Typographical Union to see to it that local unions complied with contract obligations and those basic working conditions and shop relations set out in the laws of the International Typographical Union, which laws are made by the members themselves. There was excellent teamwork until the lawyers led the employers down the divergent path of Taft-Hartleyism. That, plus what seemed to be an opportunity to destroy our craft by new or substitute methods of production must have appealed to enough employers to allow their associations' officers and lawyers to try to destroy the International Typographical Union. It was and is the understanding that what is established in ITU contracts becomes the practice with the other trades so far as wages and hours are concerned. The national associations, the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the Printing Industry of America, do not bargain with any printing trades union. They have no authority to do so. No employer will be bound by any action or advice offered by national bodies, but it is precisely the American Newspaper Publishers Association that has supplied the lawyers, leadership, and strikebreakers to carry on the war against the ITU. We believe it also provides financial assistance to warring publishers, but we have no way of proving it. The Taft-Hartley law permitted the American Newspaper Publishers Association to act as a "person" claiming to represent all of its members (even the nonunion newspapers) in carrying on litigation against us. Thus the individual publisher could take a faraway look at what was going on and be prepared to reject or accept the results. That is another unfair feature of the law-catering to irresponsibility on the one hand and compulsion against unions on the other. Another unfair feature of the law as administered and enforced by court order was to try to capture the reliability and stability of the ITU as a national body and thereby use it to enforce the law on local unions instead of the law enforcement being done as to the local unions, which are the contracting parties under our laws, as follows: "ARTICLE III-CONTRACTS "SECTION 1. Contracts between local unions and employers are collective agreements in which the local union as such is a contracting party with an employer or association of employers. It is the obligation of the local union to observe and enforce terms of the contract. The local union as a contracting party has the authority to determine differences between its members concerning their rights under the contract, subject to appeal as prescribed by the laws of the union. Where the local union has by contract prescribed a method of determining differences between the employer and the local union as to interpretation and enforcement, such method shall be followed: Provided, The laws of the local union not affecting wages, hours or working conditions and the laws of the International Typographical Union shall not be submitted to arbitration. "Where the contract between the local union and employer does not provide a method for the adjudication of differences as to interpretation and enforcement the employer may require the International Typographical Union to interpret the obligations of the local union, provided said contract has been approved by the president of the International Typographical Union as conforming to the laws of the International Typographical Union." Therefore it was necessary that all contracts carry a section providing that the ITU is not a party to the contract and that approval thereof by the ITU as to its being in conformity with ITU laws and civil laws does not make the ITU a party. Before concluding I feel it necessary to say that certain references to the International Typographical Union in the record of the testimony by George Meany, president of the A. F. of L., and questions by Representative Gwinn are unfounded in fact. What I have presented here is authentic and accurate and partially covers the errors referred to, but in addition I desire to emphasize as follows: The International Typographical Union did not defy the law. It resisted the Denham interpretations of the law and proved the union interpretations very largely correct. The courts have granted the NLRB petition for enforcement of its decision. The appeal of the American Newspaper Publishers Association v. the NLRB before the Supreme Court of the United States was dismissed. The ITU records and laws prove it is more completely democratic and more controlled by the members than any civil government unit in the United States. ITU IN FULL COMPLIANCE The ITU did not lose a case in the Supreme Court of the United States. It was in full compliance with the NLRB decisions. The American Newspaper Publishers Association petitioned for enforcement of the Board decision in order to get the Board reversed on some points. Then the Board sought enforcement to defend its decision. Also, the ITU tried to reverse the Board's decision on a few points. The Board won. The American Newspaper Publishers Association