well knows, and as I have stated, I suggested last year it was an action of the House Education and Labor Committee that the Wage Stabilization Board be comprised of more public members than a combination of labor and industry members, and that it have no disputes function, and that stabilization be defined as placing maximum limits upon wages.

For drafting such an amendment, of course, I defer to the better judgment of this committee. This suggestion, I think, might well be considered and I hope it will be considered by the committee when it is drafting the new Defense Production Act.

Mr. BROWN. Congressman Lucas, we thank you for your testimony. I recognize Mr. Multer.

Mr. MULTER. There isn't any doubt that Congressman Lucas can get much satisfaction out of the fact that he saw develop some of the things that he anticipated by our failure to enact his amendment.

But I think what we are doing is confusing the fact that there must be some Government agency that is going to do something in an emergency period.

Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Multer, I am not responsible for the failure of the Government agencies to use the laws which we have passed.

Mr. MULTER. Don't you think that sometimes you accomplish a great deal more by voluntary agreement than by using a law? Mr. LUCAS. Do you refer to the Steel case, Mr. Multer?

Mr. MULTER. Yes, sir.

Mr. LUCAS. Well, I don't think there was much voluntarism in that. Mr. MULTER. If you were the judge and we went before you on Taft-Hartley for an 80-day injunction, don't you think you would be impressed with the argument that the union had withheld for 99 days striking, after the 60-day notice?

Mr. LUCAS. Yes, sir; I would take that into consideration, Mr. Multer, but I also would take into consideration the fact that the Taft-Hartley law requires, under the 80-day injunction, that before the end of the injunction, that the employees have an opportunity to cast secret ballots on the employer's last best offer.

In this 99 days to which you refer, the employees are kept dumb. They cannot talk. They are not given an opportunity to accept or decline the company's offer. I think their freedoms have been denied

them.

Certainly the Taft-Hartley freedom given them, to vote on the employer's last best offer, has not been allowed them.

Mr. MULTER. Of course, we cannot project ourselves into the realm of what might have happened, and ask, "Well, suppose the matter, during the 99 days of the voluntary waiting, had been submitted to the union employees?" But, don't you think they would have gone along with the union leaders and their recommendations?

Mr. LUCAS. Well, that supposition, perhaps, is logical. I don't know. But it would not be legal.

The Taft-Hartley law requires it, and you would make it voluntary. Would the National Labor Relations Board have the power to come in and conduct such a secret election?

Mr. NICHOLSON. Mr. Multer.

Mr. MULTER. Mr. Nicholson.

Mr. NICHOLSON. Could I ask, was the Taft-Hartley Act ever taken into consideration in this matter?

Mr. MULTER. I think that is conceded by all the parties concerned. Definitely, the union leaders had in mind that as they were extending by their voluntary action the time for a strike from time to time for a period of 99 days, I think they had it in mind they would be asked to wait an additional 80 days on top of that.

As a matter of fact, they testified here before us that they had that very thing in mind and it was implicit in their agreeing not to strike during that period, that they wouldn't be penalized by being required to wait another 80 days after that.

Mr. NICHOLSON. But they never took advantage of the TaftHartley law, if there was an advantage.

Mr. MULTER. It wasn't for them to take advantage of it. They were in there to try to get the best deal they could, just as management

was.

But, Mr. Lucas, let's leave that for a moment.

you

Mr. LUCAS. May I make one statement there, first. I think are overlooking, Mr. Multer, the fact that during the 80-day injunction, either or both parties may be charged with failure to comply with the law if they do not bargain in good faith during that 80 days. Mr. MULTER. All right. Then what is the next step?

Mr. LUCAS. And there has been no bargaining. No one will assert that there has been any bargaining during the 99 days to which you refer.

Mr. MULTER. The point I am making is whether you are going to proceed under Taft-Hartley, and there would be or not be the good faith bargaining during that 80-day period, or we have the 99-day period with or without good faith bargaining.

When you get to the end of that time, no matter what has happened in between, you are confronted with the precise situation that we were confronted with when the President seized the steel plants.

Mr. LUCAS. I want the record to show that I disagree with you. Mr. MULTER. But the question at that time would be whether, at the end of the 80-day period, with or without any injunction, or the end of the 99-day period, with or without these recommendations, the union and management then are confronted with the precise situation of a stalemate.

