In conclusion, I would like to make this statement: This bill, if enacted into law, is going to prove, not only to the textile but to every industry that we have in America, that the Government has got to make some provisions for the protection of the employees in these industries. The workers themselves, or part of them, do not realize how much help this is going to be.

Mr. KELLER. Thanks, sir.

The committee will meet tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock. Governor Earle is to be here and we will be glad to have all hear him, and we will try to have the entire committee present.

(Whereupon, at 5:20 p. m., the committee recessed until tomorrow, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1936.)

TO REHABILITATE AND STABILIZE LABOR CONDITIONS IN THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 1936

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR,

Washington, D. C.

The subcommittee met at 10 a. m., Hon. Kent E. Keller (chairman) presiding.

Mr. KELLER. The committee will be in order. Mr. Ellenbogen, you have a statement which you wish to make to the committee?

Mr. ELLENBOGEN. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I just had a telephone call from Gov. George Earle, of Pennsylvania, who offers his apologies to the committee and begs to be excused this morning, because he is unable to be here on account of some unexpected development. He will designate a representative to appear before your committee who, with your permission, will present the Governor's statement to the committee, incorporating the views of the Governor.

Mr. KELLER. Then the Governor is not going to come at all?

Mr. ELLENBOGEN. He cannot come today. His other days are engaged. He will have a representative here. He has prepared a statement and his representative will present his statement to the committee, with the permission of the Chair and members of the committee.

Mr. KELLER. Very well.

The first witness this morning is Mr. Madden, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board.

STATEMENT OF J. WARREN MADDEN, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

Mr. MADDEN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen:
Do you wish me to make a formal statement?

Mr. KELLER. Yes; if you have a statement to make, and then we will ask you questions after you have finished.

Mr. MADDEN. Our board was created by the act signed by the President July 5, 1935. The act is known as the National Labor Relations Act.

The purpose of the act is to protect workers in their right to organize, if they desire to organize, and to determine the proper unit for collective bargaining; to ascertain which of the two conflicting groups have a majority and are therefore entitled to be representatives for the purpose of collective bargaining.

The present board was appointed in the latter part of August 1935, and we have set up a system of regional offices, dividing the country into 21 different regions.

The region in which there is the greatest amount of textile activity is our region which heads up at Atlanta, and our regional office is located there.

Through our agents, in these various regions, we have had certain experiences and collected certain information with reference to those matters which come within the scope of our act, namely, the matters. of union organization, collective bargaining, and representation; and I shall try to tell you what information we have gained in that way. There is no textile plant in this southeastern region which has a collective bargaining agreement with its workers. I cannot say whether there is any textile plant anywhere in the country-my surmise would be that there are some but in the southeastern region my information is that there is no plant which has a collective bargaining agreement.

We have found a great deal of interference with the rights given by our statute to workers to organize. We have had a great many cases in which it was charged-and in a great many of those cases upon our hearings it was proved that there was discrimination against workers, because they engaged in union or collective activities; that people were discharged from their jobs if they made themselves conspicuous in that direction.

After the textile strike of 1934 and the grief and trouble which followed from that strike, there was quite a movement, especially throughout the southeast, for the formation of so-called good-will clubs among the workers in different textile plants.

In many cases there is no evidence that that movement was fostered by the employers. There is much evidence that it was in many cases a gesture of despair on the part of workers, a peace-at-any-price arrangement, that workers had become so discouraged with reference to the possibility of successful union organization, that they organized themselves into these clubs, not with any real purpose of collective bargaining with the employer, but merely for the purpose of having a peace, a sort of Roman peace, I think it was not unfair to call it.

We have had many petitions from workers in the textile plants, for us to go in and determine which group-usually the outside union is the United Textile Workers and the other union is the good-will club or some such club-to determine which of those two organizations has a majority. Of course, the quick and easy way to determine that is by having an election by a secret ballot.

We have had in some four cases the consent of the textile employer and the workers to such an election. In quite a number of other cases we have met very determined resistance to even this small move on our part of finding out the facts by this simple process of holding an election; and in quite a number of cases we have been enjoined in the courts from making that move.

I may say that the argument which is made there is that to go into these plants and find out what the facts are with reference to the desire of the workers is regarded by some of these employers as a trouble-making move. If it is a trouble-making move to learn the facts, it is not our responsibility, because the Congress in our statute directed us to do that very thing; and even if we did not have that mandate from the Congress, still we think that it cannot do any harm to go in and find out what these workers want.

I have here a tabulation of the cases which have come to our attention involving textile workers. I may say that on this paper the column which is headed "C" relates to what we call complaint cases; that is, complaints of discriminatory discharge or the fostering of or domination by the employer of a company union, and the several other things which are described as unfair labor practices by our statute. The columns headed "R" are what we call representation cases, in which we have a petition for an election or certification as to which group are in the majority and are entitled to designate the representatives for the purpose of collective bargaining.

Of the complaint cases, 4 have arisen in the Boston region; 10 in New York; 1 in Buffalo; when I name these cities, the city is simply the location of our regional office. The territory of the region, of course, includes a considerable territory, in some cases several States. To continue: 8 in Philadelphia; 1 in Pittsburgh; 1 in Cleveland; 33 in Atlanta; 1 in Milwaukee; 2 in New Orleans; and 1 in Seattle. The representation or election cases run in about the same proportion; again, Atlanta, with eight cases, having the largest number.

So far as we can ascertain the workers involved in the various controversies which have come before our board are 13,449 in the complaint cases; and 9,584 in the representation cases.

I think that is all I will say by way of a general statement, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KELLER. Are there any questions by members of the committee?

Mr. SCHNEIDER. These complaint cases, they are the cases in which there are charges of unfair discharge, and so forth?

Mr. MADDEN. Yes.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Discrimination cases?

Mr. MADDEN. They are cases of charges of some one of the several labor practices which are defined in our statute.

Most of them I would say are discriminatory discharge cases.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. How many did you say there were of thoseseveral thousand? You had the number of workers that were involved on that tabulation.

Mr. MADDEN. The number of workers involved was 13,449. That does not mean that there were 13,449 workers discriminatorily discharged. It means merely that there were that many workers involved in the operations in which these incidents took place and who were, therefore, affected by our enforcement or nonenforcement of the law.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Just what did your board do with those cases? How many of them did you succeed in having straightened out or adjudicated satisfactorily?

Mr. MADDEN. Not very many of them, sir, have come to any final conclusion. Our procedure moves through these stages. We issue the complaint if our investigation finds that it is justified. We hold a hearing at which we take evidence as to what has happened.

We issue an order based upon that hearing. To get enforcement of our order, we have no marshal or sheriff or power to punish for contempt. We are obliged by the law to go into the circuit court of appeals and apply there for an enforcement of the order which we have made. So the actual enforcement is court enforcement rather than board enforcement.