It is a high honor to have this opportunity to participate in the discussions of this illustrious convention. In many ways I may be considered a fugitive from the most restrictive closed shop in the country – the United States Senate. We have a guaranteed annual wage for six years – but we have no job security, no pay for overtime, no unemployment compensation, and no assurance that our contract will be renewed. The strange part about our closed shop is that there are plenty of workers who want to take our place – but none of our current union members ever want to go out on strike.
In any event, I hope that I can – in the words of the old-time orators – claim kinship here and have it allowed. I have been closely associated with the leaders and members of the AFL-CIO for 13 years, while serving on the Labor Committees in the House and Senate. And my credentials are written in the record of those 13 years. I come to you today as a friend of labor – I have never concealed or apologized for my friendship with labor, and I do not intend to start now.
Neither do I apologize, I should make clear, to my friends in organized labor for the record of recent years. Jimmy Hoffa may not approve of me – but I do not apologize for having earned his hostility.
I realize that the Labor-Management Reform Act of 1959 is not the bill you wanted – or is it the bill I wanted – nor, more importantly, is it the bill the facts of the situation called for. It contains many provisions that bear little or no resemblance to the findings and recommendations of the McClellan Rackets Committee.
But let us remember that the important changes we were able to make in this law in the Conference between the House and the Senate followed not a succession of victories but a succession of defeats. We were defeated last year when the House of Representatives in its closing days rejected the Kennedy-Ives bill by a vote of 198 to 190.
We suffered a second defeat on the Senate floor this year when the so-called McClellan Bill of Rights amendment was adopted by a margin of one vote – completely changing the atmosphere in which the Kennedy-Ervin bill had been drafted and reported. And the third defeat, of course, was the House adoption of the Landrum-Griffin bill. So considering that background or the final bill, I offer no apologies for my role in connection with it.
I hope you will excuse these personal references. I only wanted to make clear what I said at the outset: that I come to you today as a friend of labor.
Certainly there has been nothing in the findings of the McClellan Committee to change my attitude about the labor movement as a whole. There are roughly half a million local union officials in this country, another half a million business agents, lawyers and other paid officials, and another 750,000 shop stewards and others employed in serving the labor movement. Of these nearly two million labor leaders, the Select Committee has neither investigated nor received complaints about more than the tiniest fraction – considerably less than 1/100 of one percent.
The Union movement, like any other part of American life, has its share of wrongdoers and corruption. But when we hear about bankers who embezzle funds, or financiers who misuse trusts, or politicians who betray the public, we don’t condemn all bankers or all financiers or – I hope – all politicians. Why, then, should we penalize the labor movement as a whole? There is no reason whatsoever why anyone should blacken labor’s name and restrict its legitimate activities simply because a few bad apples have been found in the barrel – and I hope we can make the press and public realize that fact.
Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, the headlines have been largely devoted to the misdeeds of those comparatively few hoodlums and racketeers who have infiltrated the labor movement. All of us, I am afraid, take altogether too little time to commend the faithful, to praise the noteworthy, and to applaud the devoted. But all too often we do not hesitate to criticize those who have strayed, those who have erred, those who have sinned.
I should like to take a few moments to express my personal pride, after 13 years on the Labor Committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate, in the achievements of the American labor movement. The manner in which it has improved the status of the worker has been well documented, and needs no elaboration. Less well known, but of an equal source of pride, is the manner in which it has served our entire nation. Many an American community has a hospital which owes its existence to the efforts and funds supplied by labor organizations. The sorry condition of our nation’s schools would be more desperate but for the activities on a local, State, and national level of the labor unions. Our highways, our transportation system, our defense posture today have all been immeasurably aided by devoted and selfless service by representatives of American labor. Indeed, in every field where the public interest demands protection we find a stalwart guardian enlisted by labor.
In the past 2 1⁄2 years, no one could be sure what kind of labor legislation would be enacted. There were serious disagreements, sometimes harshly expressed. The one thing that perhaps was most gratifying to me throughout this period was the unswerving conviction of the great body of American labor, as reflected by the AFL-CIO and its president, George Meany, that corruption must be eliminated from labor’s ranks. While undertaking to do this job basically on a voluntary basis, the labor movement recognized the need for, and supported, legislation which would help it do its own housecleaning.
I know of no parallel instance in American history when a major segment of society frankly recognized its own internal problems and set out so determinedly to correct them. They were not deterred by the fact that this would cause the expulsion of unions representing 10 per cent of their membership. I know of no business organization or bar association which has taken similar disciplinary action against members shown by the McClellan Committee to have been engaged in improper activities. And I know of no voluntary organization which has set any higher standards of discipline than the Ethical Practice Codes adopted by the AFL-CIO.
In the legislation we enacted last summer, we provided some assurance for democratic rights of union members in their internal affairs. Although most unions needed no laws to provide such guarantees, some did; and the Congress acted.
We are blessed in this country with a strong labor movement. Its strength is an important contribution to the public good. I know how it has been used to eliminate industrial terror, sweatshops, inhuman working conditions. I know, from 13 years of close personal association with the labor movement, as a member of the House and Senate Labor Committees, that it has used its strength for legislation that went far beyond its own vested interests. I know the constructive role it is playing on the international scene, in resisting Communist expansion and in helping the underdeveloped nations of the world. I know of its dedication to the cause of equal rights for all, both in and out of the labor movement.
It is for this reason that it was particularly important to get the racketeers and hoodlums out of the labor movement. It is for this reason steps had to be taken to make sure that a labor movement known for its responsibility and generosity would not be undone by those who were irresponsible and selfishly exploiting it for their own ends. It is for this reason that I am convinced that our investigations and legislative efforts, whatever discomfort that may have caused to many honest union members at the time, will in the long run be of real benefit to the labor movement as a whole as well as the general public.
But I share with you the hope that more emphasis will be given to what labor has accomplished, to its power for good, to its record of honesty and responsibility.
Those of us who have had a responsibility to expose the wrongdoings of a few unconscionable labor leaders have a particular responsibility to make the record complete. The Hoffas and the Becks and the Dios should not cause us to modify our basic respect for, and appreciation of, our great, patriotic American labor movement.
In the words of Abraham Lincoln:
“All that serves labor serves the nation.
All that harms labor is treason to America. No line can be drawn between the two.
“If a man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar.
“If a man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor he is a fool.
“There is no America without labor, and to fleece the one is to rob the other.
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 904, "AFL-CIO state convention, Lincoln, Nebraska, 13 October 1959." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.