It is a real privilege for me to appear this afternoon before a great labor convention, representing as you do more than seven million working men and women in 71 unions in every part of the country. Your decisions and deliberations here this week will affect not only the jobs and lives of those seven million members, but the jobs and lives of every American. For our economic hopes and our defensive security depend on the industries where, in the words of the songwriter, "without your brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn." And in addition to turning, the nation's wheels and building the nation's workshops, your members help to shape our nation's future at the polls and in the precincts. I know from experience that all union members do not vote as a bloc and never will – I know that labors participation in politics is to be welcomed, and not feared – and I know that your special stake in fair, honest and progressive legislators and legislation has caused you more than any other group to look at the facts and record instead of personalities and platitudes.
It is for this reason that your able President Walter Reuther has asked me to be here today – to discuss with you "the outlook for labor and social legislation." This is a very difficult assignment – made all the more difficult by the fact that I must discuss these necessarily political matters before your organization which I know to be strictly non-partisan. Consequently, I will try to make my attacks on Republican policy as non-partisan as possible.
Unfortunately, my predictions on the prospects for passing legislation through a narrowly divided Congress and a Republican administration must depend in considerable measure upon the official Republican attitude – at least until after 1958 and 1960. The problem is – how do we determine the official Republican attitude on labor? They are playing today with respect to labor legislation their same old game of two standards – one standard for profits and another one for wages; one standard for business political contributions and another one for unions; one standard for Presidential campaigning – and another for Vice-Presidential. Most recently they have used different standards for campaigning North and South – with Vice President Nixon representing his party and himself in New Jersey as champions of civil rights, while the Republican State Chairman in Virginia declares unequivocally that "our party is for segregation."
And now the Republicans are applying this same technique to the question of future labor legislation. While Republican Senator Curtis of Nebraska talks in one part of the country about the need for a national right to work law and applying anti-trust laws to organized labor – while Senators Mundt and Knowland promise steps to control the internal affairs of labor organization – while Senator Goldwater is pleading for vicious anti-labor legislation by assailing Walter Reuther as "dangerous" and "dishonest," with a "lust for personal power," and a "socialist" who should have stayed in Russia – and while Vice President Nixon is using the McClellan Committee hearings to warn the voters of New Jersey about the evils of labor bosses – while all of this is going on, quite a different, more affectionate, more sugar-coated story is being told in other parts of the country by Secretary of Labor Mitchell.
Now I like Jim Mitchell. A lot of Democrats like him. A lot of labor people like him. And he must like Ike. But does Ike like Mitchell? That is the question. For after Secretary Mitchell in 1953 told a labor convention that one of his first objectives was to "shore up" our minimum wage laws, the President asked the Republican Congress to cut the Secretary's budget for enforcing those laws. After Secretary Mitchell in 1954 said he "categorically" opposed so-called right to work laws, the President told his press conference that Mr. Mitchell's views "did not necessarily represent Administrative views." After Secretary Mitchell in 1955 urged our Senate Labor Committee to extend minimum wage coverage, particularly in retail stores, the President told his news conference that he had not "specifically recommended" extending coverage "to any class or group, retail or anything else"; and one of Mr. Mitchell's subordinates was dispatched to tell our Committee that they really only wanted the problem studied, not acted upon. This record of repudiation, reversal and rebuffal continues to this day – Mr. Mitchell must sometimes feel as though he is a member of the French Cabinet, not the Eisenhower team – and there are times, I am sure, when he wishes he had made an early reservation on that first sputnik trip to the moon.
But much as I admire Secretary Mitchell, I sometimes grow weary of his charges that the failure of liberal and labor legislation in recent years has been the fault of the Democratic leadership. It is true that there are different viewpoints expressed within the Democratic Party – although we are not as badly divided as the Republican split between their right wing and their far right wing. And it is true that in a closely divided congress the differences within our party make more difficult the enactment of some controversial legislation. But all we ask of the Republicans is a little help.
