Mr. GRIFFIN. I think this is very interesting testimony and I am sure that-well, they are all gone. I was going to say that some of the people over there might want to challenge your statement.

Mr. PETERSON. Dozens of times, sir, we have asked for collective bargaining.

Mr. CUTLER. We went to the NLRB and put this to them, 4 or 5 years ago; and let it be put on the record, the NLRB in New York City denied me, an American citizen, a copy of the rules by which they operated and denied me a right to the protections of the law and I had to go to Senator Bush and force the NLRB to even hear me, and when I got to the NLRB in Washington they rolled out the red carpet because Senator Bush got an appointment for me and then Rothman, the counsel, said, "Why, you can have all the books you want. Step out in the hall and get all the copies he wants." But I couldn't get them in New York. How long do you think it took me to get a decision from the NLRB? One year and a half to be told, "No, we won't take your case."

Mr. PETERSON. We are employers for Landrum-Griffin, conceded by the union, and Taft-Hartley, and for tax purposes, State and city, but no, not for collective bargaining. Still we are compelled to belong to the union, pay the dues, pay the penalties, or else you get no musicians. I am in that position. I am a full-time employer. I am not allowed to work with musicians because I am not a member of that union, and their bylaws call for this.

No member of this union can work for an expelled or a nonmember. That is nationwide in this industry.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Gentlemen, I can appreciate your frustrations and it will be further compounded tomorrow, I imagine, when you read in the paper about the witnesses who testified here, and you will look a long time before you will find very much about your testimony. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PETERSON. We are aware of that, but I would like to make one statement

Mr. THOMPSON. I am sorry.
Mr. PETERSON. On 14(b).
Mr. THOMPSON. I am sorry.
Mr. PETERSON. May I?

Mr. THOMPSON. I am sorry. You are invited, sir, to submit any statement that you want and by unanimous consent it will be included at this point in the record. We must get on. I am sorry. I thank you very much.

Mr. PETERSON. May I make one more statement, sir?

Mr. THOMPSON. You may submit a statement.

Mr. PETERSON. I have one paragraph about eight words. May I Mr. THOMPSON. Yes, indeed, you may.

Mr. PETERSON. We have had you for 4 or 5 years, Mr. Thompson. You can tolerate me for another few minutes.

Mr. THOMPSON. I am trying to be courteous to you. It isn't a question of tolerating. Please now let's try to be gentlemen about this. Mr. PETERSON. Oh, yes. As I understand there are 70 million workers in the labor force. Of that, 17 million are organized in unions. It seemed to us that all that you need do is make unions very attrac

tive and you would have 53 million people of the unorganized clamoring and pounding the doors.

Give us some of the gold. Let us in there. But you don't see this. No; you want to compel them to do what they don't want to do or what they have the right to do now or if they wish. You do not wish to give them the freedom of choice.

Mr. THOMPSON. Does that complete your statement?

Mr. PETERSON. That does.

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much.

The gentleman from North Carolina will take the chair. The chairman will have to step out before the next witness.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT OF JAMES G. PATTON, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL FARMERS UNION

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, the family farmer in the United States sweats as much over his crops as do the union members over their machines. Today's family farmer feels as strong a bond with the workingman in the union as the corporate farm and the agri-businessman feels for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Food Chains.

Often there have been forces that have attempted to pit the farm bloc against the city bloc, but this is no longer the case in Congress and it is no longer the case in the country. Our membership cannot be fooled for they see that the right-to-work laws are directed against the family farmer as much as the workingman. The members of the National Farmers Union have stood and fought side by side with the union members in the battles against the State right-towork laws.

I now serve as president of the National Council for Industrial Peace and have been a member of its executive board since its founding in 1958. I have had the full support of the National Farmers Union which has about one-half million farm members in its ranks.

THE FARMERS STAKE IN REPEAL OF 14 (b)

We have fought so-called right to work not only as a labor of love.
We farmers have an interest, too.

In Indiana, in 1962, the State senator who sponsored the right-to-work law in 1957, sought to invoke right to work against farmers in the Evansville area. I might add that this same gentleman is an unsuccessful candidate for Governor. In a fast-moving series of events in early 1965, Indiana has repealed its right-to-work law. Gov. Roger Branigan signed the repealer, saying "It didn't bring anything but rancor and bitterness to the State."

And in Idaho in 1960 there was a right-to-work law proposed in the legislature which was aimed purely and simply at the farmer. It would have sideswiped the workingman of the factory and the truck as well but the main target was the potato growers of Idaho-farmers.

That right-to-work law was dreamed up and proposed by creatures in the legislature of the principal potato processor of the State. It would have outlawed efforts of farmers to organize into associations to increase their bargaining power in relation to the sale of their potato product to the processors. This feature was designed especially to block farmers unions effort to help farmers form potato co-ops in that State.

