LABOR DISPUTES ACT THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 1935 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 10 a. m., Hon. William P. Connery, Jr., chairman of the committee, presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. We will hear from Mr. Frank J. Dillon, general organizer American Federation of Labor, in charge of the automobile industry. STATEMENT OF FRANK J. DILLON, GENERAL ORGANIZER IN CHARGE OF THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR Mr. DILLON. Gentlemen of the committee, in submitting testimony before this committee in support of the Wagner-Connery labor-relations bill, I desire to confine my statements very largely to the needs and problems confronting approximately a half million of our fellow citizens who are employed in one of the Nation's largest and, possibly, the most important industries, the automobile industry. It has been my privilege to be actively associated with these people during a long period of time, and I regard myself competent to speak with some understanding of that phase of their problems which relates to employee-management relationships. In scarcely more than a quarter of a century's time the automobile industry has grown from infancy, from comparatively insignificant financial power or prestige, to a powerful empire, dominating completely the destiny not only of a half-million working people, but also small merchants and dealers to a number that would stagger the imagination of the most progressive of us. In general, the automobile industry is today the most profitable of all large industries, having contributed what is reputed to be the richest man in the world. It is, at the same time, the most pampered and favored of industries in our country. The public mind, through skillful advertising and manipulations, has come to regard it as a most efficient industry, managed and directed primarily in the interests of employees and stockholders where, as a matter of fact, the records show that these thousands of workers are today producing greater wealth per man-unit at a comparatively lower wage rate than ever before, while the few who control and dominate this industrial empire receive ever larger earnings in the form of bonuses, interest, salaries, and every other device known to high finance and clever manipulations of modern industry. 243 This industry has profited to a larger extent possibly than any other industry in the United States by reason of the benefits accruing to it through the enactment and enforcement of the National Industrial Recovery Act. No industry has exerted a greater influence to unjustly deny to their employees similar advantages and benefits intended for them by the Congress of the United States under this act. This has been accomplished in a number of ways. Men have been denied the right to organize, through the exercise and the manipulation of company-dominated and controlled unions, the establishment and maintenance of a vicious espionage system, and the unfair discharge and blacklisting of hundreds of men and women who had merely exercised their rights under the law. The discriminatory discharge and the development and maintenance of the infamous and disgraceful blacklist constitutes the heart and soul of the labor policy of the automobile industry of our country. So unfair and so malicious has been the practice of management in the automobile industry that I felt constrained to direct the President's attention to the situation by sending him the following wire: The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DETROIT, MICH., March 25, 1935. The White House, Washington, D. C. On behalf of the United Automobile Workers, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, I respectfully and vigorously protest to you the recent manifest determination of automobile employers to deny these workers their fundamental and legal right to develop and perpetuate a free and independent union for their mutual protection by resort to ruthless discharges and discriminations upon a wholesale scale. These same workers 1 year ago today patriotically declined to resort to strike action to abolish such injustices that they might substantially contribute to your courageous effort in behalf of national recovery for our entire Nation. The automobile employer has totally and deliberately disregarded the rights of these workers. The policy and attitude of the Automobile Labor Board disqualifies this agency from contributing relief in the existing emergency. This unjustified attitude assumed and practiced by the automobile manufacturers has precipitated a crisis in labor management relationships within the automobile industry which can only be righted through your personal and prompt attention. Conscious of the seriousness of the prevailing situation, I regard it as incumbent upon me, on behalf of the duly constituted representatives of our organization, to respectfully request the privilege of a conference with you at your earliest convenience that we may be able to acquaint you minutely and accurately concerning this momentous problem. F. J. DILLON, General Organizer, American Federation of Labor. The automobile industry has made a pretense only of cooperating in the recovery program and has never complied with either the spirit or the intent of section 7 (a) of that act. So flagrant and so unjustified was their attitude and policy that it