of the United States, will be authorized to bring suit for an injunction against the striking union directly in the Supreme Court. This eliminates the serious objections to the bill's placing the finding of the fact that a strike imperils the public health or safety in the hands of a single United States district judge. If the Supreme Court, as a fact-finding body, finds that a strike imperils the public health or safety, an injunction will issue.

To the extent necessary to implement this procedure, the existing anti-injunction statutes of the United States will be suspended. The Supreme Court may then use its traditional equity powers to enforce the injunction. This amendment is in complete keeping with fundamental democratic processes in the United States. It observes strictly the rights and prerogatives of our tripartite Government. The legislative branch passes a law forbidding strikes against national health or safety. The executive branch institutes suit when it feels that this law is being violated. The judicial branch exercises its interpretive and fact-finding powers to determine whether the law has been broken.

This is a critical time in the development of America as a strong and free industrial democracy. We are in the second year of a postwar period full of trial and difficulty. If internal cleavages are to split the Nation, it will mean unrest at home and weakness and indecision in dealing with problems abroad. If, on the other hand, there is full cooperation between labor and management and a recognition of mutual responsibilities, America can look forward to a prosperous future at home and a real capacity to fulfill its obligations abroad.

Respectfully submitted.

APRIL 17 (legislative day, MARCH 24), 1947.-Ordered to be printed

Mr. TAFT, from the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany S. 1126]

together with the

INDIVIDUAL VIEWS OF MR. THOMAS OF UTAH, AND THE SUPPLEMENTAL VIEWS OF MR. TAFT, MR. BALL, MR. DONNELL, AND MR. JENNER, AND THE CONCURRING VIEWS, WITH RESERVATIONS, OF MR. SMITH, THEREIN

The Committee on Labor and Public Welfare report an original bill (S. 1126) to amend the National Labor Relations Act, to provide additional facilities for the mediation of labor disputes affecting commerce, to equalize legal responsibilities of labor organizations and employers, and for other purposes, and recommends that the bill do

pass.

The problem of the inadequacy of existing laws on industrial relations is one of grave national concern. The basic Federal law on this subject is contained in two statutes-the Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Enacted at the time when millions of persons were unemployed and labor organizations were relatively weak and ineffective, these statutes, despite their experimental character, have not been changed in any respect since their original enactment.

While the committee does not believe that social gains which industrial employees have received by reason of these statutes should be impaired in any degree, we do feel that to the extent that such statutes, together with the regulations issued under them, and decisions regarding them, have produced specific types of injustice, or clear inequities between employers and employees, Congress should remedy the situation by precise and carefully drawn legislation.

The need for congressional action has become particularly acute as a result of increased industrial strife. In 1945 this occasioned the loss of approximately 38,000,000 man-days of labor through strikes. This total was trebled in 1946 when there were 116,000,000 man-days lost and the number of strikes reached the unprecedented figure of 4,985.

This bill, formulated by the committee, in an attempt to solve some of the more pressing difficulties with which the Nation is confronted, represents the results of numerous hearings before the committee extending over a period of more than 5 weeks. The committee heard 83 witnesses representing not only management, labor organizations, and the Government but also the general public. The actual drafting of the bill was done in executive sessions of the committee during the last 4 weeks, in which almost daily meetings were held. As an indication of the interest in the subject matter, the entire membership of the committee was present at the meetings in which the draft was perfected. Virtually every Senator on the committee made an important contribution to its provisions.

The committee bill is predicated upon our belief that a fair and equitable labor policy can best be achieved by equalizing existing laws in a manner which will encourage free collective bargaining. Government decisions should not be substituted for free agreement but both sides-management and organized labor-must recognize that the rights of the general public are paramount.

The need for such legislation is urgent. Supreme Court interpretations of the Norris-LaGuardia Anti-injunction Act and the Clayton Act seem to have placed union activities, no matter how destructive to the rights of the individual workers and employers who are conforming to the National Labor Relations Act, beyond the pale of Federal law. Moreover, the administration of the National Labor Relations Act itself has tended to destroy the equality of bargaining power necessary to maintain industrial peace. This is due in part to the one-sided character of the act itself, which, while affording relief to employees and labor organizations for certain undesirable practices. on the part of management, denies to management any redress for equally undesirable actions on the part of labor organizations. Moreover, as a result of certain administrative practices which developed in the early period of the act, the Board has acquired a reputation for partisanship, which the committee bill seeks to overcome, by insisting upon certain procedural reforms.

In the course of its deliberations, the committee considered many other proposals, such as restricting alleged monopolistic practices by unions, the formulation of a code of rights for individual members of trade unions, and a clarification of the problem of union-welfare funds. In excluding these matters from the purview of the bill, the majority of the committee should not be understood as regarding such proposals as unsound or unworkable, but rather that the problems involved should receive more extended study by a special joint congressional committee for which the committee bill specifically provides. In other words, the committee in this bill attempted to embody reforms which are long overdue and with respect to which the record of the hearings revealed widespread agreement on the part of informed and impartial persons.

