Ever since the adoption of the Constitution, the United States has held to this principle. To encourage States to solicit industry on the basis that they will keep unions and wages more suppressed than do other States violates that principle.

A further reason for America's economic growth and prosperity is that its workers receive wages adequate to buy the goods America produces. Prosperity rests on high wages-not on sweatshops.

The National Labor Relations Act itself declares that the inequality of bargaining power between unorganized employees and employers "tends to aggravate recrurrent business depressions, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners in industry and by preventing the stabilization of competitive wage rates and working conditions within and between industries."

It is on this basis that the act justifies protecting the rights of employees to organize and bargain collectively, thus "restoring equality of bargaining power between employers and employees." It is utterly inconsistent with these purposes to invite States to compete on the basis of low wage rates and weak unions.

Here is an example of the competition. Four months after a "rightto-work" law took effect in Mississippi in 1954, the mayor of Pelahatchie, Miss., wrote a Connecticut industrialist inviting him to open a plant in that "veritable industrial paradise." The letter goes on:

Then our wonderful labor, 98 percent native born, mostly high school graduates, will lower average hourly industrial wage rates 6 cents to 49 cents below other Southern States, and from 50 cents to 95 cents below Northern States.

You will also get a much higher average man production, some plants even getting double what they got in their northern plants. This labor is truly American, not inflicted with the "something for nothing" idea and works together joyously with management for the success of both.

Here you will also enjoy savings in power, fuel, utility, tax, and other costs. Raw materials are convenient, transportation facilities are good. No one will tell you whom you must employ and all detrimental State laws for industrial operations have been repealed.

The closed union shop has just been outlawed in Mississippi. With the large savings in wage, production, and operating costs, while your plant is operating peacefully and successfully, it will put your company into a most favorable competitive position not only in the entire South but also over most of the country.

These days, the professional promoters of "right-to-work" laws have grown more cautious, or more sophisticated. They are no longer talking about lower wages. They even deny that they are antiunion.

But today, as in the past, "right-to-work" laws are peddled primarily on the representation that they will attract industry, and today, as in the past, the inference is that they will attract industry by keeping unions weak and labor costs low.

This talk about attracting industry inevitably has an impact, particularly in areas suffering acutely from unemployment or industrial stagnation. During a campaign for a "right-to-work" law in Vermont 5 or 6 years ago, a former mayor of Burlington put it this way:

I make no claim that a freedom of association law in Vermont is going to solve our economic ills, but I do claim this:

If one of the features of government that people who decide where industry will locate is "right-to-work" laws, then we, with our many disadvantages are not taking full advantage or our opportunities if we do not give the people a chance to vote on this subject.

The Vermont Legislature rejected this proposal.

In recent months 20 or 30 little towns in Kentucky have been induced to pass "right-to-work" ordinances. There, too, it has been

claimed that these ordinances will attract industry. The Kentucky Court of Appeals has declared these ordnances unconstitutional but they represent the real "right-to-work" spirit.

It seems to us, though, that the several States should go forward together, not backward separately.

Let me now enter a brief affirmation of the union shop as such-the reasons why unions and employers should be free to include union. security in their collective bargaining contracts, if they agree to do so. The national act now permits certain types of union security under certain safeguards, except for 14(b).

Workers want and need union security for the same reason they want and need unions; that is, to enable them to deal effectively with their employers. Workers join unions so that by acting together they can increase their bargaining power, get better wages and working conditions, and greater personal security and dignity.

The hopes of union members to secure better wages and working conditions and to resist arbitrary and unfair treatment by employers depend upon the united action of all the workers. A worker who refuses to join the union weakens it, and to that extent weakens the collective effort to win the terms that all should enjoy.

That is why union workers feel so deeply about this matter of union security. People outside the labor movement have often failed to understand the depth of that feeling, sometimes to their cost, for, believe me, the feeling is there.

Union men have a deeply ingrained tradition against working alongside nonunion men. Throughout the 19th century, union security, where it existed, was enforced mainly by this tradition, rather than by formal agreement with the employer.

It is sometimes argued that a union shop cannot safeguard a union against potential strikebreakers, since potential strikebreakers will not change their spots just because they are required to join a union.

This may be true. It is an argument for a closed shop as was permitted by the Wagner Act and under the laws of such States as New York and California.