Here is what the union wants. Here is what someone without authority has recommended. We will or will not do it.

If management says "No," the union says "We strike." are we? Do we let them strike and close the mills?

Where

Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Multer, we reserve the power to make a determination in that case in the Congress itself, in the Taft-Hartley law. The President, after the end of 80 days, with the parties not reaching a settlement, the President must send the case to the Congress, representing all the people of the United States.

Mr. MULTER. Well, Mr. Lucas

Mr. LUCAS. Unfortunately, that has never been done. The Congress has never been called upon. I don't assert that that is the best procedure. I don't know. It has not been tried.

Mr. MULTER. I think whether it is the best procedure or not, you and I then must agree that when the President seized the mills, rightfully or wrongfully, and sent up a message to this Congress saying "Gentlemen, this is what I have done. If you have any better solution

to the problem, you give it to me," I say we are at fault rather than the President or anybody else.

I don't care where right is in this dispute, whether management is right or the union is right, or the Wage Stabilization Board is right or wrong, I think when that came up to us at that time, when that very distressing situation was presented to us, and the President said "I am going to keep these mills running, law or no law," whether that is right or wrong is quite beside the point, we are in an emergency, and we are trying to build up our security and our defenses so as to remain

secure.

And he sends up word to us in the Congress, "If this isn't the thing to do, tell me what to do, and I will do it," and we sit back and just attack him and kick him around, literally, instead of doing something, the fault is ours and I say the public and the voters have the right to say to the Congress, not to you and me as individual Congressmen, but to all of us collectively as Members of this body, that we have been derelict in our duty, and instead of finding fault with the Wage Stabilization Board or the President, or union or management, we should have gotten busy and done something about it.

Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Multer, I am in a rather amenable frame of mind this afternoon, and I want to agree with you to a large extent, that the Congress perhaps has failed in not providing some means of protecting the public interest in the event the 80-day weapon for protecting the public failed.

But, my colleague, that 80-day weapon has not yet been used.

Mr. BROWN. I suggest we leave this question to the Supreme Court for the time being. We have other witnesses.

Mr. LUCAS. I am glad to discuss it with my colleague.

Mr. PATMAN. Had you finished your testimony, Mr. Lucas?
Mr. LUCAS. Yes, sir, I have, Mr. Patman.

Mr. MULTER. There is only one thing I want to say to Mr. Lucas, and I am sure he and I are in agreement on this. We respect each other's opinion and we both have but one thing in mind, and that is the best interests of our country, and we will do our best to work it out either together or with any other group of Congressmen.

Mr. LUCAS. And my purpose in being here, Mr. Multer, is to help you and give you the benefit of not my wisdom but the information which I have obtained as a member of the House Education and Labor Committee.

Mr. BROWN. Does any other member of the committee desire to interrogate the witness?

Mr. PATMAN. If Mr. Lucas desires to submit additional information along with his statement, he may do so, I assume?

Mr. BROWN. I have already authorized him to do so.

glad to have your views, Congressman.

Congressman Harrison, you may come around.

We are very

STATEMENT OF HON. BURR P. HARRISON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA; E. B. MOORE, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL APPLE INSTITUTE; L. A. PUTNAM, SECRETARY, WESTERN NEW YORK APPLE GROWERS ASSOCIATION; AND CARROLL R. MILLER, SECRETARY-MANAGER, APPALACHIAN APPLE SERVICE

Mr. HARRISON. Mr. Chairman, I want to express to the commitee my deep appreciation for hearing me out of order at this late hour of the day.

Mr. BROWN. I understood you had some of your friends with you. You may call them around if you wish.

Mr. HARRISON. I have with me Mr. E. B. Moore, who is chairman of the National Apple Institute, and Mr. L. A. Putnam, secretary of the Western New York Apple Growers Association, and Mr. Carroll R. Miller, the secretary-manager of the Appalachian Apple Service, covering the apple growers of Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia. Mr. BROWN. Mr. McDonough of California might be interested. Mr. HARRISON. I might say that California and Oregon and Washington State people are on their way to this capital, and are in agreement with what we will have to say this afternoon.

