Citizens Transfer & Coal Co., Julian A. Woodcock, Jr., president, Asheville, N. C.: Letter to Senator Maybank_- Colvin, William H., Jr., president, Crucible Steel Co. of America: I. Crucible serves small business of its 45,000 customers___ II. Tool and specialty steel customer orders for mill produc- III. Analysis of numbers of heats melted in our tool and Compilation of unemployment and workmen's compensation laws in coal-mining States, Legislative Reference Service, American Law Detroit Edison Co., Walker L. Cisler, executive vice president, Holmes, Goodwyn, Asheville, N. C.: Letter to Senator Maybank.. Holmes, Henry M., Spartanburg, S. C.: Letter to Senator Maybank International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, San Francisco, Calif., William Glazier, Washington representative: Kaiser, Henry, Van Arkel & Kaiser, Washington, D. C.: Letter to Mr. L. Heureux enclosing statement of Woodruff Randolph, pres- King, Dr. Willford I., economist, Sumner Gerard Committee for Letters, statements, exhibits, charts, etc.-Continued Miller, Edward H., attorney, Washington, D. C.: Proposed amend- National Brotherhood of Packinghouse Workers, CUA, Des Moines, Iowa: Letter to Senator Robertson enclosing statement of Don Randolph, Woodruff, president, International Typographical Union, 979 Minimum and maximum benefits for permanent total disability-- Minimum and maximum benefits for temporary total disability. 829 830 Richberg, Donald R., attorney, Washington, D. C.: Workers covered by collective-bargaining agreements in 1946--- 632 832 840 Significant developments in labor law, 1941-46_- 848 Roche, Josephine, director, United Mine Workers of America welfare case_- Robertson, A. Willis, a United States Senator from the State of Schafer, J. Atlee, president, American Retail Coal Association: Retail Coal Merchants Association of Pittsburgh, Pa...... South Bend-Mishawaka Coal Association of Indiana.. Sellwood, R. M., Jr., Gimbernat & Sellwood, New York, N. Y.: Letter 977 Southern Coal Producers' Association, Joseph C. Moody, president, 978 Taylor, Glen, a United States Senator from the State of Idaho: Letter Thurmond, Walter, secretary, Southern Coal Producers' Association, Letter from Island Creek Coal Co., regarding group insurance. 898 Letter from Kentucky Central Life & Accident Insurance Co. 899 Letter from Carbon Fuel Co., regarding Tom Pentecost- Trade Union Courier: Article, Green Lashes Antiunion Inquisition in 900 Letters, statements, exhibits, charts, etc.-Continued Van Horn, Ezra, operators' trustee, United Mine Workers of America Van Sickle, John V., professor of economics, Wabash College, Craw- Victory, Lawrence H., former president, New York Typographical Wisconsin Electric Power Co., Milwaukee, Wis., C. F. John, vice president in charge of power: Letter to Senator Maybank_. Wisconsin Public Service Corp., C. E. Kohlepp, president, Mil- 883 ECONOMIC POWER OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1949 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY, The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10:10 a. m., in room 301, Senate Office Building, Senator A. Willis Robertson presiding. Present: Senators Robertson and Cain. Also present: Mr. Robert D. L'Heureux, counsel for the committee. Senator ROBERTSON. The committee will please come to order. Our first witness this morning is Judge Charles I. Dawson, of Louisville, Ky. Good morning, Judge Dawson. We are glad to have you with us today. Will you please be sworn? Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you give to this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Judge DAWSON. I do. Senator ROBERTSON. Will you please identify yourself for the record? TESTIMONY OF CHARLES I. DAWSON, ATTORNEY, LOUISVILLE, KY. Mr. DAWSON. I am an attorney practicing law in Louisville, Ky., interested, incidentally, in some other businesses, including stockownership in some bituminous-coal mines in eastern Kentucky. I am now, and since I resigned from the Federal bench in 1935 continuously have been, general counsel for the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, which is an organization made up of operators of coal mines in Harlan, Bell, and Knox Counties in Kentucky, and Claibourne County in Tennessee. That association has a membership of 41 operators, and the total tonnage produced by the membership last year was 7,190,591 tons. The invitation extended to me by your chairman to appear before your committee and testify, advised me that it was desired that my testimony should be directed to the extent and effect upon consumers, upon prices, and upon economic stabilization and small business enterprises of the economic power of labor organizations in industry. I have followed closely and with a great deal of interest the testimony heretofore adduced before your committee on those subjects, and it seems to me that if any proof were needed on the matters in respect of which I was invited to testify, the proof you have already heard has conclusively established that the industry-wide, and in most cases Nation-wide, organization of unions, and their ability-actually or in effect-to make substantially uniform industry-wide and Nationwide contracts, unquestionably tend to, and in many cases have actually resulted in the elimination of competition, with resulting higher prices; interruption and uncertainty in the supply of essential products and services; the elimination of small businesses, due to their inability to meet the pattern set in contracts between the larger units in their particular industry and the contracting union; the restriction of output; inefficiency; and, in the coal industry particularly, in driving it into such an unfavorable position, in competition with other fuels, as to seriously threaten its future consumer market. The testimony you have heard on those subjects has come from witnesses far more directly and intimately associated than I with the problems presented by the present labor monopoly possessed by the great labor unions of the country. What I could say on those subjects would add nothing to the information already in the possession of the committee. What I would say would be but a generalization on subjects about which previous witnesses have been able to be rather specific. So, with the committee's permission, I would like to explore with you the possibility of correcting the situation, and the means by which it may be done. In view of the testimony you have already heard, and in view of what is well known to every reasonably well-informed man, I think I may safely start with five fundamental premises: (1) That labor unions do at this time possess a monopoly of the labor of this country; (2) That monopoly has been so used in the last 10 or 12 years as to seriously threaten not only the American competitive system in business, but the general welfare of all the people, and, ultimately, of the individual members of those unions themselves; (3) That this condition has been brought about in part by congressional legislation, but in the main by extreme and strained interpretation given to that legislation by the Supreme Court in a series of decisions during the last 6 or 8 years, and by the constant support of, and pandering to labor leaders by the executive department of the National Government in even their most intemperate demands; (4) That it is not only desirable, but necessary in the general public interest that the situation be corrected; and (5) That the only means by which it can be corrected is through legislation. On these five premises, I would like to discuss with the committee what legislation can be enacted to accomplish the desired result, without restricting or destroying the legitimate objects and activities of labor unions. At the outset, I wish to state that I agree with Judge Arnold's statement before this committee that it is neither feasible nor desirable to destroy unions' labor monopoly in this country, if, by that, he meant that it is neither feasible nor desirable to enact any legislation restricting the size or the territorial jurisdiction of unions or curtailing their lawful and legitimate objects and activities. No impartial man will deny that unions have been of untold benefit to the laboringman in this country. It took unions, and strong unions, with the sympathetic backing of the Government to better working conditions, and to secure for labor its just part of the earnings of industry. In accomplishing |