where we are critical of the railroads, and honestly so, I think that we also should be subject to criticism on some points ourselves.

Take these types of points and put them across the field, and you will find the shipping industry by and large, from the management end, in many sections, those who are not blinded by greed are blinded by incompetency. They are not bold, they are not farsighted. They have not moved nearly so fast as in other industries.

However, in all fairness to this industry, I think that today the thing looks much better. I think that the Grace Line development, for example, where the first container operation offshore has been put into effect, is a tremendous thing.

You must remember this, Senator, if I may elaborate: that the trade union movement in the maritime industry was the last part remaining of the jungle. We have been badly, badly mistreated by management. There have been many bloody, long, and brutal strikes. There were strikes of months and months in which people were machinegunned and tear gassed and which in the final analysis no wage increase was

won.

Therefore, it must also be recognized that, because of this fact, quite often on the improvement by automation or things of this nature, there has not always been the degree of cooperation between the two groups, in my opinion, that there should be.

However, this situation has changed considerably, and I think that the statement that I have presented indicates that certainly in this one area, I am happy to tell you, that in the coastwise operation that not only one segment but every segment of labor for sometime now has been working fully with those particular operators involved.

We have helped them to institute new systems. They could not have done it by themselves. The containerization program alone was a great problem for the American longshore worker. But he accepted it, even though it meant less jobs for less people. He accepted it. And even though it meant less jobs for us, we have accepted it.

This I think is an indication, as I have said previously, of maturity, of a growing feeling of responsibility. But in our attempt to do this, to preserve this industry, then to shoot us in the back of the head like the railroads and the ICC are doing, is an absolutely intolerable, unforgivable, and unthinkable situation.

Senator BARTLETT. Do a substantial number of the members of your union, for example, get work for 52 weeks a year?

Mr. HALL. The average sailor does not work a full year. There are some who do, and some who do not. If you average it out you will probably find that it will run somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 months. Again I point out the peculiarity and the uniqueness of the trade in which we live is of such a type that if any of the fellows wanted to stay home with their families just for a short while, it is quite necessary or at least at times it is, to get off of a vessel. Then to ship back out takes some time.

The average human being-in spite of what some people think, the average sailor is an average human being, after 6 weeks away from home likes to spend a week with his wife and with his children. This means that in between vessels he is unemployed. So he never, in the main, gets a full year's employment for that reason.

Senator BARTLETT. Then when he has visited at home and done all the errands that can be found there and wants to go to sea again, he can't go out at the moment that he wants to?

Mr. HALL. At times it is very difficult; very difficult.

Senator BARTLETT. Under existing conditions would you have an answer to this question: Can a railroad take a ton of freight cheaper from New York to New Orleans than a steamship?

Mr. HALL. If you base it on legitimate cost, legitimate cost, water transportation is the cheapest in the world. If you can't do it, if you are going to let one fellow operate for no profit or below cost, simply to cut the other fellow's fleet, it is impossible.

Senator BARTLETT. Do you mean beneath cost on certain items?
Mr. HALL. On certain commodities.

I might say, Senator, that some of the operators are going to spell those things out. I know in the last hearing and in subsequent discussions it was amazing to me, and I knew how bad the ICC and the railroads were, but it was a shocking thing to me, and let me tell you it takes an awful lot to shock me-to find out exactly what these guys had done. They had just cut these peoples' throat from ear to ear, without even blinking about it, without any consideration at all.

Senator BARTLETT. Why do you think the ICC permitted this? Mr. HALL. I have an opinion. Because firstly they are under the control of the railroads. The railroad is the ICC, and the ICC is the railroad. I think a study of the makeup of the ICC is self-explanatory. I don't think there is anybody at the top level of the ICC who has any concept of the problems of our industry, or any desire to help our industry. Absolutely to the contrary, they are railroad satellites as far as I am concerned. Nothing more, and nothing less than just that.

Senator BARTLETT. The ICC has been in charge, regular charge of this regulatory trade since 1940?

Mr. HALL. That is correct.

Senator BARTLETT. What is the situation with respect to the coastal and intercoastal trades say from 1920 to 1940?