The bill is divided into four titles: Title I amends the National Labor Relations Act to achieve the purposes to which reference has been made. Title II creates a new Federal Mediation Service, which transfers the functions of the Department of Labor in the field of conciliation, along with the property and personnel of the present Service. It also provides special procedures for the Attorney General and the President to utilize in national emergencies. Title III gives labor unions the right to sue and be sued as legal entities for breach of contract in the Federal courts. Title IV establishes a joint Committee of the Congress to make a long-range study of certain aspects of labor relations, concerning which further information was thought desirable by the committee. Title V contains definitions.

The major changes which the bill would make in the National Labor Relations Act may be summarized as follows:

1. It eliminates the genuine supervisor from the coverage of the act as an employee and makes it clear that he should be deemed a part of management.

2. It abolishes the closed shop but permits voluntary agreements for requiring such forms of compulsory membership as the union shop or maintenance of membership, provided that a majority of the employees authorize their representatives to make such contracts. It also protects employees against discharge, if unions deny or terminate their membership for capricious reasons.

3. It gives employers and individual employees rights to invoke the processes of the Board against unions which engaged in certain enumerated unfair labor practices, including secondary boycotts and jurisdictional strikes, which may result in the Board itself applying for restraining orders in certain cases.

4. It reorganizes the central structure of the National Labor Relations Board not only by providing for the addition of four new members to the present Board of three, but by placing upon the members individual responsibility in performing their judicial functions. This would be accomplished by eliminating the review section of the legal staff and the reviewing personnel of the Trial Examining Division.

5. In the interests of assuring complete freedom of choice to employees who do not wish to be represented collectively as well as those who do, it requires the Board to enlarge the rights of petition in representation cases and to give greater attention to the special problems of craftsmen and professional employees in the determination of bargaining units.

6. It prevents the Board from continuing to accord affiliated unions special advantages at the expense of independent labor organizations, by requiring that, under identical circumstances, the Board in complaint cases refrain from any disparity of treatment.

SUPERVISORY PERSONNEL

A recent development which probably more than any other single factor has upset any real balance of power in the collective-bargaining process has been the successful efforts of labor organizations to invoke the Wagner Act for covering supervisory personnel, traditionally regarded as part of management, into organizations composed of or subservient to the unions of the very men they were hired to supervise. It was not until 1945, after several changes in position, that the

The need for congressional action has become particularly acute as a result of increased industrial strife. In 1945 this occasioned the loss of approximately 38,000,000 man-days of labor through strikes. This total was trebled in 1946 when there were 116,000,000 man-days lost and the number of strikes reached the unprecedented figure of 4,985.

This bill, formulated by the committee, in an attempt to 'solve some of the more pressing difficulties with which the Nation is confronted, represents the results of numerous hearings before the committee extending over a period of more than 5 weeks. The committee heard 83 witnesses representing not only management, labor organizations, and the Government but also the general public. The actual drafting of the bill was done in executive sessions of the committee during the last 4 weeks, in which almost daily meetings were held. As an indication of the interest in the subject matter, the entire membership of the committee was present at the meetings in which the draft was perfected. Virtually every Senator. on the committee made an important contribution to its provisions.

The committee bill is predicated upon our belief that a fair and equitable labor policy can best be achieved by equalizing existing laws in a manner which will encourage free collective bargaining. Government decisions should not be substituted for free agreement but both sides-management and organized labor-must recognize that the rights of the general public are paramount.

The need for such legislation is urgent. Supreme Court interpretations of the Norris-LaGuardia Anti-injunction Act and the Clayton Act seem to have placed union activities, no matter how destructive to the rights of the individual workers and employers who are conforming to the National Labor Relations Act, beyond the pale of Federal law. Moreover, the administration of the National Labor Relations Act itself has tended to destroy the equality of bargaining power necessary to maintain industrial peace. This is due in part to the one-sided character of the act itself, which, while affording relief to employees and labor organizations for certain undesirable practices on the part of management, denies to management any redress for equally undesirable actions on the part of labor organizations. Moreover, as a result of certain administrative practices which developed in the early period of the act, the Board has acquired a reputation for partisanship, which the committee bill seeks to overcome, by insisting upon certain procedural reforms.

In the course of its deliberations, the committee considered many other proposals, such as restricting alleged monopolistic practices by unions, the formulation of a code of rights for individual members of trade unions, and a clarification of the problem of union-welfare funds. In excluding these matters from the purview of the bill, the majority of the committee should not be understood as regarding such proposals as unsound or unworkable, but rather that the problems involved should receive more extended study by a special joint congressional committee for which the committee bill specifically provides. In other words, the committee in this bill attempted to embody reforms which are long overdue and with respect to which the record of the hearings revealed widespread agreement on the part of informed and impartial persons.