My bill, for example, to extend protection of the minimum wage laws to millions of underpaid, shamefully exploited workers is pending before the Senate Labor Committee. If Mr. Mitchell could assure me that one third of the Republicans on that Committee and in each House of Congress would support that bill, I know it would pass in the next session. If he could assure me that one third of the Republicans would support minimum standards for unemployment compensation, effective assistance to surplus labor areas and a long-range attack on the health problems of our older citizens – and so on down the line – then all of this legislation would pass in 1958. But Mr. Mitchell knows that he cannot give us any such assurance – he knows that not even one third of the Republicans will support such progressive legislation, the failure of which he is blaming upon a few Democrats – and in this light the differences between the two parties on matters of importance to labor become very clear indeed.
I repeat – I did not come to this non-political meeting to make a political speech. But unfortunately the anti-labor attitude of many Republicans is likely to play a major role in the labor legislation which Congress will be considering during the coming year, which you have asked me to predict. There is a very grave danger that the hearings of our Special Senate Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field will be seized upon to justify unduly restrictive anti-labor legislation. Some legislators with good intentions will fire legislation in a shotgun fashion to get rid of a few racketeers but permanently injure honest union leaders and members in the process. Other legislators will use these hearings to try to justify new measures that are not even related to the problem and abuses we have uncovered.
There is no indication whatsoever, for example, that the financial manipulations of Dave Beck would have been prevented by the passage of a national right to work law, under which Congress would not permit employers and employees to bargain for a union shop. There is no indication that the questionable tactics of Jimmy Hoffa would have been prevented by legislation placing unions fully under the anti-trust laws, as though union membership were a commodity bought and sold on the market. (Union collusion with employers in order to retrain trade, of course, is already covered by those laws.) Nor have our hearings disclosed any necessity of denying the right of union members to contribute voluntarily to candidates of their choice, Republican or Democrat, since it is apparent that these racketeers have other means of obtaining their goals.
No, these unwarranted, unfair and unworkable measures did not come from our hearings – they have been around all the time, while their sponsors looked for some new excuse to sell them to the Congress and the people. But we are not going to be sold that easily.
As Chairman of the Senate permanent labor legislation subcommittee, which will have the final responsibility for sending to the Senate Floor any proposal resulting from the McClellan hearings, I can assure you that we do not intend to be precipitated hastily into any unsound and unworkable measure of that kind.
Labor Legislation Next Year
I do expect our subcommittee, however, to consider some constructive legislative proposals as a result of these hearings – for if we do nothing at all, we leave a vacuum which will be filled only by the repressive measures of the anti-labor forces I have mentioned. Consequently, labor must expect some new legislation, some of which you may not welcome – although I am confident that with your cooperation and understanding we can develop measures which will in the long run be of benefit to an honest, responsible union movement.
Our subcommittee has already reported a bill requiring (1) full disclosure of employee pension and welfare plans, a measure which had your full support and which will go a long way toward eliminating the abuses and dangers that threaten these vastly important funds. We have already reported a resolution which would (2) make public the union financial reports now filed with the Secretary of Labor – and we will in all likelihood consider additional legislation to (3) make those reports more significant, specifying more detail, spelling out conflict of interest transactions, specifying that they be filed under oath, providing a penalty for false or inaccurate information, and subjecting them to some kind of independent audit.
We will in all likelihood consider legislation to improve (4) guarantees of union democracy, to expand the right of individual workers to curb improper financial transactions on the part of selfish officials and to recover their illicit profits. We may consider in this respect limitations on the abuse of the device of trusteeship, which has too often in our committee hearings appeared as a method of undermining democracy in a local union.
But I would remind my colleagues in the Congress on both sides of the aisle that the primary responsibility for cleansing the house of labor rests with labor itself – and the job will not be done if we go too far in dominating their internal affairs or undermining the prestige of their responsible and cooperative leaders through unwarranted legislation. I have said before, and I will say again, that your adoption of an excellent hard-hitting set of Ethical Practices Codes is one of the most significant and admirable steps in the history of the American trade union movement – and I know of no other group in the country – politicians, businessmen, lawyers or anyone else – which has gone as far as the labor movement has in setting up fiduciary standards to govern its own officials.