Now, what I have to say, Mr. Chairman, applies particularly to apples, but I think the same situation is bound to apply to all other food.

It is a situation in which the law, carefully drawn by this committee on two former occasions, is being shamefully and flagrantly violated by the Office of Price Stabilization, and the apple industry, the fruit industry, has been to the OPS and has endeavored time and time again to get some relief in the situation, and can't do it, and we have come to this committee and asked for legislative protection.

Now the particular thing to which I would like to direct the committee's attention, just as briefly as I possibly can, is this: Fifty-four percent of the apple harvest goes to processors, who process it and can it into apple sauce, apple slices, baked apples and apple juices.

I think that general situation applies to all fruit. Of course, probably not citrus fruit, but a good deal to citrus fruit as well.

Now the law that this committee drafted and sent to the floor of the House, which was approved by the Congress, says that in the placing of ceilings on any product made from an agricultural product, the ceiling shall be such as shall reflect to the grower parity.

That is the first thing the law says. The OPS has fixed a ceiling on apple products, and the parity is $67.30 a ton. That is parity. The OPS has fixed a ceiling that reflects to the grower $27.70, which is 41 percent of parity.

The law says, and this committee wrote it into law-it isn't a floor amendment, this committee wrote it-that in fixing the price of processed agricultural products, ceilings must be such as will reflect to the grower the price he got in the base period. Logic, of course. A ceiling is to prevent runaway prices, to prevent inflation.

The ceilings which have been fixed and maintained on the processed apple product are 27 percent below the cost in 1950-May and June of 1950.

Now, of course, the law specifically prohibits that. But it is done. And it has nearly ruined this industry.

And time is of such essence that we have imposed on you today. We have completed the season and are struggling under those conditions. We start soon with the harvest again, into another season. What we are asking this committee to do is to draft this law so as to decontrol fruit, or to provide in some effective way that a great industry such as this shall not be treated in such a shameful manner; in other words, to provide in an effective way that the growers shall be paid parity.

Now, then, of course, the processor hasn't any complaint.

Mr. BARRETT. If we decontrol them, as you point out, what will be the increase in price to the consumer?

Mr. HARRISON. I don't know, sir, but it won't be any increase

over 1950.

Mr. FUGATE. Is the price up to ceiling now?

Mr. HARRISON. No, sir, the price can't get to ceiling under the situation they have got. It is a practical impossibility to get to ceiling under the ceilings they are allowed.

Mr. FUGATE. Well, is price up to parity?

Mr. HARRISON. No, it is 41 percent of parity. Parity is $67.37 a ton. The present return to the grower is $27.70 a ton. Ceiling price is 41 percent of parity.

Mr. FUGATE. Well now, since it is not up to parity

Mr. HARRISON. Those are Department of Agriculture figures.

Mr. FUGATE. I say since the price is neither up to parity nor to ceiling, how does the OPS control it?

Mr. HARRISON. Because when they fix the price--I would like this gentleman to explain that.

Mr. PUTNAM. Gentlemen, it goes back to the ceiling last year. Last year, with apple prices at a severely depressed level, processors calculated the ceiling. The ceiling has now been frozen to all practical purposes at that level. That level, as Mr. Harrison just pointed out, is approximately $27.70, or approximately 41 percent of parity. Mr. MULTER. Is that what it is selling for now?

Mr. PUTNAM. The ceiling, of course, is on the processed product. Mr. FUGATE. The ceiling is on the processed product.

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir.

Mr. MULTER. What is the product selling for?

Mr. PUTNAM. I believe it is

Mr. FUGATE. What is the level of prices?

Mr. PUTNAM. The level of prices of the finished product? Let me clarify it this way: The market is somewhere around $1.20 for 30 cans, but going back from there to the grower, the price that was fixed into the ceiling, in arriving at present ceilings, is this figure that we are talking about.

Now, actually, the market price at the present time, because of depressed conditions last year, and a number of other complicating factors, the market today is not up to some of the ceilings of individual processors.

Does that answer the question?

Mr. FUGATE. Well, that would be a violation of the act, in that ceilings cannot be placed below parity.

Mr. PUTNAM. That is right.