and not gone before the Wage Stabilization Board, or could have gone before the Wage Stabilization Board and even then, after having gone there and the recommendation having come down from the Board, they still could have said, "We are not going to take the recommendation" and would have been right back where they were at the end of the bargaining, subject to a strike, of course.

Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Multer, I wish that the company bad had your advice before this dispute arose, because the company did not have the confidence in the Board that you apparently held, because the company felt the Board was going to take jurisdiction and make a recommendation affecting it-and the Board may still do so, since the case is still before the Board.

The company had to defend itself, and

Mr. BROWN. I suggest, Congressman, that you proceed with your statement, and later on members of the committee may interrogate you.

Mr. LUCAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I do not pretend to be an expert on each of these individual cases, but I am certainly delighted to have an opportunity to discuss them with the members. of your committee.

Mr. MULTER. Mr. Chairman, I would not have interrupted to ask these questions before he concluded his statement except that Mr. Lucas indicated that it was all right.

Mr. BROWN. Very well. You may proceed.

Mr. LUCAS. It is plain that such policies can lead only to the stimulation of disputes since any union leader who has been unable through collective bargaining to obtain his demands can go through the motions of collective bargaining and have his dispute certified in order to see what Government intervention can give him. He has nothing to lose and possibly a good deal to gain under such a procedure.

Mr. Feinsinger's testimony indicates that the public members of the Board voted not on their convictions but instead what they believed to be expedient in order to prevent a strike. This was especially true in connection with the union shop where the original position of the public members was to send that issue back to the parties with the Board retaining jurisdiction over it.

The Board has failed to settle a large majority of the disputes certified to it by the President. Mr. Feinsinger told us that the President had certified 12 dispute cases to the Board. Only two of these casesthe American Smelting and Refining case and the Wright Aeronautical case-have been finally and completely settled as the result of Board recommendations.

Contrast this record with the record of the national emergency provisions of the Labor-Management Relations Act. In all but two of the nine cases in which the national emergency provisions have been instituted the disputes involved were successfully terminated as the result of the application of this procedure, and in no case was it necessary to resort to other procedures. I think we are all well aware that Taft-Hartley procedures-in the Kennecott Copper case-were used to settle a strike which the Wage Stabilization Board was unable to terminate.

Mr. Feinsinger has thrown a stern mandate to the Congress. He has chided us to provide effective procedures for dealing with labor disputes if we decide to terminate the disputes power of WSB.

Referring again to the New York Times, I have an editorial of May 8 in which Mr. Feinsinger predicts that "There will be chaos in labor-management relations if this disputes power is not vested in the

Board."

The New York Times editorializes that "Mr. Feinsinger need not worry. Chaos is not in the offing if this Board is not relieved of its disputes functions," and I ask permission to insert this editorial with my remarks at this point.

Mr. BROWN. It may be inserted in the record. (The editorial is as follows:)

MR. FEINSINGER ERRS

Wage Stabilization Board Chairman Nathan P. Feinsinger has told the House Labor Committee that a rash of serious strikes and industrial chaos may result if the Board is stripped of the power to handle industrial disputes. We believe he is in error.

The WSB was created by Executive order of President Truman after long public discussion as to whether, in addition to carrying out the mandate of Congress to stabilize wages, it should also have authority to consider disputes and make recommendations for their settlement. At that time it was pointed out that wage-stabilization problems and disputes adjustment were two separate functions and that they should not be combined in the same body lest confusion result.

Mr. Feinsinger seems to imply that to take from the Board its dispute powers means that we will neglect adjusting controversies between labor and management. That will not happen. If Congress relieves the WSB of its disputefunctions collective bargaining and Government mediation will, as now, still be available.

If these prove unsuccessful two alternative courses will be open. In disputes that threaten health and welfare the President would still be able to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act's procedure. Or the President could set up a nonstatutory fact-finding board to make recommendations, a method he has already used. Mr. Feinsinger is familiar with such boards, for he served as Chairman of the Steel-Industry Board in 1946 and the Meat-Packing Board in 1948.

If the President refers serious disputes to nonstatutory fact-finding boards, how does this procedure differ from that used in the current steel dispute, where the WSB acted as a disputes-adjustment agency? The vital difference is that had the President turned the steel dispute over to a nonstatutory board he would have saved the WSB from the inevitable confusions that result when wage stabilization is mixed up with disputes adjustment.

