly is not that of the closed shop but of the union shop.

The union shop is, in itself, a substantial concession in the direction of compulsory unionism. Incidentally, when it is commended by any Government agency, such as the WSB in effect commended it, I think that we are getting to a point where we are trespassing unwarrantedly upon the fundamental concepts of collective bargaining in the United States. I do not believe any Government agency, including the WSB or the NLRB, should ever have the right to order any form of compulsory unionism in any employment relationship between the employer and the employee.

Mr. KEARNS. Would the gentleman yield?

Were you a member of the Wage Stabilization Board when the ruling on steel was handed down?

Mr. DOHERTY. Yes, Mr. Congressman.

Mr. KEARNS. Do you feel that the Wage Stabilization Board was a direct party in setting up a pattern of compulsory unionism in that decision?

Mr. DOHERTY. I think without any question of doubt, in the case of the steel and Boeing Aircraft, and a few others, when the Wage Stabilization Board came out and in its majority decision specifically recommended the union shop as a mode of employer-employee relationship, it, in effect, made it impossible for a settlement to be effected on any other basis.

Mr. KEARNS. Do you think Congress should definitely put up safeguards whereby we should not have a reoccurrence of a Board taking control to itself, as the Wage Stabilization Board did, to commit the error it did so far as compulsory membership to unions is concerned? Mr. DOHERTY. I think Congress in June when it came up with the

new Defense Production Act, adequately took care of that problem by removing the power of the Board.

Mr. KEARNS. But the damage was done then.

Mr. DOHERTY. But having learned that, I think, yes, if we should ever reinstitute a wage-control process, we should see to it that that wage-control process is concerned with the one fundamental objective for which it seems to me there might be a reason to establish such a board, and that is to curb the inflationary trend that might conceivably come within the wage and compensation area of employer-employee relationships, and it should be limited to that.

The areas of collective bargaining beyond wage and compensation, namely the working conditions, and conditions which in themselves are not a part of wage compensation, should not rest with any such Board.

Mr. KEARNS. I think it was true at that time that 38 percent of all the men working in steel mills were not members of the union prior to the ruling

Mr. DOHERTY. I think it was something like that; in the neighborhood of 250,000 of the employees of the steel industry.

Mr. KEARNS (continuing). Which made this mandate by the Board, made it mandatory then that all of these men had to join whether they wanted to or not.

Mr. DOHERTY. Understand that the Board had no right to tell the steel companies that they had to do this, because the Wage Stabilization Board was not the administrator of the steel industry. I repeat what I said.

Mr. KEARNS. They wrote the contract, though.

Mr. DOHERTY. That kind of a recommendation, which was designed to settle a dispute, made impossible a settlement on any other terms, as future history proved.

Mr. KEARNS. There was not any collective bargaining between labor and the steel mills; the contract was written by the Wage Stabilization Board.

Mr. DOHERTY. That I agree with. My concluding point on compulsory unionism is that I sincerely urge that Congress do nothing to change the basic approach to compulsory unionism which is now included in the Labor-Management Relations Act.

The union shop has worked successfully, and it has provided union protection against the so-called free rider, and it has overcome the objection which union members have of working side by side with nonunion people. It has, in my opinion, therefore provided the basic reasons to overcome the fundamental objections that were originally raised by union leaders.

May I say this, Mr. Congressman, and I will use an example in the radio industry: We had a substantial number of, a very high percentage of, closed-shop arrangements in our contracts prior to the Labor-Management Relations Act and the unions found no difficulty in adapting themselves to the union-shop approach. To the best of my knowledge we had no industrial strife or strikes resulting from an inability of management and unions to adapt themselves to the new conditions set up by the Labor Relations Act, but during that period of time since 1947 unions have not only lived, but lived well and progressively, within the union-shop area of our contracts.