I stand before you today as 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 many “scabs” who want to take our place – but none of our current members ever wants 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 associated with the leaders and members of this union for twelve years, while serving on the Labor Committee of the House and Senate. I have, like so many members of Congress, and like so many progressive Americans of all walks of life, come to have a deep admiration and sincere respect for your distinguished officers – Mr. McDonald, Mr. Abel, Mr. Goldberg, Mr. Hoffman, and New England’s own Mike Walsh.
It is this kind of leadership that has made the American labor movement a strong and respected force – a responsible voice on behalf of a better America for all of its citizens. It is this kind of union – and other unions like the Steelworkers – which have demonstrated to the Congress and to the general public that a responsible labor union is a constructive, beneficial member of the American economic community.
I wish that some of my colleagues in the Senate could be here with me this afternoon. I wish they could see this democratic union convention in action--I wish they could talk with your leaders and your rank and file membership---I wish they could become familiar with your splendid record over the past two decades. If they could do these things which I have done, then they would see that here – here at this convention – is the true picture of the American labor movement – and not the parasites and racketeers that have paraded before the McClellan Committee.
I know that I need not make any apology to you for helping to get those people out of the labor movement. They are not laborers – and they have never been interested in the movement. Most of them have never worked in a factory or frozen on a picket line. They were hoodlums who infiltrated into union ranks – and I congratulate the members of the AFL-CIO for helping to throw them out.
I realize that the bad odor of a few wrongdoers has poisoned the atmosphere in which all of you must operate. Some years ago when a prominent Congressman got in trouble and went to jail – the other 500 or so members all went around looking rather embarrassed, with our coats up.
I realize that this is a difficult period for the labor movement – when many in the Government, the press, and the general public draw from these few instances a general condemnation of the whole movement. I do not expect you to rejoice in these disclosures – or even in any legislation framed to prevent their recurrence. I realize that there are many who believe that the trade union movement itself can best work out its own problems.
But it is apparent now that this cannot be done. It is apparent now that those of us concerned with the best interests of the labor movement cannot leave a vacuum – for if we do, that vacuum will be filled by the repressive measures of the anti-labor forces.
I do not believe those forces can justly accuse me of any sympathy for the racketeer who has mis-used the dues of union members. I am a member of the Select Committee, I have participated in its investigations, and I am familiar with its recommendations. And those recommendations do not in any way justify the punitive, wholesale legislation some people are trying to impose for the labor movement.
There is no factual basis for any general denunciation of labor based upon our committee’s findings. 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 – why should we blacken its name and restrict its legitimate activities simply because a few bad apples have been found in the barrel?
Nor is there any factual basis for any sweeping, unrelated anti-labor legislation. The findings of the Select Committee have been wholly misinterpreted by those who see extortion in every proper union attempt to bargain collectively – by those who see a conspiracy in every boycott permissible under the law and traditional in our history. And these forces will offer in the next Congress – as they did in the Congress now completed – the same repressive anti-labor measures which have been around for a long time without success – measures which their sponsors now hope to advance at a time when the headlines distort a proper perspective – but measures which have little or nothing to do with our Select Committee’s Report.
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. I want to make it clear that I am opposed wholly to a national or a state right-to-work law. There is no indication whatsoever that the questionable tactics of Jimmy Hoffa would have been prevented by legislation placing unions fully under the anti-trust laws. There is no indication whatsoever that union members should be denied the right to contribute voluntarily to candidates of their own choice, Republican or Democrat, since it is apparent that racketeers have other means of obtaining their goals.
These unwarranted and unworkable measures do not come about as a result of the Select Committee’s recommendations. They have been around for a good many years while their sponsors have looked for some new excuse to sell them to the Congress and the American people. I can assure you that the subcommittee of which I am chairman will not be precipitated into reporting any unsound and unworkable measures of this kind.
Nor do we intend to rush into any shotgun legislation that is aimed at a few racketeers but ends up injuring the honest activities of the whole labor movement.
For these critics of labor, these sponsors of punitive legislation, have chosen to ignore or forget that the labor movement itself has gone further than any other group in the country to clean its own house. The AFL-CIO has ousted corrupt unions and unsavory officials, regardless of the cost. And you have taken what I consider to be the most significant and admirable step in the history of the American trade union movement – in the adoption and enforcement of an excellent, hard-hitting set of Ethical Practices Codes.
I repeat – I know of no other group in this country – politicians, businessmen, lawyers, or anyone else – which has gone this far in setting up proper fiduciary standards to govern its own officials. It is this kind of cooperation and constructive action which makes much easier the job of responsible Senators and Congressmen in the next Congress.
Certainly it would be a grave mistake for the Congress to undermine the position of these responsible labor leaders by rushing through some excessively restrictive legislation. That course of action would only give aid and comfort to the racketeers.