In Kansas, the leader of the right-to-work movement sought to invoke so-called right to work against farmers who sought to take economic action to better their lot.

THE RISE OF RIGHT-TO-WORK LEGISLATION

Acting to "protect labor from itself," the chamber of commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the State affiliates of these organizations together with assorted "fronts" moved to pass so-called right-to-work laws.

The stated purpose of these laws was "to protect each working man and woman's inherent right to a job." That's what it said in the propaganda put out by proponents of these measures.

The laws created no jobs or rights to a job. The right-to-work label was a fraud. However, such laws were a blow at organized labor. These laws were designed to void union security and force unions into the position of being "tame." The effect was to weaken unionization where organization was in being and to prevent it where it did not already exist.

The effect was to perpetuate disunity among workingmen. The effect was to protect the low-wage employment which could be used to lure certain types of industry from the industrial North.

But the propagandists claimed that right-to-work laws were bringing great advances. This claim was made possible by treating the growth of industry in the Southern and Western States on a percentage basis. From a low base, in some cases as in Mississippi, from a practically nonexistent industrial base, any growth was vast in terms of percentage tables. Such arguments were used to confuse nonunion workers, farmers and other citizens and convince them that their well-being lay with so-called right to work. This practice made it seem that Arkansas and Mississippi were making greater industrial gains than were the industrial States themselves.

For a time during the period following the enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 this upside down reasoning gained converts.

Many States rushed to pass right-to-work laws.

Then there was a slowing down for the right to workers and a number of States repealed the right-to-work laws which they had rushed to pass. Such States included, New Hampshire, where Sherman Adams then Governor of the State, called for repeal. The list of States which repealed right-to-work laws included Maine, Delaware, Hawaii (as a territory) and Louisiana. In the latter instance, the right-to-work law was repealed as it bore on actual workers in industry but has been kept in force against farmers.

Then for some reason, the tide swelled again and by 1958 the forces of big business were attempting to pass such right-to-work laws in seven States: Montana, Idaho, Washington, California, Colorado, Kansas, and Ohio.

This time they believed they could destroy unions not only in agricultural States but in two of the major industrial States, California and Ohio.

THE DECLINE OF RIGHT-TO-WORK LEGISLATION

The right-to-work forces didn't do so well. They were unable to get enough signatures on a petition to place the issue on the ballot in Montana. In this State, the Montana Farmers Union allied itself with labor to defeat the issue.

The result in Montana was an ignominious defeat for right to work. They couldn't get even the niggardly number of 26,000 signatures necessary to place the issue on the ballot. The Montana State Legislature has now overwhelmingly approved a joint resolution memorializing the U.S. Congress to repeal section 14(b).

But this was just a beginning. In the campaign that followed, right to work was defeated by a million votes in California. It was beaten by a million votes in Ohio. The vote in Colorado and Washington was against right to work by margins of 5 to 2. In Idaho, the result was rather close, with labor's forces coming off victorious after a bitter battle. Farmers Union members have helped conduct campaigns against these socalled right-to-work laws in Washington, California, Idaho, Kansas, and Ohio, in 1958.

Farmers Union members helped labor union members win six out of seven of these campaigns. Only in Kansas was the cause lost. And Kansas has suffered greatly as a result, losing some 25,000 industrial jobs in the years following the imposition of the right-to-work law. Incidentally, this is not my statistic. It comes from a report to the Kansas Legislature by their Governor about a year ago.

We fought side by side with our brother workingmen of labor against socalled "right-to-work" in many other States. We fought in New Mexico within the legislature, in Maine three times, in Vermont three times, in Delaware twice, and in Oklahoma, culminating only last May in a startling upset victory.

It was in Oklahoma that the Oklahoma Council for Industrial Peace, worked shoulder to shoulder with the AFL-CIO and the National Farmers Union to win what appeared to be a hopeless fight. And in doing so we won the rural vote by some 6,000 votes statewide. The Oklahoma press, largely in the right

to-work corner, were amazed at this breakthrough. They were also amazed at the fact that the Negro votes in Oklahoma were some 19 to 1 against right to work. Labor, not powerful in the State, plus farmers, old-age pensioners, and the Negro vote, combined for victory.

In the years since 1958 there has been only one other defeat-Wyoming. The National Council for Industrial Peace was not involved in this fight. But the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union was. We went down the line with the Wyoming AFL-CIO and were defeated along with them.

In 1958 right to work was a congressional, gubernatorial and State legislature issue. It turned out to be a defeat from which the right-to-work forces have never recovered. They lost a half-dozen Governors and State legislatures and Congressmen and Senators by the score, especially in California, Colorado, Indiana, and Ohio.

