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 of 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. John L. Lewis may not approve of even the original Kennedy bill, as endorsed by the AFL-CIO – but I make no apologies for that legislation.
The Labor Bill and Investigations
I do not say that the bill as it finally passed the Senate was perfect in every respect. Certainly I do not blame the AFL-CIO for trying to change some of the amendments added on the Senate Floor. Certainly I share their regret that the reasonable, fair, and responsible bill reported by the Senate Labor Committee – worked out carefully with President Meany and his lawyers, and supported by the Executive Council – was altered, undesirably and unfortunately altered, on the Floor of a supposedly friendly Senate. But that debate – and the vote on the so-called McClellan Bill of Rights Amendment – showed you and me the political facts of life which confronted us. And when that Amendment carried by a one vote margin, we were forced to go on the defensive to prevent the anti-labor forces from completely taking over.
It is easy to say that none of this would have happened had there been no Kennedy labor bill at all, going back to 1958 – or to accuse George Meany and the Executive Council of making a tactical error in supporting responsible reform legislation in 1958 and 1959. But remember, if you will, that our only other alternative last year was to accept the Knowland Bill of Rights. Let us not forget that we succeeded in defeating those repressive amendments on the Senate Floor only because Senator Morse and I gave our assurance that a reform bill would be forthcoming from our committee; and the AFL-CIO Executive Council agreed there had to be a bill.
In short, there was a vacuum there, which the Knowlands and the Goldwaters and the Mundts were determined to fill – and it was my responsibility, as chairman of the Labor Subcommittee to see that we reported a bill aimed at hoodlums and racketeers, not at collective bargaining. So I could only be gratified by the fact that in both years my bill has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, attacked by Mr. Hoffa on the one hand, attacked by the NAM [National Association of Manufacturers] and the Chamber of Commerce on the other – and co-sponsored both years by the man who is probably the most distinguished labor law expert in the Senate, Oregon's senior Senator Wayne Morse.
So I repeat: I have no apologies. I do not say these have been easy assignments, working on the bill and serving on the McClellan Committee. There have been unpleasant occasions – there have been mistakes on both sides – and there have been some disagreements among friends. There has been a tendency among some people to lump in one confusing indictment both the Kennedy brothers, all the labor bills and all the McClellan Committee investigations. I could have avoided service on the McClellan Committee - as others did. I could have left the Labor Committee – as others did – for a less sensitive assignment. But bear in mind the fact that, along with Senator McNamara – later succeeded by Senator Church – we constituted a small minority on the McClellan Committee. To leave the Committee – or to abandon efforts in my own Committee for a bill – would have simply turned the field over to the Goldwaters, the Mundts and the coalition of Republicans, aided by a small group of Democrats, who still control the Senate on these critical issues (as they did just ten days ago in recommitting my bill to repeal the Loyalty Oath).
The danger now is that this same kind of Republican-Southern Democratic coalition in the House of Representatives will substitute for a responsible Committee bill, an anti-labor, unworkable, punitive measure – and I hope you are lending your efforts to prevent that.
I did not intend to take this much of your time in presenting my own credentials – and 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 ⅟₁₀₀ 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.
The Role of Management
It is easier, I know, for the press and public to play up the misdeeds of the few hoodlums who have infiltrated the labor movement. But if that is true, then it is high time they also played up the findings of the McClellan Committee concerning the misdeeds of management and the business community. It is time that the public recognized the employers' responsibility for labor-management racketeering. Our committee found numerous employers, large and small, collaborating in these racketeering practices – preventing legitimate unions from entering their plants – using mobsters to force their competitors out of business – financing the racketeers and their illicit operations in order to obtain their help in breaking strikes. I think it is clear that we are not going to get rid of the Dave Becks and the Jimmy Hoffas in this country until we get rid of the Nathan Sheffermans.
The NAM and the Chamber of Commerce do not like the Kennedy bill as it was reported by the Senate Labor Committee – they do not like the bill which Congresswoman Green has helped report in the House Labor Committee – they do not even like the bill in the form in which it passed the Senate. I think it ought to be obvious by now that they do not really want any bill at all unless it completely paralyzes labor at the bargaining table. They are not interested in penalizing irresponsible racketeers – they are interested only in penalizing responsible labor leaders. They want either repressive legislation or no legislation at all. They are more interested in breaking the power of unions at the bargaining table than they are in breaking the power of hoodlums.
They don't want racketeering to be eliminated. They would rather have a political issue – an old reliable whipping boy. They want a legislative vacuum, which they can then fill at the Federal and state level with the worst repressive measures you have ever seen. Despite the results of last fall, they are still talking about so-called "right-to-work" legislation. And I want to make it unalterably clear once again that I am now, always have been and always will be completely opposed to "right-to-work" legislation in any form at any level.
New Issues
We face these same hostile forces on a number of other issues of importance to labor, as you know. I realize that there are some cynics, to be sure, who say that there is no longer any need for such action. They say that there are no longer any major issues – that the battles of the past have all been won – and that the American public in general, and our workers in particular, can now sit back and enjoy what they have achieved during the past 30 years.
But I am certain that no one in this hall agrees with that analysis. For the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won and the issues are not all gone.