appealed to the Supreme Court which dismissed the appeal. The ITU did not try to establish contract conditions in violation of the law of 1947. It has no closed-shop contracts or understandings. The ITU did not "take the law into its own hands," as stated by Representative Gwinn and referred to by President Meany. It has not “absolutely ignored the Taft-Hartley Act" and has not "gone on insisting on the closed shop" as stated by Mr. Gwinn on page 1155 of the record. However, I do not blame President Meany too much for not having been correctly informed on all of 5 years litigation, especially in view of constant misrepresentation in the daily press. The ITU does not have a monopoly of composing-room workers in the United States or Canada or anything like a monopoly. We have unions in only 795 cities and towns of the United States and Canada so you can see the charge by Representative Gwinn is not only untrue but ridiculous. The quotations by Representative Gwinn of statements made in the Typographical Journal in March 1947 before the Taft-Hartley law was adopted serve no good or fair purpose. The law of the union quoted on page 1151 is not applicable since Taft-Hartley and so declared in every contract in effect since that time. ISSUES BOLD PROPAGANDA Mr. Gwinn does not identify the source of other quoted misrepresentations but they are deplorable. Some are verbatim from a propaganda letter from Cranston Williams, general manager of the American Newspaper Publishers Association. His statements as to strikes and special assessments are not properly connected to facts or are garbled. Since 1944, there have been newspaper strikes in 87 of our local unions of which only 41 have been satisfactorily settled. No newspaper wanting to do so has failed to publish within a day or 2 after a strike was voted by our members. Since 1944 there have been 28 local unions having strikes in the commercial field, some of which strikes are still being prosecuted. Some were in conjunction with the newspapers. Referendum votes in the International Typographical Union on financial questions are shown as follows: Adopted Oct. 22, 1952-21% percent defense assessment--. Defeated Defeated The so-called "right to work" offered by union busters is an insult to any fairminded person. Can anyone, union or not, walk into a business organization, declare his right to work and declare himself on the payroll? Can anyone study as much as he thinks he needs and declare himself a practicing lawyer, doctor, or dentist? Can one even declare himself into a school or college? How about the right to be a policeman or a Congressman? How about the right to own property? Does that compel the Government or anyone else to give property to anyone declaring that right? How about the right to eat, sleep, or pray or any other civil right? The mere possession of a right does not compel supplying the owner of the right with the physical means to exercise and enjoy the right. "RIGHT TO WORK" MYTHICAL One has a right to work if he will find a job he will accept under the conditions offered him. A group of persons can bargain collectively with management having control over many jobs. That principle is now too firmly established to question its legality. So, to defeat and frustrate that right, the mythical "right to work" is pushed in between a union and an employer so the employer can hire whom he will regardless of the interests of the union. The only brakes on the unlimited, unrestricted right of employers to hire is such sharing in that right as unions may contract with them to share. Suppose the union disintegrates, what happens to the mythical "right to work?" If there are a hundred jobs and 200 persons available where is the mythical "right to work?" Is it any more wrong that the unemployed be nonunion men than if they were union men? Would it be necessary to lay off one-half of the employed to guarantee against discrimination by having half of each kind on the payroll? If 100 union men had the jobs first is it any different in principle than the first 100 homesteaders who staked out the only available 100 homesteads? Does a foreigner have a right to come into this country just because he wants to come? Even if we let him come, can he get all the benefits of citizenship without paying taxes and performing his civilian duties? Does he also acquire this mythical "right to work?" The growth of corporate industrialism compels collective bargaining by those who have the ability, training, or character to do so. There is no reason whatever to presume a legal "right to work" unless the Government will at the same time provide a job for all who declare such a so-called right. As to the International Typographical Union, I may say there are equities built up over a hundred years by members of the union and which no one who is not a member has any more inherent right to acquire than a foreigner has to demand and gain citizenship to this country. We have always, until the war condition and Taft-Hartley interfered, trained and supplied