Mr. HALL. In that period of time this was the principal area of employment for the American sailor, and also it was that principal region and area where the great reserve fleet of the U.S. merchant marine lay and operated. It was this fleet which was used as a stopgap emergency pending the development of a wartime fleet.

There were tens of thousands of jobs involved. But if you recall, starting with 1939, with the emergency, and later the war, with the inception of the ICC control in 1940, with the pulling out of this coastal and intercoastal fleet for an emergency reason-which was a good and sound reason and which in fact in my opinion as a sailor, a professional sailor, I could not say otherwise, did in fact save this country in that war-then when in 1940 the ICC came in they were then able to take and hold the position, after getting it, to prevent the institution of this service by the very method and techniques which we have discussed and described here today, by allowing the railroad to cutthroat, and the prevention of these companies resuming their normal operations in a normal method and in a normal manner.

Senator BARTLETT. Did you say that we now have about a quarter of a million seamen?

Mr. HALL. There are a quarter million seamen who are valid, legitimate sailors in the sense of being certificated, qualified seamen. Senator BARTLETT. Of that number, only about 51,000 are employed?

Mr. HALL. Between 50,000 and 60,000 of them have jobs.

Senator BARTLETT. Let me ask you this, Mr. Hall: How many of the remaining 200,000 will drift away from the sea entirely and not be available for service again if they are needed?

Mr. HALL. There are a considerable number who drift away. Some of them might return, some of them might not return. This is also one of the hazards of the depletion of this industry. Because where you take years to make a craftsman-and it takes years to make a craftsman on the ship-it takes 3 years actual sea service to be certified as an able-bodied sailor.

Senator BARTLETT. Three years?

Mr. HALL. Three years at sea; not in port or in an office, but at sea on a ship. It takes 3 years to make an AB, and it takes six AB's to man a ship, as a minimum. This does not apply to the sailor alone; it applies to the boilermaker, machinist, and all types and descriptions. One of the dangers of this is that by this kind of activity all these skilled crafts are being lost.

I sailed all during the war as an active sailor. I remember during the war how difficult it was for the Government to get people, particularly in the shipyards, and I am sure that all of you gentlemen do, too. Now they have developed or had developed in this country a pretty good group of craftsmen. This is another contributing factor to what makes it a bad situation, what the ICC is doing in destroying this group of craftsmen.

Senator BARTLETT. On the last page of your statement, Mr. Hall, you made certain recommendations for remedial action. If all of those recommendations were adopted, in your opinion would they suffice to restore order to this industry and to rehabilitate it?

Mr. HALL. In my opinion they would. It would certainly put this industry in a better shape to compete and to live. And one good thing, Senator, I think about this industry, from the point of managementand I am not generally a promanagement fellow; I have never met a sailor who really was, who loved the shipowner-but I do believe that the position of the shipowner in this trade has been one of a fair nature. They have not asked for unfair advantages. I think that their position and our position in support of these bills is a fair and equitable position. I believe if it is passed it will very well turn the trick, or at least allow them an opportunity to compete.

Senator BARTLETT. I am not quite clear on one point, and that is if nothing else did the job, would your recommendations go so far as to be for construction and operating subsidies?

Mr. HALL. My feeling is that with the burden on the American taxpayer as it is, that this should be in the final analysis the last thing to do. But I think that it requires a decision. First, assuming that we need a coastal and intercoastal fleet for the various reasons we have described, then if the responsible parties are going to allow the railroads, by this cutthroating, to totally destroy this segment of industry, then in the final analysis for national defense alone you must then

resort to subsidy, although, very frankly, nobody has asked or pressed for it; nobody would even like to see it.

I think again, Senator, that this underlines emphatically the fairness of the position of the industry in which we are. All we wantand I say "we" meaning all of us-is just a chance to compete without being shot in the head all of the time.

Senator BARTLETT. However, your statement about what might happen, for example, in my own State of Alaska, in the event of war is in my opinion absolutely correct. There are not enough ships available to service that State should war come. If it were to happen, then we might put in hundreds of millions of dollars all in a hurry, and perhaps most inefficiently, and no one would begrudge the cost of that expenditure at all.

Your plea, as I understand it, that now, while we have time to plan, time to do the job correctly, we restore our coastal and intercoastal fleet and cause them to operate efficiently, competitive, and yet with a fair break.

Mr. HALL. Precisely.