A closed shop and an open union-is from our point of view a more desirable situation. The union shop permitted by the TaftHartley Act is not ideal from our standpoint, but rather, as was well understood at the time, it is itself a compromise.

Nevertheless, a union shop does strengthen a union, and not just financially.

New employees in any plant will at the outset be indifferent to unionism. They will be neither prounion or antiunion. If when they are hired they are told that it is a union plant, and that they will be expected to join the union, the likelihood is that they will come to take an interest in the union, and if the union performs to their satisfaction that they will come to support it.

If, on the other hand, the employees are told that it is not a union shop, some will remain out of the union, either from inertia or to avoid paying dues. Thus the union shop does, I think, strengthen a union substantially in terms of the interest, allegiance, and support of uncommitted employees assuming of course that the union functions in a manner that proves satisfactory to the members.

Also, a union shop serves as a sort of guarantee by the employer that he is not going to try to break the union. The employer may con

tinue to be a hard bargainer, but once some sort of union security arrangement has been negotiated, it is rare indeed for the employer to set out to break the union. This is well understood by both employers and workers.

And since strikes over the existence or survival of a union are the longest and bitterest, union security arrangements make for industrial peace.

It is no coincidence that the employers who back "right-to-work" laws are those who are unwilling to deal with unions at all.

Employers who recognize unions, and who expect to keep on recognizing them, show little interest in "right-to-work" agitation. The real purpose of most "right-to-work" advocates is to destroy unions and collective bargaining.

It is significant, we think, that among the 115 members of the board of directors of the National Association of Manufacturers, at least half are connected with companies having union contracts providing some form of union security.

This is not really surprising in the light of labor-management relations as they now exist. Let's look at the various approaches to this question.

There are a number of different ways that wages, hours and working conditions can be determined.

One way is to leave it to the employer. That is how it was universally done in this country until collective bargaining became legal around the middle of the 19th century. That is how it is still done where there are no unions.

That is, we guess, how the "right-to-work" crowd would like it. In theory, under this system the employer and the individual worker negotiate the terms of employment; but the reality is that the worker must accept the employer's terms.

A second possibility is for the State to fix all of the conditions of employment. That is the system which is followed in the Soviet Union, where the state is the employer; and it is followed in part in several other countries, even with respect to plants which remain under private ownership.

A third system is that which in most respects is followed in this country; that is, the system of collective bargaining. Under that system, if a majority of employees in a plant or other unit choose to bargain collectively through a union, the employer must bargain with them; and the agreement reached is binding on all the employees in the unit whether they join the union or not, or whether they like the

contract or not.

The Government simply sets the ground rules; and establishes, in the public interest, certain minimum standards as to wages, the employment of child labor, and so on.

This system developed in the United States beginning in the middle. of the 19th century, and it was adopted by Congress as the national labor relations policy, first with regard to railway labor, in 1926 and with regard to industry generally in 1935. The "right-to-work" people say this whole system is wrong.

But actually, this system has great advantages. It gives the workers, if a majority of them so choose, a voice in negotiating their terms of employment. It not only enables workers to obtain better

wages and shorter hours, but security on the job and enhances personal dignity.

From the standpoint of the employer, the system preserves private ownership and gives him an equal and normally a more than equalvoice in determining wages and working conditions. Let me quote what President Meany said in the other body a few days ago:

REMARKS OF GEORGE MEANY, PRESIDENT, AFL-CIO

Collective bargaining presupposes, and Federal law provides, that the bargain made with the employer by the union binds all the employees in the unit. If individual employees are free to make their own deal with the employer, that is the end of collective bargaining. If individuals can undercut the union wage to get work, that ends the union wage.

Under collective bargaining, the contract which the union negotiates determines all the major conditions of the worker's industrial life. It determines what he gets paid; what hours he works; whether he is subject to discharge only for cause, with the right to go to arbitration, or subject to discharge at the whim of the foreman; whether layoffs are made according to seniority or favoritism; whether or not retired employees receive pensions, and all the rest.

A "right-to-work" law carves out a single exception. Where a "right-to-work" law is in effect, the collective-bargaining agreement may cover every phase of the worker's industrial life, except that it may not provide that he shall join the union or pay dues to it.

As a citizen of the industrial community the worker is still bound by whatever agreement the union negotiates, but the law gives him the option of declining membership and refusing to pay dues.