became necessary for the President of the United States to intercede in an effort to avert a general strike in this industry during March 1934; and the thousands of workers who had joined the American Federation of Labor desisted from striking in a patriotic endeavor to make a contribution to the President of the United States in his courageous and lofty effort to bring about complete economic recovery. The settlement which was negotiated through his good offices provided for the establishment of an Automobile Labor Board to consist of three citizens, one representing the employer, one repre senting the employee, to be presided over by a neutral, representing the Government of the United States. Mr. Nicholas Kelley was appointed by the President to represent the employers. Mr. Richard L. Byrd was appointed by the President to represent the employees, while Dr. Leo Wolman of Columbia University was selected to preside as chairman. This Board, under the terms of the settlement, was to have jurisdiction only in matters of representation, discharge, and discrimination; and was to sit in the city of Detroit, Mich. Out of this settlement the thousands of workers in this great industry took on renewed hope and pinned their faith in the principles of justice which they conceived to be an integral part of our Government, to be emulated by this Board primarily in the protection of these workers in their fundamental and legal right to organize into free and independent unions, perpetuated for the specific purpose of negotiating and bargaining with the several managements to a successful and practical conclusion on questions relating to the welfare of the industry in general, and the employer and employee in particular. In the accomplishment of this, representatives of the American Federation of Labor set about to work and cooperate with this Board. Before the end of April 1934, local unions embracing employees in 15 different automobile plants of the Nation, at the request of the Board, had prepared and submitted their respective membership records, to be checked with the pay-roll records of the company, for the purpose of setting up some practical representation plan. Despite the efforts of representatives of the Detroit office of the American Federation of Labor we were unable to get from either Dr. Wolman or any member of his Board any definite pronouncement as to when we would be able to know specifically what the result of the checking of the lists had been or when there would be established some plan of representation. All replies of Dr. Wolman were evasive. The only thing definite he ever did say was— Before any plan is promulgated, representatives of the American Federation of Labor and representatives of the employer will have an opportunity to be heard and a privilege to present their proposals and ideas to the Board. This we believed. We believed the Board meant what they said when they stated that we would have an opportunity to present our case, to submit our plans, to state our ideas with reference to the establishment of a mutually agreeable representation plan. The Board did not keep its word. Dr. Wolman did not keep his word, but instead he called me at my hotel at 6 p. m., on December 8, 1934, and stated that he desired to see me at his office the next morning at 9:30. Of course, I went there, when, to my amazement, he there stated that the Board had decided to conduct elections for the purpose of electing representatives for collective bargaining; and he briefly outlined the plan and asked me what I thought of it. I told him that it was unsatisfactory to the worker, that it was impractical in that it decided no fundamental question; that it was impossible because it contributed the balance of power to the em ployer and provided no economic power or right to the worker; and, finally, as I viewed it, it merely meant the legalization of a company dominated, financed, and controlled company union. Dr. Wolman then told me that they had decided to conduct elections immediately; and I asked him if he had consulted the company. He said that he had. I asked him if the plan was agreeable to the company, and he said that it was. This Board has, in my judgment, betrayed the people who were responsible for its establishment. They have failed dismally in carrying out either the spirit or the intent of the agreement. They have been unfair to the President of the United States. They have destroyed the faith of thousands of workers in governmental agencies, and diminished substantially the possibility of establishing a proper and legitimate employer-employee relationship in the automobile industry without resort to industrial strife, with all of its attendant evils, sufferings, and sacrifices. It has been my experience over more than 20 years to participate in and to observe the workings of governmental agencies, established for the purpose of insuring justice in practical employeremployee relationships, and I have observed that in every case employers usually regard with suspicion, in the beginning at least, and oppose vigorously with all the power at their command, the ruling of every such governmental agency set up to preserve and to guarantee the rights of the worker. It is significant, however, to observe now that this Board, which was appointed by the President to meet a great national emergency and designated as the Automobile Labor Board, constitutes