Some legislative standards may be necessary, to be sure – but I would point out that practically every example of abuse, wrong-doing and corruption uncovered by the McClellan Committee is covered by these impressive Codes of Ethical Practices: unauthorized borrowing from the union treasury; spending union funds for personal or non-union purposes; profiteering from the welfare and pension funds; improper relations with management representatives; collusion, bribery and "sweetheart" contracts; extortion, violence and intimidation; conflicts of interest; undemocratic union procedures; infiltration of hoodlums and criminals into positions of responsibility; fraudulent "paper" charters; improper accounting and financial controls; the willful destruction of books and records; and inadequate financial reports to the public and their members. All of these practices are prohibited in precise yet comprehensive language contained in the codes adopted by the AFL-CIO Executive Board. Perhaps these Codes will not work – perhaps they will not be enforced – perhaps they will not do the job – but I for one want to see them tried.
Certainly we should give them a try before we penalize those unions, official and members who have given our investigation their wholehearted cooperation. Certainly we should give them a try before we penalize nearly two million labor leaders for the misdeeds of the infinitesimal minority who will have appeared before the committee. I know that we can count on you to offer us your cooperation to this end – and I can assure you that you will have mine.
Prospects for Other Labor and Social Legislation
There are other areas of labor and social legislation which I can freely predict today will demand attention by the Congress early next year.
One of the most critical problems which Congress cannot overlook is the (5) health needs of our older citizens. It is not enough to (6) increase and strengthen the retirement benefits payable under our present social security system – although this too must be done. Those retired under our social security programs today are too often excluded from private voluntary health insurance plans or unable to pay the premium rates charged to older persons. Even those who are able to obtain and afford such membership too often find that these plans are geared to the health needs of the general population and limited in the amount and kind of service provided, and do not meet the pressing needs of chronic illness which face them in retirement. These older people are sick or disabled more often, for a longer period of time, with less money to buy medical care and fewer opportunities to take out health insurance than any other group in the nation. As the spectacular rise in life expectancy increases to vast proportions the number of older people in our society who have left the labor market, and as the cost to their families and our public welfare programs of supporting them through long chronic illnesses continues to rise, the problem has become a crisis we can no longer ignore. Too many people are asking what many of you asked some years ago:
"Who will take care of you? How'll you get by?
When you're too old to work and you're too young to die?"
Still another part of the social insurance program upon which the welfare of our workers and nation depends also needs revision and modernization and that is our vital program of (7) unemployment insurance. Despite our inflated, precarious prosperity, employees are being laid off all too frequently today in aircraft, electronics, auto, textile, machine tool leather, construction, and other industries. And they are discovering that their unemployment insurance payments are not high enough and do not last long enough to tide them over until they can find work again – and not enough to pay their grocery bills, their doctor bills, their mortgage payments and other expenses. The average worker receives a benefit which is only one-third of his regular paycheck – and this drop in his purchasing power is felt all over his community. Our experience of the past five years should have demonstrated conclusively that it is useless to appeal these conditions to state legislatures, dominated by rural interests and concerned lest their programs cost more than those of their competitors. The only way to attack this nationwide problem is through nationwide standards – though Congressional action providing minimum standards for the amount and duration of benefits. It was my privilege to lead the fight on the Floor for an amendment of this kind in 1954 – with your cooperation, I hope we can fight that battle again, and this time successfully. It is easy to forget about this problem in these supposedly prosperous times – but every time President Eisenhower says this Republican prosperity is equally divided among all segments of the economy, I am reminded of… etc.