sufficient craftsmen to take care of the industry. Even under war conditions we have done a very creditable job. There is no valid reason to deny our unions the right to contract with any employer or group of employers to do the work he may have for us to do and for which we are trained. We do not concur in President Meany's statement regarding the closed shop on pages 1062 and 1063 of the record. We believe no specific legal definition of the closed shop should be made. None was in existence prior to the Taft-Hartley law. No provision should be written into the law to the effect that "the closed shop should not be used to restrict anyone who is qualified from joining any union at any time regardless of whatever the reason may be." The right of a union to determine the qualifications of its members should remain unimpaired. Mr. Meany's statement above quoted is not clear. In fact, it is most confusing especially when he said he favored “such a proposition being written into the act." The statement might be interpreted to mean that to be allowed to contract that only union persons would hold jobs the union would have to admit criminals, strikebreakers, Communists, or other undesirable people and that they could not be expelled during the life of the contract. We realize that an extemporaneous answer to such a vital and important question is difficult and that many times a witness cannot immediately find words to express his thoughts. We believe that is what happened in this case. RIGHT SHOULD BE RESTORED Without any restrictions on contracting for hiring only members of the ITU we have done well for a hundred years. We ask for a restoration of that right. Whatever variations of the union-security question that different unions and different employers see fit to make by contract should be left to them. Government interference in that matter should be eliminated entirely. Representative Gwinn stated on page 1159 of the record "Then the president went on to say that the union had spent more than $20 million since August 22, 1947, to avoid compliance with the Taft-Hartley Act." The president did not say that Mr. Gwinn said it. It is not true. If we had not been in compliance we would have, by now, suffered penalties. We are proud of having the ability to defend ourselves against Taft-Hartley disruption and will continue to use every legal means to do so. We welcome the opportunity to spend as much time with the committee as it may desire to talk about the International Typographical Union. Because there were no hearings conducted on the Murray-Dingell-Rhodes bills during the 82d session of Congress we submitted a printed statement thereon which is herewith submitted in support of H. R. 2510, H. R. 2511, and S. 369 'which are identical with the bills submitted to the 82d session of Congress referred to above. We ask that this statement be included in the record. (The statement referred to is made a part of the record at the close of this brief.) We are supplying to each member of the committee printed documents as exhibits Nos. 1 through 16: 1. 64 pages compilation of official records of the ITU entitled "Taft-Hartley Persecution as Applied to the ITU." 2. 32 pages printed document entitled "The ITU's Modern Defense Activities" (July 1952). 3. Annual report and financial statement of ITU Secretary-Treasurer Don Hurd for the fiscal year ending May 20, 1952 (July 1952). 4. Printed copy of statement of Gerhard P. Van Arkel, appearing as a former General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board before the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare on the proposed National Labor Relations Act of 1949 (February 1949). 5. 47 pages printed document of verbal statement of Gerhard P. Van Arkel, appearing as a former General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board before the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare on the Proposed National Relations Act of 1949 (February 1949). 6. 111 pages printed document of statement and testimony of Woodruff Randolph, president, International Typographical Union, before the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare on the proposed National Labor Relations Act of 1949 (February 1949). 7. Printed copy of pamphlet entitled "Come Let Us Reason Together on Some Taft-Hartley Subjects" (March 11, 1949). 8. 15-page pamphlet entitled "Defeat the Taft Amendments" giving reasons for the defeat of amendments proposed by Senator Taft to the Thomas-Lesinski bill of 1949) (April 21, 1949). 9. 10-page pamphlet entitled "A Case for Repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act." A factual report showing the abuses under Taft-Hartley Act as it was applied to the International Typographical Union (February 3, 1949). 10. 15-page pamphlet entitled "The Taft-Hartley Law Is a Slave-Labor Law" (February 10, 1949). 11. 16-page pamphlet entitled "Taft-Hartley and the ITU” (January 28, 1949). 12. Reprint of an article appearing in the Spring, 1948, issue of the Antioch Review, entitled "Taft-Hartley and the Printers," by Freeman Champney. 