An ad hoc board for the steel dispute would have carried the responsibility for its recommendations on its own shoulders and the WSB could have continued to carry on its stabilization duties in the clear, absolved from the criticisms now being leveled against it.

Mr. Feivsinger needn't worry. Chaos is not in the offing if his Board is relieved of its disputes function.

Mr. LUCAS. On the record, however, there is clear evidence that Congress has provided effective provisions for handling national emergency strikes. If the President chooses not to utilize the laws we have provided, that is, I think you will agree, not necessarily a signal for Congress to tamper with sound legislation already on the books; that is, with reference to national-emergency strikes.

The Board's possession of disputes power has nullified its wagestabilization function. Witnesses before our committee have testified that the Board, having a disputes function, cannot perform its stabilization duties properly.

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When the Board goes beyond its regulations to establish a formula for settling a dispute, as it did in the Steel case, the stablization function is thus impaired. Dispute cases on economic issues arise from the desire of unions to receive increases beyond wage stabilization regulations.

Few companies would be willing to allow their employees to strike by rejecting a recommendation for less money than is allowed by regulations. Therefore, the dispute being for additional money puts pressure on the WSB's recommendations.

Approval by the Board of certain agreements in the current oil dispute also indicates that the Board exceeds its present regulations in order to settle a dispute. Despite the Board's admission that its approval of a 15 cent hourly wage increase goes beyond its present policies, the Economic Stabilizer has approved this amount as "fair, equitable and not unstabilizing to the industry or the national economy."

Regulations will allow 10 cents, but WSB recommended, under threat of continuance of the strike, the sum of 15 cents, the remaining 5 cents to be approved or disapproved by the Economic Stabilizer. This decision, which I call to your attention, gentlemen, was rendered after the steel dispute, and you might contrast it with the 26% cents recommendation in the Steel case.

The result of the Board's policy has been to increase wages faster than would have occurred without the existence of the Board. any rate, wages have increased faster than have prices since the date when the Board first went into the business of stabilizing wages.

The result of the Board's policy has been to increase wages faster than would have occurred without the existence of the Board. At any rate, wages have increased faster than have prices since the date when the Board first went into the business of stabilizing wages. Here are the figures:

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly earnings of production workers in manufacturing, including both durable and nondurable goods, was $1.555 as of January 15, 1951. The wage freeze was supposed to have been effective January 26, 1951. According to the same source, the average hourly earnings as of March 15, 1952, was $1.651. This represents, then, a net increase in average hourly earnings for factory workers of 0.096 cents per hour; 0.096 is 6.4 percent of $1.555. Therefore, it may be said statistically that average hourly earnings of production workers in manufacturing did increase 6.2 percent during the first 14 months of wage stabilization. The Consumers Price Index, also published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows that the January 15, 1951, figure was 181.5, according to the new series index. As of March 15, 1952, the Consumers Price Index was 188.0. This represents an increase in the index of 6.5; 6.5 is 3.6 percent of 181.5. This indicates an increase in the Consumers Price Index during the first 14 months of wage stabilization of 3.6 percent.

To sum up the above, average hourly earnings have increased 6.2 percent while the Consumers Price Index has risen only 3.6 percent. during the 14-month period from the middle of January 1951, to the middle of March 1952.

I submit that the Board has so undermined the wage-stabilization program that no practical use remains for continuing price and wage

controls. In almost every aspect of wage determination the Board has adopted policies which permit an ever widening circle of wage increases, and has, particularly in the area of fringe benefits, adopted policies exceeding the standards practiced by leading companies in the industrial field.

The national labor policy has been bypassed and ignored during the period of the Board's existence.

No witness would flatly tell us that existing law has been violated by the Wage Stabilization Board, and I do not believe that the law has been directly violated. There is, however, considerable difference between violation of a law and an indirect evasion of the intent of Congress.

The Board's handling of the union-shop issue in the steel and aircraft cases illustrates how existing national labor policy has been ignored. The Taft-Hartley Act has provided machinery for establishing a union shop where it is the desire of the parties that this form of union security govern their relationships.

