and that is what you need here, the maximum use of discretion and persuasion, backed up by authority where it is needed, and I personally think that that combination will reduce the problem to the minimum, and that the difficulties are being exaggerated, and I think the practical problems can be met by practical men. We have done it, and I think that certainly this country can do it.

Senator SMITH. For the purpose of the record I would like further to make clear what I have been exploring here. I never have advocated that section 14 on page 19 be eliminated from this bill, which reads as follows:

Whoever shall forcibly resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere with a member, agent, or employee of the Commission while engaged in the performance of duties under this act, or because of such performance, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $500 or by imprisonment for not more than 1 year, or by both.

I still think that the Commission must go ahead, operate, and all I say with regard to section 8, which is the legal section, is that in those jurisdictions where within a certain given time they take affirmative action by reason of a legislative measure passed by the representative of people of a State, whether we should further try out educational and conciliatory processes rather than resort to the legal sanction, give them an opportunity to demonstrate whether they can carry out the spirit of the act in those States, any State, that has by affirmative legislative action taken a position contrary to the act.

Mr. REUTHER. I should say that the way the law stands now we can do practically what you want, but it gives the Commission the additional weapon to use where, in their discretion, they need it.

Senator SMITH. My mind is not made up on this. I am looking for information. I see we are going to have before us the chairman of the New York State commission, Colonel Garside, and my friend, Mr. Joseph Bustard, deputy director of State Education of New Jersey, and we have these commissioners, both from New York and New Jersey, and I think the Massachusetts representatives are coming down to give us their views from the practical attempt to adjust these things to the extent to which they feel the teeth in the law are necessary. I am very grateful to you, Mr. Reuther, for the statement you have made this morning.

Senator ELLENDER. Just one more question, Mr. Reuther. You have had quite a lot of experience in contacting employers with respect to discrimination. I wonder if you would be good enough to tell us, for the record, some of the main reasons why employers practice discrimination.

Mr. REUTHER. I really do not know the answer to that, other than I think the employers have prejudices, the same as people who are employed. They certainly do not discriminate because Negro workers are not skilled, because Negro workers have proven their skill. I think that discrimination mostly is a matter of attitudes, prejudices. I don't think there is any sound economic basis for discrimination.

Senator ELLENDER. I didn't ask for that. I asked whether or not you knew from your experience whether or not any employers had offered reasons, and if they have what are they?

Mr. REUTHER. The standard excuse-not a reason, but an excusethe standard excuse that an employer gives for discriminating against employing Negroes is he says, "Why, the people in the plant don't

want to work with them." That is the way they attempt to pass on the blame for their failure to meet the issue, pass it on to the workers, but when the agency that represents the workers comes to the front office and says, "We want such a clause in the contract," it is quite hard for them to prove that the fellows back in the shop for whom we speak don't want the clause.

Senator ELLENDER. Does productivity have anything to do with it? Mr. REUTHER. None whatever. There are no sound economic or operational arguments against the employment of Negroes. It is simply a matter of prejudice. Of course, they don't get up and defend it, because they know that is wrong. There are lots of excuses but no good reasons.

Senator IVES. What do you think, Mr. Reuther, is the most important feature in this bill, in its provisions?

Mr. REUTHER. I think the machinery that is set up to sweat this thing out is the most important.

Senator IVES. Conciliation and mediation?

Mr. REUTHER. Yes.

Senator IVES. Which are compulsory.

Mr. REUTHER. That is where the job is going to be done. That is where the great bulk of the cases will be worked out.

Senator IVES. And you would exercise those two functions, or that one function-they are virtually the same-to the utmost? Mr. REUTHER. That is right.

Senator IVES. You will use those just as far as you can, and only resort to the penalty provisions in the end, when you cannot do anything else?

Mr. REUTHER. That is correct.

Senator IVES. And you will use them very infrequently.

