to-Continued Page rd. G. R., director, traffic and sales services, Simpson Tim- 1305 e. Robert, manager, Mico, Monmouth-Independence Co-Op., 1273 Anthony C., vice president and general manager, Agri- 1252 J. R., vice president, traffic, Peavey Co., Minneapolis, L 4. April 4, 1972____ 1259 D. C., director of transportation, Hoerner Waldorf Corp., 1306 duff, Knox J., president, Port of Seattle Commission, Seattle, Hon. Harrison A., Jr., a U.S. Senator from the State of New on. John F., Jr., associate professor of industrial relations ant, Eaton H., director, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oreg., 1284 1479 1435 r, W. J., president Manufacturing Chemists Association, ing, Roger, secretary-treasurer and director, Washington Paul, president, Maritime Trades Department, AFL-CIO, 1300 1275 1476 , John T., executive, vice president, California Chamber of ommerce, Sacramento, Calif., May 9, 1972 (with enclosure) ___ 1467 Hodgson, J. D., Secretary of Labor, Department of Labor, Washington, D.C. (with enclosure). NATIONAL EMERGENCY DISPUTES, 1971-72 TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1972 U.S. SENATE, OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in room 4232, New Senate Office Building, Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr. (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Senators Williams, Pell, Stevenson, Hughes, Javits, Schweiker, Packwood, Taft, and Stafford. Staff members present: Stewart E. McClure, staff director; Robert E. Nagle, general counsel; and Eugene Mittelman, minority counsel. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. The subcommittee on Labor resumes its hearings on emergency labor disputes legislation. The witness this afternoon is Mr. George Meany, who, as president of the AFL-CIO, represents many millions of working men and women. We certainly welcome you, President Meany, back to our committee. You have been with us many times. Your appearances have provided invaluable support to a great number of measures involving the lives of people of this Nation. We appreciate your advice and your counsel. STATEMENT OF GEORGE MEANY, PRESIDENT, AFL-CIO; ACCOMPANIED BY, ANDREW J. BIEMILLER, LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR; AND THOMAS E. HARRIS, ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL Mr. MEANY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity of appearing before the committee on behalf of the AFL-CIO. It will, I am sure, come as no surprise to the committee that the AFL-CIO is opposed to the administration bill, S. 560, the Packwood bill, S. 3232, and other similar proposals and that we support the Williams bill, S. 832. The AFL-CIO Executive Council adopted statements dealing with the issues raised by these proposals in February 1971, and again in February of this year. I ask that these statements of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, which are appended to my testimony, be incorporated as part of it. In this statement I will discuss only the general issues with regard to emergency disputes posed by the bills before the committee and not the proposed extensive revisions of the Railway Labor Act in title II of S. 560 and S. 3232. That is a highly specialized subject which I will leave to the experts who have testified for the railroad brotherhoods. The AFL-CIO fully supports their position in opposition to title II. To begin with, we are mystified by the peculiar coverage of the administration and Packwood bills. They apply not only to labor disputes involving railroads and airlines but as well to "maritime," "longshore," and "trucking." In view of the small tonnage carried in American-flag ships, it is quite certain that no maritime strike is going to create a "national emergency," under the administration bill, and it is unlikely that a maritime strike will ever in the language of the Packwood bill, "imperil the health and safety of a substantial sector of the Nation." The inclusion of "trucking" in the administration bill is as unwarranted as the inclusion of "maritime." I do not speak for the Teamsters Union, but I do know that no administration has ever found it necessary to invoke the present Taft-Hartley 80-day injunction provisions in the trucking industry. What then can be the justification for proposing more stringent emergency procedures for that particular industry? As regards substance, the administration and Packwood bills would both add three new alternatives to the present 80-day injunction. These alternatives, of which the President could choose one, but only one. are: (1) an additional 30-day administration or 15-day Packwood injunction; (2) a procedure whereby a Board appointed by the President could authorize a partial strike or lockout; and, (3) an assertedly "novel" species of compulsory arbitration entitled "final offer selection," under which the union and the employer would each submit a final offer and one alternative final offer, and an arbitration panel would choose one offer without change or modification. The proposals for an additional 30- or 15-day injunction are too trivial to warrant comment. As respects the partial strike proposal, unions have long urged that emergency strike bans under Taft-Hartley should be no broader than necessary to safeguard the "national health or safety," and that partial or selective strikes should be permitted. The Williams bill, which we support, confirms the right of unions to engage in selective strikes, as defined in the bill, and gives the Secretary of Transportation power to require that operations on struck lines be maintained to the extent necessary to the national health or safety. However, the partial strike proposal of the administration bill is in fact a sham, and that in the Packwood bill is only a little better. Both proposals leave it up to the President and his appointees to decide whether to have a total strike ban or to permit a partial strike; and past experience makes it clear that the industry involved will always be able to persuade them that anything less than a total strike ban is impossible or impractical or unprofitable for the industry. For we have had 25 years of experience to that effect under the present TaftHartley provisions. It is perfectly possible under the existing provisions for the Government to seek an 80-day injunction banning a strike only as to those portions of a struck industry whose continued operation is essential to the "national health or safety," and unions have repeatedly urged both the executive branch of the Government and the |