Senator BARTLETT. Mr. Barton?

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Senator.

Mr. Hall, you mentioned the increasing efficiency that had been brought about by the cooperation of the unions and management in the coastwise and intercoastal shipping industry. Do you have any figures which show the relative decrease in costs of handling certain units of traffic?

Mr. HALL. Yes. I can get them. I don't have them with me. These figures are subject to variation by, say, 5 percent. Thanks to the foresight of these new types of operations, the cargo production, for example, per hour, has increased from an average of 35 tons to 150 tons per hour, at less cost for the high figure than it had been for the low figure. What I am saying is that in cargo handling alone-I will get to the ship in a moment-in the cargo handling alone, for example, in the piggyback deal and Pan-Atlantic operation, the production has been increased by 4 times, if not by 5-a minimum of 4. In some cases, I believe in New Orleans, as high as 6. This is the exception, not the general rule.

They have increased production 4 to 5 times without increasing cost. This is the type of efficiency that has been undergone.

This can be translated across the board. For example, Seatrain is going in for the same thing. There are other people who are in the same area. They have devised ways and means to really increase productivity in the finest sense. This will result and has resulted in a loss of employment for some of the people involved, but we are trying to relocate those people in other areas.

Aboard ship we have allowed these operators to work on scales that are different. Not wage scales, if you please, but on manning scales that are different from other types of operations.

It would interest you to know, Counselor, for example, that I recently held a meeting with all of the longshore and checker groups, with whom we work in relation to these coastal vessels that I referred to, and we are agreed that we are going to see if we cannot further reduce the cost of this operation, whether it is in relation to manning scale or in any matter that we can. So I can, if you would like, supply for this record actual and specific figures.

What I am giving you now I will tell you again will hold true to 5to 10-percent variation, no more than that. But I can, if you like, very easily supply you with specific figures and facts on this matter. Mr. BARTON. I shall be grateful if you will do so.

That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GRINSTEIN. Do you have any figures to show how many seamen have been laid up?

Mr. HALL. On the east coast alone since the ICC took over the regulation of rates, we think, again, without being specific, but we can supply the figures, I think that on the Atlantic coast alone the figure would run up to probably 6,000 or 8,000 jobs. On the west coast I think it would be pretty close to 75 percent of the same figure. That is as it relates to seamen. This is not a true figure. It does not relate to the longshore worker who lost his job, nor to the checker, nor does it relate in this case to truckdrivers, nor does it relate to other craftsfor example, again, the shipbuilder, repair yard man, all of whom had a part in making a living in the maintenance of the domestic fleet.

I would say across the board it would be 75,000 or 80,000 people, right across the board, in all categories, all crafts, top to bottom. Mr. BOURBON. Has the containerization idea been adopted generally on all four coasts?

Mr. HALL. It has been generally adopted as you know. At the inception of the containerization program there was some difficulty because there was an inability, at first, for the parties bargaining to reach a conclusion. But they have reached a conclusion. They have reached an agreement on general principles. They are now working on the mechanics. The fact that it is successful is proved by the very fact that the matter on which they have worked is now operating.

Pan-Atlantic is not a theoretical operation. It is an actual operation with ships moving every day back and forth. So from that point of view it is successful. I would point out, too, that while this was somewhat of a difficult problem to start with in the field of labor relations, that it has been over the hump now for some time. The only thing left is the mopup.

It is interesting again to understand that some of the biggest difficulties we have had in waterfront labor relations is on this question where we have all recognized among ourselves the necessity of making sacrifices that even we don't think we ought to have to make, but we are willing to do so to see this particular service maintained, not only maintained but restored to its proper place.

Mr. BOURBON. I noticed a report in the paper from Caracas that the Grace Line ship had been held up for about 2 weeks because they refused to unload it there.

Mr. HALL. Caracas, Venezuela?

Mr. BOURBON. Yes. What I want to ask you: You apparently work in collaboration with unions in other countries. On this specific project would you have any means of working with the people in Venezuela to persuade them to go along?

Mr. HALL. We have relationships in an international body with all of the labor movements of the free labor world, through the International Transport Workers Federation. Without going into specific detail, this might be the appropriate committee, I do not think so. In that particular country the Communist Party has moved in rather