In 1964, it again became a national issue with Candidate Barry Goldwater espousing a national "right-to-work" law. The election night result was, we hope, the beginning of the end of an ignoble experiment in punitive class legislation.

As mentioned earlier, Indiana has now repealed its right-to-work law and thus the only Northern industrial State with such a law has rejected it. This followed a crushing defeat in Oklahoma when family farmers arose to help labor defeat a referendum proposal in that State. This was on May 5, 1964.

In Oregon, too, a crushing reverse was dealt to the "right-to-workers." They had undertaken to get signatures in an effort to place a right to work referendum on the ballot in that State. They needed 46,600 signatures to validate their petition.

They got less than 800 actual signatures.

Previously in Maine right-to-workers had mounted a richly endowed effort to gain enough signatures to place the issues on a referendum ballot in that State. This failed. Right-to-workers were unable to gain the 28,000 signatures necessary.

In New Mexico a last gasp effort on the part of the national right to work committee to pass a resolution calling for a right-to-work referendum in the State was defeated in both houses of the legislature, 18 to 14 in the senate and 51 to 21 in the house.

QUICK ACTION TO END 14 (B)

The year 1965 appears to have brought the wind of change to the right-to-work controversy which has lingered with ever-increasing bitterness since passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947.

When that bill was enacted in 1947, over President Harry S. Truman's veto, it included a few words under section 14(b) which have cost untold millions in labor-management strife in the years since. I hope Congress will quickly repeal

14(b).

Mr. SCOTT (presiding). The next witness is Rev. J. Edward Carothers, of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

STATEMENT OF REV. J. EDWARD CAROTHERS, ASSOCIATE GENERAL SECRETARY, NATIONAL DIVISION OF THE BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE METHODIST CHURCH; SECRETARY OF COMMISSION ON THE CHURCH AND ECONOMIC LIFE, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN THE U.S.A.

Reverend CAROTHERS. I am the Reverend J. Edward Carothers, Associate General Secretary, National Division of the Board of Missions of the Methodist Church. I am also a member of the program board of the Division of Christian Life and Mission of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and secretary of its Commission on the Church and Economic Life.

I have been asked to make this statement on behalf of the National Council of Churches. As you know from previous testifiers for the

council before other congressional bodies, it comprises 31 Protestant and Orthodox communions. These bodies include a total membership in the neighborhood of 40 million people. Obviously, we make no claim to be speaking for each of these member churches individually nor for all of the members in any one communion. The viewpoints presented in this statement have been officially endorsed by the National Council of Churches' policy-determined general board, which is broadly representative of its member church bodies, and whose members are designated by them.

The National Council of Churches has from its earliest beginnings had a lively interest in the problems and issues confronting both labor and management in general and more particularly in those involving their interrelationships.

Since the religious basis for the churches' concern for these relationships of man to man in their working lives is not always obvious, especially to persons who may be unfamiliar with its history, the national council's general board has summarized this interest in the introduction to its statement on Ethical Issues in Industrial Relations of Concern to Christians, adopted in December 1959. Because I believe this brief paragraph is germane both to the subject before us and to my presence and testimony at this hearing, I would like to read it to you: God in Christ comes to man in restoring love. This engenders and demands a response: that we love one another. This act of God is the ultimate ground of man's freedom and worth. On this ground he lives out his responsibility toward God, and toward the brother in whose company he is set. The effort to establish the largest possible measure of just, cooperative, and orderly relationships in his daily work is witness to and reflection of Christian concern for his neighbor.

The statement to which these words formed the introduction represents the kind of thoroughgoing, often soul searching, study and analysis of tough ethical issues confronting the laymen of our churches in their daily life today which is the primary preoccupation of the national council's commission (formerly called department) of the church and economic life.

The commission's subcommittee on labor and management, comprised predominantly of committed churchmen from management, labor, education-economists and members of the professions-labored for better than 2 years to reach the areas of consensus the statement represents. As chairman of this subcommittee, I can assure you that no word or viewpoint in it survived that process without searching examination from experience as well as conscience.

Some issues highlighted in the statement include first, bigness and the importance it gives to the responsible use of power; second, responsibility of both labor and management toward the relation of wages, salaries, prices, and profits; third, corrupt practices in our business society. Point No. 4 is "freedom of labor and management to bargain on issues of mutual concern."

This last point covers the subject of our immediate interest here today and summarizes in brief compass the position of the National Council of Churches on this issue. I will therefore quote further from

the statement:

We believe that collective bargaining can be and has proved to be a social instrument of great worth in preserving vital freedoms in our economy. To the extent to which labor and management act with a high degree of social responsibility in the process of bargaining they should be given freedom to deal with issues of mutual interest.