Mr. REUTHER. That is right. I believe that if we make the most of the machinery of conciliation and persuasion which the law provides, it will be in very rare cases that we will have to resort to legal sanctions, but we want the legal sanctions there when they are needed. I believe in keeping the powder dry.

Senator IVES. Well, your conciliation and mediation machinery would not amount to much if there was no possibility of force behind it. Mr. REUTHER. It would be a formality. That is all.

Senator DONNELL. Is there anything further? If not, we thank you, Mr. Reuther.

Mr. REUTHER. I thank you, gentlemen, for your attention. (Mr. Reuther submitted the following brief:)

BRIEF SUBMITTED BY WALTER P. REUTHER, PRESIDENT, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT, AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA (UAW-CIO) BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ANTIDISCRIMINATION LEGISLATION OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE

My name is Walter Reuther. I am president of the United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers, CIO, and vice president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. I am testifying in support of S. 984, as a representative of the UAW-CIO, whose executive board has endorsed S. 984, as a personal representative of President Philip Murray, of the CIO, and in my own behalf as a citizen and resident of the State of Michigan.

I was born in Wheeling, W. Va., on September 1, 1907. I came to Detroit as a tool and die maker and was first employed in the industry in February 1927, and have been associated with the industry since that date. I have been active in the

UAW-CIO since its inception. I was elected to the executive board of the union in 1936, serving as a board member until 1942, when I was elected vice president. I was vice president of the union from 1942 until 1946 when I was elected president by delegates to the tenth convention of the union. In November 1946 I was elected vice president of the CIO. In addition to serving as UAW-CIO president, I am director of the union's fair practices and antidiscrimination department.

CIO AND UAW-CIO STAND AGAINST DISCRIMINATION

The experience of the CIO and of the UAW-CIO in combating discrimination in employment during the past 10 years offers a case history in effective democratic action which at the same time points to the need for Federal legislation. The vigor with which the UAW has pressed for the full integration of minority workers both into the union and the industry, while dramatic testimony to the potentialities of voluntary group action, serves also to underscore the severe limitations of such action and the urgent need for the community to supplement and reinforce voluntary effort by legislative enactment of laws upholding fair play in employment.

The Congress of Industrial Organizations, as the name implies, is the parent body of affiliated international unions organized on an industrial rather than on a craft basis. Whereas craft unionism is exclusive unionism, industrial unionism rests on the principle and practice of including within its membership all working men and women employed in the industries within a union's jurisdiction, without regard to the type of work performed or the religion, race, creed, color, or national origin of the worker. While the leadership of the CIO and of its affiliated international unions have consistently recognized the clear moral obligation to resist discrimination as both un-Christian and undemocratic, the ethical imperative has been given practical cogency by the facts of a mass-production economy. For years prior to the rise of the CIO in the automobile industry, repeated attempts to organize auto workers on a craft basis met with failure. The lesson was driven home to active union members: The UAW-CIO owes its birth and its continued existence to the principle of nondiscrimination-and to the trade-union solidarity of all auto workers, without regard to craft or group distinction.

THE DETROIT RIOT OF 1943

It was clear that the problem of minorities in an industrial union could have only one intelligent solution: There could be no second-class union members. Negroes and all other minority-group workers must be fully integrated and must enjoy absolute equality and freedom to participate in all union activities. Any other course would constitute a retreat from the CIO program to "organize the unorganized," the central concept of industrial unionism and the source of labor's strength in the mass-production industries.

It was indeed fortunate that the leadership and so much of the active rank-andfile of the UAW-CIO had learned that lesson well, for the wisdom gained bore fruit during the tragic days of the Detroit riot in June 1943.

It is impossible to calculate the extent of violence and the death toll which Detroit might have suffered in that bitter period had there not been the stabilizing influence and discipline of the UAW-CIO in the auto plants of Detroit. The importance of this factor was stressed by Attorney General Francis Biddle in a report to President Roosevelt. Summarizing evidence drawn from conferences with State and municipal officials and from investigations of the FBI, Biddle wrote:

"It is extremely interesting that there was no disorder within plants, where colored and white men worked side by side, on account of efficient union discipline."