But, gentlemen, I ask you, has the Congress determined that every worker in the land should belong to a union? Have we passed such a law? The Wage Stabilization Board has made such recommendations, and Mr. Feinsinger, in his appearance before us, stated that the union-shop recommendation would follow in every dispute in which it was an issue reaching the Board.

One can naturally assume that in every union, or in every dispute where the union is seeking a union shop, that there will not be complete good-faith bargaining at the local level as long as the union knows that it may obtain the union-shop recommendation by the Board, by continuing the dispute until the Board acts upon it.

That brings the matter right back into our laps, gentlemen, and I ask this committee the question: Are we going to recommend the union shop in every industry in the United States? That is what the Wage Stabilization Board is doing under guise of law.

It is not a mandatory sanction by the Government of compulsory unionism-Congress merely said that the parties may negotiate the union shop under certain carefully defined conditions.

WSB-an agency of the United States Government has said, however, certain employees must join a union in order to hold their jobs. This is This is a far cry from the voluntary procedures specified by

the Congress.

Testimony before us on the union-shop issue indicates that the lack of public confidence in the WSB stems in large measure from its handling of the union-shop issue. While Mr. Feinsinger vigorously defends his Board's position in this matter, other witnesses have told us that the Board was wrong, and I agree with them.

Mr. Feinsinger has admitted to us that Executive Order No. 10233, which set up the Board as a disputes agency, did not give him the authority to mediate in the steel dispute. He denies that Board procedures suffered while he was doing Cy Ching's job. Mr. Armstrong, however, has told us that while the routine work of the Board, which is largely handled by the staff, proceeded without interruption, the deliberations of the Board itself were interrupted by the continuing absence of its Chairman and Vice Chairman. This was during the time immediately after the steel recommendation, when the White House directed the parties to join in further collective bargaining,

and they met in New York, and Mr. Feinsinger and Mr. Bullen, the Vice Chairman, both went to New York to try to get the parties together.

Mr. Armstrong told us that Board members received no report from the Mediation Service as to the results of mediation or the issues on which the parties in the Steel case disagreed. Mr. Feinsigner was apparently the only one informed. It is clear that the Mediation and Conciliation Service, provided by the Congress, has not only been shunted out of the way and replaced by unofficial and ineffective processes, but also has not had the information which it has obtained, made available to those concerned with settlement of the dispute.

Mr. Wilson did not feel that the Taft-Hartley Act had been violated by the WSB but he did feel that the spirit of the Defense Production Act had been violated in the Steel case by not holding the line it was agreed to hold.

The greatest violation of national labor policy has been in spirit and not in the letter of the law. This is most evident when one considers how the national emergency provisions of Taft-Hartley have been neglected in favor of a procedure which even the Chairman of the WSB thinks is faulty.

Judge Pine's decision in the recent steel-seizure case indicates that the Taft-Hartley law cannot have been a presumed failure since its processes were not invoked. The very existence of WSB is a continuing manifestation of contempt of Taft-Hartley even if it is not a direct violation.

I believe the circumstances justify our prompt action to divest the Board of its disputes powers. In taking this action, I do not claim that our existing national labor policy is adequate to handle national emergency disputes.

Indeed, strong evidence has been presented to our committee that industry-wide bargaining is the root of the present evil. Many Members of Congress are interested in various proposals to cure this pernicious exercise of monopoly power. I am confident that constructive action along the line of requiring labor unions to be governed by the antitrust laws is a sound course toward resolving present difficulties.

The committee will recall that I offered an amendment last year which was intended to limit the powers of WSB to stabilization only. It was, I feel, most unfortunately defeated. I understood at the time and I understand now why so many of my fellow members believed it improper to take such action when our primary objective was to stimulate an ever-increasing production of vital materials for our war efforts. But no one, I feel, can now boast that the law we passed achieved industrial peace, and our vaunted production has been pulled to a screeching halt in oil, in steel, in copper, in transportation, and we now live with constant fears of increasing work stoppages.

I do not claim that the suggestion which we offered last year, if adopted now, will guarantee labor-management peace. But I do say unequivocally that its acceptance will prevent this impossible situation we now endure from being thrust upon every other industry and resulting in further hampering or stopping our essential production.

Purposely, Mr. Chairman, I have refrained from bringing before this committee any suggested form of legislation. As the committee