(The documents were handed to the witness.)

Mr. WAGNER. Yes, sir; those are the bills.

The CHAIRMAN. They may be made exhibits Nos. 59-A, -B, -C, -D, and so forth.

(The documents referred to were marked "Exhibits Nos. 59-A through 59-0, inclusive," for reference and may be found in the files of the select committee.)

Mr. WAGNER. Do you want the election results? I have them.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Give us the election results.

Mr. WAGNER. The election results, parties to said election agreed Association, 122; for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, United Dairy Workers, Local 338, CIO, 82; for no union, 2. Challenged ballots were 3, and 17 not voting, for a total of 226, certified by Bennett Simms.

Mr. KENNEDY. Do you know why the teamsters pulled out on the last day?

Mr. WAGNER. I don't know why, but I can make an assumption on that. We had the teamsters, as I said, quite a while ago, and in a previously conducted election by the State of Michigan Labor Board the independent union won an election. They were ousted. Then for a long period of time they have constantly been trying to get back in, either the CIO or AFL have, practically yearly, tried to raid the independent union.

We finally got to the point of having this election, and the teamsters felt they weren't going to win. This is where the assumption comes in. They felt that they weren't going to win, and if they withdrew, the independent union would win and later on they could pick off an independent union a lot better than raiding what at top level was supposed to be a merged CIO and AFL situation. They would have had to raid the CIO. That is what I think happened. Mr. KENNEDY. Did Mr. Kamenow tell you of his friendly relationships with the teamster officials?

Mr. WAGNER. He admitted that he knew people pretty well; that is right.

Mr. KENNEDY. Did he discuss with these officials this matter of their organizing your plant?

Mr. WAGNER. Well, I don't know. At the hearings, of course, we were all there, and there was discussion.

Mr. KENNEDY. But did you understand or know that he was having these discussions and dinners with them on other occasions?

Mr. WAGNER. No.

Mr. KENNEDY: Do you know why it would be so necessary to have all of these disbursements and charges for entertaining these teamster officials?

Mr. WAGNER: Well, I don't know they are teamster officials, and I wouldn't know why it was necessary.

Mr. KENNEDY: What other union officials would there be that would be involved?

Mr. WAGNER: I recall while we were in Lansing that he, I think, took myself and the independent union people. I think he picked up the tab on that and I in turn probably have it on his expense sheet.

Mr. KENNEDY: He was doing a large amount of entertaining of these union officials. Who did he tell you the $150 Christmas gift

Mr. WAGNER: He didn't mention any name at all. I didn't ask him. I said, "I am not buying a Christmas present," and I struck it. He never argued about it.

Mr. KENNEDY: You never discussed who it was for?

Mr. WAGNER: No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN: It seems like he put in one bill for $150 that you struck, and then he slipped another one by you for $400.

Mr. WAGNER: That is right.

The CHAIRMAN: Plus another one later for $150?

Mr. WAGNER: I found some things when Mr. Langenbacher showed me the records that got by me.

Mr. KENNEDY: I don't understand if you found him doing it once, that you would not ask for a breakdown of your bills each month, especially when there were these large figures of disbursements.

Mr. WAGNER: There was a lot of activity at our place on unionization. He was there quite often. We were making trips out of town quite often.

As I say, they didn't seem quite so large in view of that. And they were smaller than the one that I checked, by a great deal, I believe. The one I checked was a $2,000 item and the rest of them ran six or seven hundred dollars.

Mr. KENNEDY: It was a considerable amount of the money, and I would have thought that you would be interested in trying to find out how the money was being spent. But this is all news to you, that this is the way the money went?

Mr. WAGNER: Do you mean right now?

Mr. KENNEDY: Well, since our investigation.

Mr. WAGNER: Since I have been reading the newspapers and everything, I think I am catching up.

Mr. KENNEDY: That is all.

The CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much.

Mr. KENNEDY: Mr. Chairman, I might put into the record the disbursements for entertainment and for purchasing these trips for these nine companies of Flint, Mich. It is a total of $27,770.47. The CHAIRMAN: Has the staff member checked that?

TESTIMONY OF IRWIN LANGENBACHER-Resumed
Mr. LANGENBACHER. I computed them, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. State what you have done.

Mr. LANGENBACHER. This tabulation is based both on the records of Labor Relations Associates and the testimony we have had here today, pertaining only to the nine companies who have been represented here today.

It shows through 1956, starting with 1954, the amount spent for entertainment and gifts pertaining to these 9 companies is $27,770.47. The CHAIRMAN. That is just for the disbursements, entertainments, and gifts?

Mr. LANGENBACHER. Yes, sir. Made by these 9 companies only. The CHAIRMAN. That doesn't include the fee, the retainer?

Mr. LANGENBACHER. No, sir. It does not include any of the fee, and

it does not include other businesses in Flint, Mich.

The CHAIRMAN. Just for these nine companies?

Mr. LANGENBACHER. Just for these nine companies; yes, sir.