Let us also remember that employers and the business community bear for themselves a major share of the responsibility for these unsavory rackets. Our committee found numerous employers, large and small, collaborating in these racketeering practices – engaging in collusive deals to prevent legitimate unions from entering their plants – using labor mobsters to force their competitors out of business – concluding arrangements for sweetheart contracts, kickbacks or fake unions and welfare funds – financing the racketeers and their illicit operations in order to obtain their help in breaking strikes or forcing out competitors. I think it clear that we are not going to get rid of the Dave Becks and Jimmy Hoffas in this country unless we also get rid of the Nathan Sheffermans.
And that is why I believe the opposition of the N.A.M. and its associates to the Kennedy-Ives bill was wholly irresponsible. Most Americans, I know – and that includes most responsible businessmen – take great pride in our traditions of fair treatment for each segment of the population. Yet, consider the one-sided objections raised by the N.A.M. and company to the Kennedy-Ives bill as it passed the Senate:
-- It went too far for employers, they said, but not far enough in restricting unions.
-- They insisted that financial reports should be filed by unions on all of their activities – but not by employers on their anti-union operations.
-- They are agreeable to a prohibition upon union leaders’ receiving bribes directly or through middlemen – but they object vehemently to putting any prohibition upon the employers who pay the bribes.
-- They want still stricter ethical practices codes for unions – but they object violently to any suggestion of a similar code for management.
-- They were never heard to object when union officials were required to file non-Communist affidavits – but they reacted violently when Senator Mundt added an amendment on the floor requiring affidavits from employers (which I will admit is a little silly).
-- They objected to the slight additional cost which might be imposed upon a few of their members in filing additional financial reports – but they were outraged that the Kennedy-Ives bill eliminated the “union-busting” prohibition against economic strikers’ voting under the Taft-Hartley Act.
-- They complained about the no man’s land in labor relations caused by arbitrary NLRB rules – but they objected to having the NLRB assume its full jurisdiction.
It is this kind of negative, irresponsible opposition that killed the Kennedy-Ives bill – the opposition of those who wanted either repressive legislation or no legislation at all – those who would rather have a political issue and an old reliable whipping boy. And to be more specific - although I respect the completely nonpartisan character of this convention – the bill was killed by the votes of more than 3/4 of the Republicans while it was supported by more than 2/3 of the Democrats in the House.
What is perhaps most galling of all is the claim made by some Congressman--and the Secretary of Labor--that they favored a more restrictive, repressive labor bill in the name of helping the working man. I am not deceived by these claims – neither are you – neither are any other working men and women. We know what destroying the labor union movement would do to working man who has benefited so much from it.
But if these anti-union forces – if these leaders of the Republican party – were really interested in the rights of the working man, then I must ask them why they did not join me in the effort to get out of committee a bill extending minimum wages to those millions of American working men and women who do not now receive even that fundamental protection of our economy? And where were they when I offered on the Senate floor a bill to protect the income of the working man who has lost his job, but modernizing our unemployment insurance system to enable the average worker’s family to draw decent benefits for a decent period of time?
Where were these self-proclaimed friends of the working man when we were trying to secure a better Social Security program to meet the increased cost of living – when we were seeking a program of aid for our labor surplus areas – when we were trying to initiate a program of assistance for those industries and workers adversely affected by international trade, a program where Dave McDonald has been one of the first and most effective advocates? Where were they when we were trying to increase the budget of the Wage and Hour Division in order to have the minimum wage and Walsh Healey laws adequately enforced?
I can tell you where they were. They were out stirring up the country on behalf of right-to-work laws. They were out to undermine the progress and rights gained by American working men and women over the course of the last generation. They were doing nothing about the recession, nothing about unemployment, nothing about the gap between the increase in corporate profits and the increase in working wages.
I have returned today from a campaign around the country for a Democratic Congress – not with a margin of one or two votes, but with a margin of ten or fifteen votes in the Senate and a proportionate increase in the House. It is that kind of Congress which will actually do the kind of job for the working man Secretary Mitchell and Mr. Nixon and all their associates only piously talk about doing.
This convention, it might be said, marks the coming of age of this great international union – for it was just 21 years ago that the historic contract with “big steel” was signed. Congratulations on an important birthday! And just as our Constitution assumes that all citizens will have learned the value of the voting franchise by the age of 21 – so, too, do I know that the steelworkers in particular have learned the importance of using their ballots and their voices actively. The heritage of Phil Murray and Van Bittner and all the rest will not be easily surrendered or squandered. Nor, I know, are you who have “come of age” going to be easily misled by the hypocritical promises and election-time assurances of the Secretary of Labor and his Republican associates.
When I addressed this convention just two years ago in Los Angeles, I reminded you of a message which is now 48 years old – a message which asks the workers of America to “use your franchise to rebuke and punish those who have been politically untrue. Stand loyally and unflinchingly by those who have done their duty . . . Fraternally yours, Samuel Gompers.”
There is little I can add to that in 1958. As we prepare to elect the 86th Congress of the United States, we who are concerned about the future progress of this nation are confident of your support and your help. We are even more confident that we are going to be successful.
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 901, "United Steel Workers of America Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 18 September 1958." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.