At the bench and on the assembly line, where white and colored men had undergone the everyday experience of discovering each other's common humanity, there was no violence. The UAW-CIO, through the practice of democracy in the shop and in the union halls, had created an oasis of sanity in a city gone mad with frustration, bitterness, bigotry, and brutality. That the oasis was so pitifully small was proof only that the most determined action of the union to eliminate discrimination and to achieve fair practices was bound to fall short of unqualified success, for the simple reason that one institution, the UAW, was contending with the manifold aspects of a problem too great to be solved by anything less than vigorous community action, both educational and legislative.

UAW-CIO FAIR PRACTICES COMMITTEE

Nevertheless, there was no disposition among UAW-CIO leaders to abandon the union campaign for fair practices, either within the membership or in the industry. On October 5, 1944, the international executive board unanimously approved the establishment within the union of a fair practices committee composed of six top officers and board members, with a full-time executive director. The committee functioned until the tenth convention of the union, in March 1946, when it was replaced by the fair practices and antidiscrimination department. In addition to the investigation of complaints of discrimination in local unions and to educational activities such as publication of posters and pamphlets, the committee prepared a “no-discrimination clause" and sought to have it included in all contracts negotiated by the union.

While some success has been obtained in getting employer acceptance of a no-discrimination policy as applied to employes already working in the plant, it is significant that, with few exceptions, employers have not accepted a no-discrimination clause as applied to hiring.

UAW-CIO LACKS VOICE IN HIRING

To understand the ultimate inability of the union to implement its antidiscrimination policy in the absence of supporting municipal, State, and Federal fair practice legislation, it is necessary to appreciate the severe limitations under which the UAW-CIO seeks to realize its goal of fair play in employment.

Equality of economic opportunity is a phrase without substance unless that equality exists at the hiring gate. The UAW-CIO has no control over hiring. Even where we have maintenance-of-membership or union-shop contracts, the union has no contractual influence over prospective employes. Union members are recruited from workers already screened and selected by management. The union's antidiscrimination policy thus operates under the severest of handicapsthe impotence of the union to enforce fair play in hiring.

In the absence of closed shop agreements and union hiring halls, the union's experiment in economic democracy runs up against the employer's "prerogative" of rejecting Negroes or members of other minority groups. Inclusion of a nodiscrimination clause in a contract will remain an empty gesture unless the employer voluntarily implements it, as long as the community fails to give legislative support to the principle of equal employment opportunity. The phrase, "the right to work," will remain a cynical and meaningless shibboleth as long as a Negro, Jew, Catholic or any other minority-group worker suffers the indignity of economic ostracism because of race, creed, color, or national origin.

It is incumbent upon Government, as an agency of all the people, to invoke sanctions against discrimination in hiring. Through such legislation as S. 984, the community could give substance to the phrase "the right to work," by protecting all those seeking employment in industries and plants both organized and unorganized.

THE WAR EXPERIENCE

Working within the severe limitations imposed by the employer's control over hiring, the UAW-CIO has persisted since the war's end and the dissolution of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practices, in pushing the antidiscrimination fight within the automobile industry. Yet ever-present in the minds of those most actively concerned with the union's fair practices campaign is the realization, born of the wartime experience, that discrimination in employment can be abolished entirely only by aggressive governmental action.

Negro resentment against the discriminatory patterns dooming them to secondclass citizenship assumed explosive proportions in the summer of 1941, as the United States girded itself for war. On June 25, 1941, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 establishing the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice and prohibiting discrimination in war industries. It was clear to all but the blindest bigot that the Arsenal of Democracy could not hope to speak or act authoritatively as the leader of world democracy while tolerating antidemocratic practices at home. Moreover, the practical compulsions of a mounting demand for labor rendered a continuation of discriminatory employment practices indefensible from the standpoint of hard-headed self-interest.

