whether the various elements of "responsibility" were met by a prospective contractor. In 37 Comp. Gen. 676 we cited specific elements of "responsibility," but none of these illustrative elements included ability to perform, organization, technical skills, "know how" or technical equipment or facilities. Hence, the decisions upon which you rely are not determinative of the problem here involved. In B-138233 dated February 24, 1959, we held that the finality of a certificate of competency does not extend to lack of integrity and a consistent record of default under prior contracts. It was therefore concluded that deficiencies in the area of business practices are not subject to certification. However, the deficiencies there involved went to the business ethics of the prospective contractor and not to business management. Accordingly, it is our view that elements of responsibility relating to Ameco's ability to perform, experience, skill, "know how," technical knowledge, etc., are included within the certificate of competency issued to Ameco.

NOTES

1. Re-read Small Business Administration v. McClellan, 364 U.S. 446 (1960), supra, p. 431.

2. "It is the declared policy of the Congress that the Government should aid, counsel, assist, and protect in so far as is possible, the interests of smallbusiness concerns in order to preserve free competitive enterprise, to insure that a fair proportion of the total purchases and contracts for property and services for the Government *** be placed with small-business enterprises, to insure that a fair proportion of the total sales of Government property be made to such enterprises, and to maintain and strengthen the over-all economy of the Nation." 15 U.S.C. § 631 (1958). See 10 U.S.C. § 2301 (1958). In addition to conclusive certificates of competency, the S.B.A. has authority to make working capital loans to prime contractors and subcontractors engaged in defense contracting, 15 U.S.C. § 636 (a) (1958), and to enter into prime contracts with the United States with the purpose of subcontracting to small business, 15 U.S.C. § 637 (a) (1958). The Department of Defense co-operates in this effort by the joint set-aside program and by efforts to encourage prime contractors to utilize small business subcontractors. See, generally, Symposium, Small Business, 24 Law & Contemp. Prob. 1-222 (1959); Speidel, Financial Inability and the Default Termination of Defense Supply Contracts: A Small Business Case Study, 44 Minn. L. Rev. 1055 (1960).

Section 4. LABOR

A) Work Stoppages

UNITED STEELWORKERS v. UNITED STATES

PER CURIAM.

361 U.S. 39 (1959)

The Attorney General sought and obtained in the District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania an injunction against the continuation of an industry-wide strike of workers in the basic steel industry pursuant to § 208 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 155, 29 U.S.C. § 178. We granted certiorari, 361 U.S. 878, 4 L. ed. 2d 115, 80 S. Ct. 143, to review the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 271 F. 2d 676, affirming the District Court. In pertinent part, § 208 provides that if the District Court

"finds that ** [a] threatened or actual strike or lock-out

"(i) affects an entire industry or a substantial part thereof engaged in trade, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication among the several States or with foreign nations, or engaged in the production of goods for commerce; and

“(ii) if permitted to occur or to continue, will imperil the national health or safety, it shall have jurisdiction to enjoin any such strike or lock-out, or the continuing thereof, and to make such other orders as may be appropriate."

The arguments of the parties here and in the lower courts have addressed themselves in considerable part to the propriety of the District Court's exercising its equitable jurisdiction to enjoin the strike in question once the findings set forth above had been made. These arguments have ranged widely into broad issues of national labor policy, the availability of other remedies to the Executive, the effect of a labor injunction on the collective bargaining process, consideration of the conduct of the parties to the labor dispute in their negotiations, and conjecture as to the course of those negotiations in the future. We do not believe that Congress in passing the statute intended that the issuance of injunctions should depend upon judicial inquiries of this nature. Congress was not concerned with the merits of the parties' positions or the conduct of their negotiations. Its basic purpose seems to have been to see that vital production should be resumed or continued for a time while further efforts were made to settle the dispute. To carry out its purposes, Congress carefully

surrounded the injunction proceedings with detailed procedural devices and limitations. The public report of a board of inquiry, the exercise of political and executive responsibility personally by the President in directing the commencement of injunction proceedings, the statutory provisions looking toward an adjustment of the dispute during the injunction's pendency, and the limited duration of the injunction, represent a congressional determination of policy factors involved in the difficult problem of national emergency strikes. This congressional determination of the policy factors is of course binding on the courts.

The statute imposes upon the courts the duty of finding, upon the evidence adduced, whether a strike or lock-out meets the statutory conditions of breadth of involvement and peril to the national health or safety. We have accordingly reviewed the concurrent findings of the two lower courts. Petitioner here contests the findings that the continuation of the strike would imperil the national health and safety. The parties dispute the meaning of the statutory term "national health"; the Government insists that the term comprehends the country's general well-being, its economic health; petitioner urges that simply the physical health of the citizenry is meant. We need not resolve this question, for we think the judgment below is amply supported on the ground that the strike imperils the national safety. Here we rely upon the evidence of the strike's effect on specific defense projects; we need not pass on the Government's contention that "national safety" in this context should be given a broader construction and application.