TESTIMONY OF GARFIELD WAGNER, ACCOMPANIED BY HIS COUNSEL, HOWARD KLEIN-Resumed

Mr. WAGNER. Mr. Chairman, because of the nature of the milk business and because of the labor atmosphere of Flint, I would just like to say that we have been organized since about 1941 there. The A. F. of L., the independent union, and the CIO have tried to come in. At no time have we done any labor baiting. I don't believe I have ever dismissed a man for trying to organize us or to take the independent union into another place. Our people-as you see, we even had some that voted for no union. Our wage rates are good and our working conditions are good. There is no endeavor on the part of management at that company to do away with the union or to stop a switch in unions.

Senator MUNDT. What was it basically that induced you to employ Mr. Kamenow?

Mr. WAGNER. I am glad you brought that out. I forgot it. Basically, I, at one time, thought that the teamsters were going to win, and because they had lost an election, and because they had been outside for 10 or 12 years, I knew that they would negotiate or would try to negotiate, a very, very stiff contract.

In the milk business, with our close margins, and with the competitive situation the way it is, we can't have higher costs than our competitors. Mr. Kamenow furnished me with copies of other dairy contracts. He was able to get me the competing dairy's contract in Flint, which I hadn't been able to do. He rendered me some service. I just didn't want to get stuck with a worse deal than a competitor.

Senator MUNDT. I take it on the whole that you probably are the first witness we have had here today who would say that you got value received from what you paid Mr. Kamenow; is that right?

Mr. WAGNER. Well, I am not going to say that, because I am just finding out about some of these expenses. But I would say that he did do some work.

Senator MUNDT. Well, before these hearings began

Mr. WAGNER. That is right. I would say that we worked effectively together.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the volume of your business annually? Mr. WAGNER. Just over $13 million.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything further?

Mr. KENNEDY. And he was able to achieve the result for which you hired him, was he not?

Mr. WAGNER. It wasn't necessary, because we never had to face the negotiations with the teamsters because the independent union won the election.

Mr. KENNEDY. And the teamsters withdrew from the election? Mr. WAGNER. That is not why I hired him.

Mr. KENNEDY. But you didn't want to negotiate with the teamsters? Mr. WAGNER. I didn't care whether I negotiated with the teamsters, but when I did, I didn't want to get stuck with a contract that had some vengeance in it, due to being away for 10 years.

Mr. KENNEDY. If that was your only purpose, it seems you would have hired him after the teamsters were designated as the bargaining agent, not a year before the election, if that was your only purpose. You wanted to keep the teamsters out of the plant, did you not?

Mr. WAGNER. No. No, that is not the case. I would say this: Mr. Kamenow suggested some tactics that would do that. About 2 years previous to this, we had a strike threat and a strike vote from our independent union. At that time, the company put out a lot of propaganda and everything to avoid the strike. The men voted not to strike, but later on a lot of the fellows came in to see me and said that if we had let them alone we would have had a much better vote than what we got. So this time when there was a question of the CIO, the A. F. of L. and an independent, and if you do business with an independent for 10 years, you will find out that that is a problem, too, after a while, I didn't care whether they went CIO or A. F. of L. or stayed independent, but I did care about what kind of a contract I could get from the A. F. of L. because I knew they were soreheads.

Mr. KENNEDY. I can't understand why you can't admit this. If that is the only reason you hired him, why didn't you hire him after the teamsters were designated as the bargaining agent, not a year before?

Mr. WAGNER. At one time I was sure the teamsters would win. That is why I hired him.

Mr. KENNEDY. All right. You wanted to keep

Mr. WAGNER. I wanted to make certain that my contract didn't have a lot of bitterness in it.

Mr. KENNEDY. That doesn't make sense, because you would have hired him after they were designated.

Mr. WAGNER. I am sorry.

Senator MUNDT. You have had a lot of experience as a labor-management fellow in a town in which labor is a pretty important factor. Can you think of any legislative suggestions to offer this committee which, if enacted into law, might eliminate the kind of problem that we are wrestling with these days?

Mr. WAGNER. I certainly can. One suggestion is that I think business should have quicker access to the courts rather than be forced to go to labor boards. We had a case in a plant that we have up in Saginaw, and this is a standing practice up there. They always start organizing a plant on Monday afternoon, because the only time the courts will grant an injunction is on Monday mornings. So it gives them a full week to coerce and take care of you before you can get into the courts. When you get there, you don't know what you got. So I would say that if business could have access to the courts, rather than be forced through NLRB or through a State labor board, it would help.

Then, of course, you have just plain, common enforcement of laws where they beat up people and things like that.

SENATOR MUNDT. That is all.

Mr. WAGNER. I might say this: In our business it is a very perishable product. I think certainly there ought to be a ban on secondary boycott.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

The committee stands in recess until 10 o'clock in the morning. (Committee members present at time of recess : Senators McClellan and Mundt.)

(Whereupon, at 4:40 p. m. the committee was recessed, to reconvene at 10 a. m. Tuesday, November 5, 1957.)

89330-57-pt. 16-18