the first agency of this character to be applauded and supported enthusiastically by the employers generally in the automobile industry. Can it be said in truth that any act or decision of this Board has made one single contribution to the correction of evils complained of by these thousands of workers to the President 1 year ago? No governmental agency was ever launched or established under more auspicious circumstances than was this board. No board ever received a more hearty cooperation from the American Federation of Labor than did this board. The resources of our entire organization were at their disposal. We insisted, over a long period of time, that our people conform to their decisions and cooperate with them in every effort to bring about the ideals and the purposes of the President of the United States. I say to you now that no board has proved to be a greater failure than has this board. No governmental agency has ever made a more substantial contribution to the continuance of misery, to the perpetuation of industrial servitude, and the abolition of inherent rights long enjoyed by the citizens of our Republic than has the repudiated Wolman Automobile Labor Board. Its principles and its policies may be utilized as constituting useful material for magazine articles or college textbooks, where theories predominate and dreams of master minds are expounded; but the working man who stands upon the production line in America's greatest industry, working at an ever-increasing speed with the oncoming of each production season, cannot comprehend the value of complicated theories when bread and employment are involved. The phrases and the ideas propounded by Dr. Wolman and his associates mean nothing except the inculcation of contempt and hatred, which form a bitterness in the hearts of workers that con stitutes an actual menace, not only to this industry but likewise to the very foundation of our Government and its free institutions. In considering the record of the Automobile Labor Board the National Industrial Recovery Board, in a letter submitted to the President of the United States, dated January 28, 1933, said: The Board is of the opinion that definite consideration should be given to the advisability of establishing, under the authority of the National Industrial Recovery Act and Public Resolution 44 of the last session of Congress, a comprehensive automotive-industry labor-relations board. We hope that this laborrelations board, or a subsidiary agency, may be mutually agreed upon by all interested parties as a means of fostering constructive development of improved relationships; and that through this mutual agreement the area of work undertaken by the board, or a subsidiary agency, may be extended far beyond the limits set by any legal authorizations to which reference has been made. It would seem that the time has arrived for a major constructive effort of this type. In addition to being a failure and being repudiated, the policies, the decisions, and the attitude of the Wolman Board are responsible for the taking of a strike vote in the automobile industry. I say today to this committee, and I assume all responsibility, that if the vote that is now being taken reveals the fact that these people have voted to withdraw their services from the industry, I shall regard it as being my duty to proceed in carrying out this mandate regardless of consequences unless this bill is enacted into law. And I say to you today that if this becomes necessary, we can attribute it to the failure of the Wolman Board to measure up to their responsibilities to carry out the intentions and to emulate the ideals repeatedly stated by the President of the United States, together with the unjustifiable attitude assumed by my employer. express the opinion that the day has come in the United States when Congress must enact legislation which will compel employers to recognize the rights of workers. Working men and women in our Republic will no longer tolerate the overlords and Bourbons of industry to develop this kind of Hitlerism, Mussolinism, or any other kind of "ism" in industry for the purpose of perpetuating any system of industrial servitude. The time has come when the United States Congress must preserve for the working people of the United States their fundamental and basic rights. Men in this industry will be free, and employers must recognize it; and no board of governmental agency can justify the continuance of any device or any philosophy under the guise of meaningless phrases which would deprive workers of their inherent right to organize and to meet upon an equal basis with the employer and to negotiate to a successful conclusion their common problems. No man or no group of men can defend employer-employee conditions as they prevail in the automobile industry today; and no piece of legislation will contribute more substantially to their correction than will the enactment by the United States Congress of the Wagner-Connery labor relations bill. The enactment of this piece of legislation will guarantee workers free elections, embracing the majority-rule principle, for the purpose of determining what organization they desire to represent them in collective bargaining purposes. The elections being held by the Automobile Labor Board do not provide that opportunity and in fact serve only to develop collective confusion which prevents a free |