The problem of unemployment is at the heart of the next item on our legislative agenda – (8) aid to our chronic areas of substantial labor surplus. These continuing pockets of high unemployment and economic stagnation, which have hurt us in Massachusetts in particular, are in need of a coordinated program which would assist through loans and grants these communities and their industries to modernize and reconvert their plans and public facilities, and which would provide supplemental social insurance benefits to tide their unemployed citizens over these periods of depression. Unfortunately, the present Administration seems to have no interest in the problems of the depressed areas. They see no need for effective legislation along these lines. Their attitude is very much like the man who complained to me on the street the other day that his wife was always asking him for money… etc. … I am hopeful that we can get action on this bill which I have joined in sponsoring during the coming session of Congress – if not, we will have to wait for a new congress in 1959 and a new Administration in 1961.
But to establish a firm floor under the purchasing power prosperity of this country requires more than increasing benefits to the retired, the disabled and the unemployed. It requires the payment of decent wages to every man and woman now at work. It is a shocking fact that millions of workers in this country have no federal protection against substandard wages, despite the existence of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The continued failure by the Congress to (9) extend minimum wage coverage under this Act not only denies decent living standards to these unprotected workers – it also undermines the economic statues of the entire nation by encouraging sweatshop competition and depressing purchasing power. Unfortunately, those who are denied this protection are those who need it most – those whose wages are low and whose bargaining power is weak – handicapped workers, children, women, negroes, and immigrants. I have been unable to interest a substantial number of my Republican colleagues in my bill to extend minimum wage coverage to these groups, despite the testimony before our committee of the unbelievably low wages paid to many of the women who work in our retail stores. Apparently the Republican slogan is: "Heaven will protect the working girl – so we Republicans will protect her employer."
There is one further problem which I can predict with certainty will be calling out for attention during the coming year, and every year until we meet it squarely – and that is the deplorable shortage of public school classrooms in this country. How can we match the scientific and technical output of the Russians, how can our teachers be expected to produce the Einsteins and the Fermis and the Comptons of the future, when nearly a million boys and girls are deprived by the classroom shortage of full-time schooling, when millions more are held back in the unwieldy classes of forty or more? Without further delay, dispute or partisan manipulation, we in the Congress have an unavoidable responsibility to enact a bold and imaginative program of (10) Federal assistance for the construction of public schools.
I could go on and on discussing the areas of inaction and reaction that must be attacked by Congress – but, as I have indicated, until with your help we achieve an overwhelming Democratic Congress and a Democratic Administration, I cannot predict what success we will have. As St. Paul said: "We know in part and we prophesy in part." We know what the problems are that will be coming up – new labor legislation, strengthening social security, meeting the health needs of the aged, requiring full disclosure of pension and welfare plans, shoring up unemployment compensation, aiding our labor surplus areas, extending minimum wage coverage and financing the construction of new public schools. And there are dozens of other problems I have not had the time to mention more fully – providing decent housing for low income families, urban renewal for our blighted cities, low-interest loans for middle-income housing, protection for natural gas consumers, low-cost atomic power for our nation's homes, farms, and Factories, modernization of the Bacon-Davis and Walsh-Healey Wage Standards laws, additional restraints on trusts and monopolies, and new forms of assistance to our nation's small businessmen (and you know the definition of a small businessman – a man who sells "I Like Ike" buttons at a labor convention).
We recognize these problems – we realize that legislation is needed promptly to meet them – and we can only conclude, therefore, that something is wrong with the vision of those who say that there are no longer any great issues between the parties, that there is no longer any need for political action by labor or liberal organizations, that all the battles we fought in the 30s have been won for once and all. For our needs are great and our agenda is long. Our task now – and I mean now, for 1960 will be too late – is to shape a responsible progressive program, with deeds to match our words.
We who are working on such legislation will need your help – we will need your wisdom – we will need your determination. But I am confident that we will go ahead. To paraphrase the words of a great son of Massachusetts, William Lloyd Garrison: "we are in earnest – we will not equivocate – we will not excuse – we will not retreat a single inch – and we will be heard."
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 898, "2nd Constitutional Convention, AFL-CIO Industrial Union Department convention, Washington, D.C., 31 October 1957." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.