On the contrary, our agenda today is, if anything, even longer than it was in the 1930's. We have not yet eliminated the malignant effects of poverty, injustice and illness from the land. We can be encouraged by the recent trend toward reduction in unemployment but we can feel no elation while nearly four million people are still searching for work – and those that are still able to receive unemployment compensation checks must get by on an average benefit check of less than $31 a week. We have not yet met the needs of nearly seven million families, in this the richest land on earth, still trying to get by on less than $2,000 a year. We have not yet met the needs of some fifteen million families housed under what the Bureau of the Census classifies as substandard conditions – of nearly seventeen million persons who are unable to purchase enough food to achieve a bare subsistence diet. We have not yet ended the waste of our natural resources – reversed the decay that is blighting so many of our major cities – or, most tragic of all, found the means of stopping man's destruction of man.
Far from being a period of resting on past achievements, the period which lies ahead confronts the American economy with an unprecedented challenge. We can no longer invoke the solutions of the past – the programs and the policies which served us so well during the last generation. For now, once again, the age of consolidation is over – and, once again, the age of change and challenge has come upon us. We are faced with a whole new set of problems – a whole new set of dimensions. We are approaching the day of a two hundred million population, a six hundred billion dollar gross national product, a trillion dollar economy. We are at the edge of this nation's greatest age of expansion, growth, and abundance – at the edge of a new era for our nation, our world, and all mankind.
This Congress – the Democratic 86th Congress – must lay the groundwork for the next 25 years – just as the 73rd Congress in 1933, during the first 90 days of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, laid the groundwork for the generation that followed.
And there are three items in particular requiring action by the Congress to make certain that this great new abundance which lies ahead – this unparalleled prosperity – is shared by all Americans. There are three gaps – serious gaps – in income protection; and those who fall into those gaps must look to the Congress for assistance. I am talking about the unemployed – the aged and retired – and the unorganized workers who are unable to receive even a decent minimum wage.
Increasing the Minimum Wage
There are those who say we cannot afford to increase minimum wages to $1.25 an hour and that we cannot afford to extend the law any further – and, with the co-sponsorship of Senator Morse, I have introduced the bill to carry out these obligations, and hope to report it to the Floor next week. But I am convinced that we cannot afford to do less. Department of Labor statistics show that the average single worker, much less a family man, cannot survive on a wage of $1 an hour. Department of Labor statistics show that, since the dollar level was set four years ago, prices have risen substantially, productivity has risen substantially, and wage rates have risen substantially. But the head of that Department, the Republican Secretary of Labor, nevertheless came before our Subcommittee this summer and opposed paying all American workers a decent wage. Substandard wages, inevitably, mean poor health, low efficiency, and great personal tragedies. This is what America cannot afford. Our greatest asset in the race for industrial supremacy is a strong, healthy, vital labor force. Our greatest handicap would be an ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-clothed labor force.
Unions such as yours cannot assume the full burden. The unprotected, unorganized workers at the bottom of the economic scale can only look to the Congress for protection – and Congress must provide that protection this year in the Kennedy-Morse bill.
Strengthening Unemployment Insurance
If we are to meet the challenge of the future we must also modernize our unemployment insurance system. When enacted, it provided benefits to workers large enough and long enough to enable them to pay their rent, their grocery bills, and their doctor bills until work could be found. It was intended to put back into the community at least 50 percent of the loss in wage payments.
But a schedule of unemployment compensation payments that was adequate 21 years ago is grossly inadequate today. Less than 20 percent of lost wages is replaced today. Whatever data you may hear about prosperity, there has been a disturbing increase in the number of persons without a job for four months or longer. In many states that means the complete exhaustion of meager benefits and reliance upon either the bounty of relatives or public assistance. That is not the choice we should offer in a country with the highest industrial capacity in the world. Along with Senator McCarthy of Minnesota, I have introduced a bill to give all unemployed workers at least one-half their pay for at least 39 weeks. I believe in our programs of foreign aid and mutual security – but we should also take care of our own. And the place to begin is by enacting decent nationwide standards for unemployment compensation.
Improving Care of the Aged
Third and finally is the challenge offered by the increasing number of older persons in our population. The death rate in this country has been cut in half during the twentieth century. In 1900, a baby girl born into a nation where influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis and typhoid still took a high toll – where public sanitation was rare, nutrition was inadequate, and medical science was barely underway – could expect to live some 48 years. Today she could expect to live to the age of 73 – and soon 10 percent of our population will be over the age of 65.
But their social security checks have been eaten away by inflation – their chronic illnesses are not covered by group insurance. Their housing needs are unmet. Those still able to work are the first to be fired and the last to be re-hired. They are, in the words of the song, "too old to work and too young to die." The treatment of its older citizens is said by anthropologists to be one of the most basic tests of how civilized a society or nation has become. Surely the rich, powerful, democratic United States of America is not going to fail that test.
These three items are, of course, only the beginning of our agenda. But the important thing now is to get started. This is no time for mere oratory instead of action. This is no time for halfway measures – for inaction or inertia. It is a time to move ahead – to meet the challenge of the future – to remember the words of Justice Holmes – that "whether we sail with the wind or against the wind, we must above all set sail – and not drift or lie at anchor."
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 904, "AFL-CIO convention, Seaside, Oregon, 3 August 1959." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.