Supt ree 6-24-35 LABOR DISPUTES ACT WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 1935 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 10 a. m., Hon. William P. Connery, Jr. (chairman), presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. The other members will be in shortly. We do not want to lose any time, so the Senator can have all of the time that he wants. The bill that is before us this morning that these hearings are being held on, are H. R. 6288, the Connery bill in the House, which is exactly similar to the bill which Senator Wagner previously introduced in the Senate. (The bill under consideration is as follows:) [H. R. 6288, 74th Cong., 1st sess.] A BILL To promote equality of bargaining power between employers and employees, to diminish the causes of labor disputes, to create a National Labor Relations Board, and for other purposes Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, DECLARATION OF POLICY SECTION 1. Equality of bargaining power between employers and employees is not attained when the organization of employers in the corporate and other forms of ownership association is not balanced by the free exercise by employees of the right to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing. Experience has proved that in the absence of such equality the resultant failure to maintain equilibrium between the rate of wages and the rate of industrial expansion impairs economic stability and aggravates recurrent depressions, with consequent detriment to the general welfare and to the free flow of commerce. Denials of the right to bargain collectively lead also to strikes and other manifestations of economic strife, which create further obstacles to the free flow of commerce. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to remove obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to provide for the general welfare by encouraging the practice of collective bargaining, and by protecting the exercise by the worker of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of his employment or their mutual aid or protection. DEFINITIONS SEC. 2. When used in this Act 66 (1) The term person includes one or more individuals, partnerships, associations, corporations, legal representatives, trustees, trustees in bankruptcy, or receivers. (2) The term "employer" includes any person acting in the interest of an employer, directly or indirectly, but shall not include the United States, or 1 |