Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy, Labor Reform Bill, Madison, Wisconsin, September 24, 1959

The Labor Reform Bill

This year's fight over the labor bill – like last year's – clearly demonstrates the difference in party attitudes. But it is not a different attitude on the subject of reform or racketeering. There was no real difference between the parties on that score – or between the major bills. Every basic weapon against racketeering contained in the final version of the final bill was also contained in the original Kennedy-Ervin Bill – the bill which every Democrat in the Senate supported on final passage and which the great majority of them had supported on the Floor.

Every one of these weapons was also contained in the House Labor Committee's Elliott Bill, which the great majority of House Democrats supported. In fact, every one of them was originally in the Kennedy-Ives Bill of 1958, supported by all the Senate Democrats and two-thirds of those in the House.

There was no substantial disagreement among Democrats on the issue of reform, on the need to fight racketeering, on the importance of ousting the small fraction of hoodlums who had infiltrated a basically honest labor movement. There was no dispute over that goal or even how to reach it. The so-called Landrum-Griffin Bill in the House, supported by the President over television adopted word-for-word almost all of the provisions of the Kennedy-Ervin Bill on anti-racketeering.

But where we differed – where the two parties basically split – where the Kennedy Bill and the Administration-backed bill were far, far apart – was in the area outside the McClellan Committee findings, outside the area of racketeering. It was a fundamental split over the rights and obligations of honest unions and honest members. We were trying to curb racketeers and crime – that was clear. Their bill was trying to curb honest unions at the bargaining table – that also was clear.

The Administration Bill in the form in which it passed the House threatened to set back the trade union movement to the dark ages before the Wagner Act. The right to picket, even the right to strike, and thus the right to bargain collectively and effectively, would have all been drastically restricted. Labor's ability to protect itself from substandard competition – its ability to appeal for consumer boycotts of unfair goods – its ability to organize new workers lacking protection – its traditional right to refuse to work on struck goods – these and other rights would all have been restricted or eliminated by the Administration-backed bill in the form it passed the House of Representatives.

In addition, unions would have been made liable in a multitude of damage suits – they would have been cast upon confusing, conflicting, and hostile state laws and state courts in an increasing number of cases – they would have been entitled to no relief from those "union-busting" provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act which deny economic strikers the right to vote in representation elections. Reporting requirements were completely one-sided. Every union election would be in doubt and in jeopardy.

Consequently, in the Conference Committee between the two Houses, where the bill went after House passage, we were faced with a difficult situation, to say the least. The House members were stubborn and confident. The Republican conferees on the Senate side were equally confident that the Senate, if put to the test, would back the House version. Certainly, it was clear that the original Kennedy-Ervin Bill, or even the version that passed the Senate, would not be accepted by the Senate again under these conditions and in this new atmosphere.

But despite these difficulties our success in Conference was gratifying. We preserved honest labor's right to engage in most organizational and informational picketing. We prevented a further turning over of Federal jurisdiction to the states. We enabled economic strikers to vote in representation elections. We required reports from employers equal to those required from unions – we limited the possibilities of arbitrary, harassing suits for damages or new elections – and we preserved labor's right to refuse to work on struck goods and to appeal to consumers for boycotts.

I do not say that the bill is now satisfactory. I do not say that all arbitrary or burdensome restrictions on honest members and leaders have been lifted. But I do say that the record is clear on these four points:

1. The Democrats in the Senate and House were interested primarily in getting the job done on reform – and so was the AFL-CIO Executive Council. Our fight was against the racketeers – and the racketeers, by the way, knew it.

2. The Republicans in Congress and the Executive Branch, on the other hand, were more interested in playing petty politics, in saving a phony campaign issue, than they were in the need for real reform measures.

3. The Labor-Management Reform Bill of 1959 is a strong bill. It is a responsible bill. No Democrat ever need be ashamed of his vote for it – and no Republican campaign orator can ever again accuse our party of being the tool of the corrupt labor bosses.

4. The real battle was not over the proposed racket curbs, but the curbs on all unions at the bargaining table – curbs that would have had little effect on such powerful unions and leaders as Hoffa and his Teamsters, but which would instead have destroyed the labor rights of those who need them most: the unorganized, the underpaid, the underprivileged. It is those curbs that we succeeded in modifying in conference in some 15 or more ways.

But this is not just a labor issue. It does not affect only union members. If petty politics had killed that bill again, racketeering would have run rampant in this country. If the House provisions penalizing all labor had remained in their original form, the protection of all workers and the progress of all groups would have been impaired.

There will be more labor legislation in future sessions of Congress. Those who loudly proclaimed their devotion to the worker's interest while voting to restrict his traditional rights will be given more opportunity to demonstrate their concern. They can, if they only would, show that concern by increasing the minimum wage and expanding its coverage to those now denied that basic protection. They can, if they only would, do more for the worker who becomes unemployed, or disabled, or caught up in a chronically depressed industry or area.

But the workers of this country know that it is not these so-called friends and would-be protectors to whom they must look for real assistance. The millions of honest working men and women in this country put their faith in the Democratic Party – because the Democratic Party has always put its faith in them.

Source: David F. Powers Personal Papers, Box 32, "Labor Reform Bill, Madison, WI, 24 September 1959." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.