*** Petitioner contends that the statute is constitutionally invalid because it does not set up any standard of lawful or unlawful conduct on the part of labor or management. But the statute does recognize certain rights in the public to have unimpeded for a time production in industries vital to the national health or safety. It makes the United States the guardian of these rights in litigation. Cf. United States v. American Bell Tel. Co., 128 U.S. 315, 370, 32 L. ed. 450, 462, 9 S. Ct. 90; Sanitary Dist. v. United States, 266 U.S. 405, 69 L. ed. 352, 45 S. Ct. 176. The availability of relief, in the common judicial form of an injunction, depends on findings of fact, to be judicially made. Of the matters decided judicially, there is no review by other agencies of the Government. Cf. Gordon v. United States (U.S.) 2 Wall. 561, 17 L. ed. 921, 117 U.S. 697, 76 L. ed. 1347. We conclude that the statute entrusts the courts only with the determination of a "case or controversy," on which the judicial power can operate, not containing any element capable of only legislative or executive determination. We do not find that the termination of the injunction after a specified time, or the machinery established in an attempt to obtain

a peaceful settlement of the underlying dispute during the injunction's pendency, detracts from this conclusion.

The result is that the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, affirming that of the District Court, is affirmed. Our mandate shall issue forthwith.

It is so ordered.

B) Labor Standards

1) Minimum Wages

PERKINS v. LUKENS STEEL COMPANY

310 U. S. 113 (1940)

Reprinted supra at p. 93

2) The Copeland Anti-Kickback Act

UNITED STATES v. LAUDANI

320 U.S. 543 (1944)

MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court. Indictments returned in a United States District Court in New Jersey charged that the respondent Laudani, while acting as a company foreman with authority to employ and discharge workers on a public works project financed in part by the United States, had contrary to § 1 of an Act of June 13, 1934 [commonly known as the "Kickback Act"] forced certain of his subordinates to give him part of their wages in order to keep their jobs. Laudani moved to quash, assigning as one ground that the indictments failed to charge conduct prohibited by this Act since they did not contain allegations that he was the employer of the coerced men or that he had acted as agent of the employer in forcing the payments. The gist of his contention was that the prohibition of the Act extends only to employers and persons who act in concert with them. The District Court concluded that the Act applied to a foreman such as Laudani, overruled his motion, and a jury convicted him. The Circuit Court of Appeals accepted Laudani's contention, reversed the judgment, and directed that the indictments be quashed. 134 F. 2d 847. The public importance of the question presented prompted us to grant certiorari.

The purpose of the Act under consideration is to extend protection not merely to the legal form of employment contracts but to the substantive rights of workers actually to receive the benefit of the wage schedules which Congress has provided for them. The evil aimed at was the wrongful deprivation of full work payments. The

Act was adopted near the bottom of a great business depression as one part of a broad Congressional program the goal of which was to strengthen the domestic economy by increasing the purchasing power of the nation's consumers. To this end, Congress enacted legislation designed to relieve widespread unemployment and enable working people to earn just and reasonable wages. A large program for federal financing of public works was established, and legislation was passed requiring government contractors to pay certain minimum wage rates. It was the purpose of the Kickback Act to assure that the federal funds thus provided for workers should actually be received by them for their own use except where diverted under authority of law or a worker's voluntary agreement.

In view of this background, we cannot hold that Congress intended to exclude from the Act's proscription a foreman with the authority Laudani is alleged to have possessed. Foremen vested with full power to employ and discharge subordinates could frustrate the objective of the Act just as effectively as could their employers, and foremen not given such broad powers might nevertheless be able to use their authority to accomplish the same result. That foremen not only could but might do this very thing was testified at Senate hearings when the problem of "kickbacks" was under study. And the members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary reporting the bill used language broad enough to include foremen among others when they said that hearings had revealed, "that large sums of money have been extracted from the pockets of American labor, to enrich contractors, subcontractors, and their officials."

To hold that a company foreman vested with sufficient power substantially to affect his subordinates' contracts of employment is within the Act's proscription is not to hold that the Act applies to every extortioner, blackmailer, or other person who extracts money from one who has previously received it for labor on a federally financed project. We need not, at this time, attempt to delineate the outside scope of the Act's application. But the purpose of the legislation, no less than its language, shows that the power to employ and discharge brings an employing company's foreman within its prohibition. The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cause is remanded to that court for consideration and disposition of other questions not here involved.

UNITED STATES v. CARBONE

327 U.S. 633 (1946)

Reversed.

MR. JUSTICE MURPHY delivered the opinion of the Court. This case comes to us under the Criminal Appeals Act directly from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.