The UAW-CIO, still in the process of consolidating its last major organizational gain in the industry, plunged into the rough waters of conversion. In cooperating closely with the President's Committee, union leaders faced not

only employer opposition and indifference but worker hostility to the upgrading of Negroes. In several instances, it required the utmost firmness on the part of the union leadership to present or settle unauthorized stoppages arising from the refusal of white union members to work with Negroes in departments where the latter had not been employed prior to the war emergency.

Despite all the tensions and vexations of the period, Negroes did make significant gains in employment under pressure of the wartime need for labor. Establishing the FEPC had injected a new element. Union policy of adhering strictly to seniority in the matter of filling vacancies in better job classifications now received the support of government.

The most important lesson which can be drawn from the war period for the guidance of those who today are considering the need for fair employment practices legislation is the lesson of firmness by the Government, labor and management as the clue to success in barring discrimination. The intervention of a Federal FEPC eliminated the possibility of labor-management deadlock and provided the leverage of governmental authority. Whenever resistance to upgrading of Negroes was encountered in a plant, a firm attitude by labor, manageinent, and Government could quickly overcome that resistance, and the initial hostility and tension were soon dissipated as whites and Negroes worked together, Government intervention, moreover, filled the gap left by labor's inability to assure fair play in hiring.

This combination of factors resulted in a marked increase in Negro employment in semiskilled and skilled categories. Bureau of the Census figures indicate that whereas Negro men employed as craftsmen constituted 4.4 percent of Negro men employed in April 1940, they were 7.3 percent in April 1944. Negroes in the semiskilled category of "operative" constituted 12.6 percent of employed Negroes in April 1940, and 22.4 percent in April 1944. While these are national figures, they reflect the general trend in the Detroit area.

The wartime FEPC lacked enforcement powers. This proved less of a weakness at the time than was anticipated, for certain indirect sanctions could be applied. Moreover, the prestige of the Government as the almost sole employer in a period of national crisis, combined with the pressures of the tightest labor market in our history, proved sufficient in all but a few instances to assure compliance.

UAW-CIO FAIR PRACTICES DEPARTMENT

The UAW-CIO Fair Practices Committee had a close working arrangement with the President's Committee. The FEPC kept the union agency informed of the progress of all cases involving either the union or employers with whom the UAW had agreements; the union cooperated with FEPC in the investigation and adjustment of all cases in which the UAW had a legitimate interest.

It is highly significant, and pertinent to current hearings on S. 984, that both the wartime FEPC and the UAW Fair Practices Committee in its adjustment of intraunion complaints found that the vast majority of cases were settled without formal hearings, in the earliest stages of informal interview and conciliation. It is probable that the enforcement powers provided in S. 984 would have to be exercised but rarely. The bill makes ample provision for adjustment through education, interview, and conciliation. The State Commission Against Discrimination in New York has had a similar experience. It seems reasonable to conIclude that when the sanctions available under the law are adequate, it will be necessary to invoke them only in instances of extreme difficulty.

Shortly before the dissolution of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practices, delegates to the tenth convention of the UAW-CIO revised the union constitution in order to accelerate the pace of the union's struggle against

discrimination.

The Fair Practices and Antidiscrimination Department thus established on March 27, 1946, had a clearer mandate, a firmer base, and a more efficient procedure than the committee it replaced. Article 25 of the UAW-CIO International Constitution reads as follows:

"SECTION 1. There is hereby created a department to be known as the Fair Practices and Antidiscrimination Department of the International Union.

"SEC. 2. The international president shall appoint a committee composed of international executive board members to handle the functions of this department. He shall also appoint a director who shall be a member of the union and approved by the international executive board. He shall also appoint a staff which shall be qualified by previous experience and training in the field of interracial, inter-faith, and intercultural relations.