13. Printed copy of the record of a presentation by the executive council of the ITU to the Capehart Committee on Small Business (May 1947). 14. Printed copy of a report compiled from official records of the part played by the ITU in the formation of the American Federation of Labor (January 1951). 15. Printed copy of a pamphlet entitled "Facts" (May 1952). 16. Minority views of the Joint Committee on Labor-Management Relations, Congress of the United States. (The documents referred to were filed with the committee, and are available for reference.) (The statement in support of S. 369, H. R. 2510, and H. R. 2511, referred to above, is as follows:) PRESENTATION BY THE INTERNATIONAL TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION IN SUPPORT OF S. 369, BY SENATOR MURRAY; H. R. 2510, BY REPRESENTATIVE DINGELL; H. R. 2511, BY REPRESENTATIVE RHODES The International Allied Printing Trades Association has drawn on an abundant experience with the Taft-Hartley Act in proposing the amendments set forth in S. 369, introduced by Senator Murray, and H. R. 2510 and 2511, introduced by Congressmen Dingell and Rhodes, respectively. Like every union, we have suffered under the act, but because of the nature of our industry, and the age and vigor of our organizations, we have suffered special damage. We have proposed four amendments to deal with the worst of these matters which we shall discuss in order. I. THE RIGHT TO BARGAIN FOR THE EMPLOYMENT OF UNION MEMBERS ONLY The Taft-Hartley Act says that the printing-trade unions may not incorporate in agreements, even where employers are willing to do so, provisions requiring that hiring be done from the ranks of union men. We propose that this be made lawful under both Federal and State law. For well over a century, the bulk of employers (though by no means all) agreed to, and in practice did, hire only union members. There was little complaint about this. The Chicago Tribune, on November 22, 1947, editorialized that **** we advised against outlawing the closed shop. We did so, among other reasons, because we knew that the closed shop worked well in our own plant and had worked well for half a century or more." This attitude was and is widely held by many employers. There were and are good reasons for such agreements. First, ours is a highly skilled craft. It requires an unusual combination of manual and intellectual skills. Training as craftsmen is both academic and practical; both are supplied by members of the union and the union. Members of our unions are almost the only persons who can hand on this craft, and with it they pass on their pride in their unions. Almost invariably, the nonunion man is poorly or partially trained. An employer who pays a union wage has a right to union skills; the agreement to hire only union men has not been abused because during all normal times the union has trained and supplied an adequate number of competent craftsmen under contract provisions. Second, men in the printing industry are mobile. Ever since Benjamin Franklin left Boston for Philadelphia, printing-trades men have been on the move. Union membership, by assuring a certain level of competency and an all around knowledge of the trade, enables men to move from one employer to another with a minimum of friction. Our union laws provide effective guaranties for facility of movement, through the use of "traveling cards" which grant members of local unions the right to become members of other local unions. The system is of great advantage to the industry in that it encourages movement of printers from depressed to expanding areas. The entire system is placed in jeopardy by the abolition of the closed shop. Third, Taft-Hartley compels us to agree to an open shop. Much has been heard, recently, in the railroad, steel and other industries of the injustice of the Government "imposing" the so-called union shop. With the merits of that argument we are not here concerned. But we point out that those same interests who urged the Government, through the Taft-Hartley Act, to intervene in collective bargaining by denying the right to bargain for the employment of only union men are those who now insist that Government intervention is wrong. We should be happy to see them take the same position we have consistently maintained: Free collective bargaining on these issues. Only a shoddy use of language can describe the Taft-Hartley Act as granting a "union shop." It permits, and in some circumstances it requires, an employer to hire nonunion men. "Compulsory" union membership is permitted by the Taft-Hartley Act, so that we need not here be concerned with that specious objection to the agreement limiting hire to union members. What is highly objectionable is that Taft-Hartley leaves it to the employer, by his control over hire, to determine who are to be union members. This is a principle which we cannot accept, consistent with our obligation to see to it that members of our union are competent craftsmen and of good moral character. |