His life as a worker is lived under the terms of the union contract. By law he enjoys whatever benefits the union wins, but he may not be required to join or pay dues.

This is so grossly inconsistent that it persuaded the late Senator Taft to preserve the union shop in the Taft-Hartly Act. But the inconsistency goes deeper.

As a matter of philosophical consistency, it is not possible to advocate a "right-to-work" law on the purported ground that compulsory membership violates the freedom of the individual worker, and at the same time declare a belief in collective bargaining, which gives the union the power to negotiate a contract affecting every aspect of the worker's industrial life.

I believe in collective bargaining, and so I believe in union security. I also believe in democracy, and so I believe that when the majority of the employees join a union, they should be entitled to negotiate a union security agreement with their employer, if they want to and if they can.

The standard argument of the "right-to-work" advocates is that they are concerned about the freedom of the individual worker to hold a job without belonging to a union. Some of those who express this concern are probably sincere, but that is beside the point. They simply do not understand or take into account the employment conditions in urbanized, industrialized, 20th-century America.

They seem to be unaware that there is no true right to work. The first and most arbitrary requirement a worker must meet is to find an employer who will hire him. Once hired, he is subject to many other arbitrary regulations, from punching a timeclock to a no-smoking rule.

Every workplace has a long list. These regulations are set by employers. Why are they more acceptable than a union shop requirement, jointly agreed to by the employer and the union? Why is this the one regulation, among all others, from which workers need to be liberated?

The "right-to-work" advocates never seem to wonder why, if workers want this kind of liberation-these "right-to-work" laws have won the most acceptance where union membership is smallest. And they seem to pay no attention to the rights and interests and wishes of the majority.

These advocates of "right-to-work" laws are nostalgic for an earlier and simpler day, when farmers owned and worked their own subsistence farms, and industry was embodied in the village blacksmith.

Well, for better or for worse, that sort of society has pretty much disappeared, and will never come back. The village blacksmiths who once ran their own shops

50-202 0-65

work at racetracks now, as employees. They have a union, and they bargain collectively.

The option today is not between having unions and collective bargaining, and having an agrarian society of independent owner-producers. Big industrial plants will grow bigger and huge corporations will grow larger. The options today are between giving the managers of these great enterprises the unilateral right to decide what they will pay, who they will lay off, whether they will grant pensions, et cetera, and assuring a voice in these decisions to workers acting together in a union.

Surely the latter alternative is the more democratic and the one which preserves to workers the greater degree of individual freedom.

That is the end of the quotation. I think it is persuasive.

I want to stress the inescapable obligation of a certified union to give full and equal protection to all workers in the unit.

The Supreme Court has enforced this doctrine in numerous cases over the last 20 years. We support this doctrine of union responsibility 100 percent. The duty of unions to represent fairly all employees, whether members or not, protects everyone in the bargaining unit.

Since this is so, we do not feel it is unreasonable to ask all the workers who enjoy this protection to bear their share of the costs.

In the racial field, the responsibility to represent everyone fairly was codified and expanded-though not as far as we urged-by the Congress in title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The act forbids unions from excluding anyone from membership or discriminating against anyone with respect to employment op portunities because of "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." We support these provisions 100 percent, too, and we had a part in persuading Congress to enact them. We are glad that civil rights leaders publicly acknowledge that the AFL-CIO did more than any other organization to secure the inclusion of title VII in the bill.

But title VII, and the Supreme Court doctrine it embodies, gives our unions some problems: and that is where union security comes in. In many southern plants, I am sorry to say, the Negroes have been restricted to a common labor pool, with little or no opportunity to advance into skilled, better paying jobs.

These practices are illegal and our unions are working with the assistance of the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department, to eliminate them.

The union has a hard row to hoe at best, but with a union security contract it is better able to make a clear furrow. Such a contract will protect the union against resignations in the heat of the moment. Given time the union leadership may be able to convince disgruntled members, or some of them, that the contract changes were both legally necessary and morally required. The union may still have to face a decertification petition at the expiration of the contract; but at least it will have had time to make its case.

Without union security, union membership drops sharply whenever the union makes a decision which is unpopular with some members.

Race problems are only part of it. When the Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1947, there was a lot of talk to the effect that unions should be "responsible." This presumably meant that unions should live up to collective-bargaining agreements. Now, of course, we believe that unions ought to be "responsible" in the sense that they