Senator MORSE. That always has a bearing on the national emergency character--

Mr. CHING. Yes.

Senator MORSE. And then you have your injunctive period under the existing law, and the Presidential fact-finding board at work, with the legislative restriction of not being allowed to make recommendation, although I think some of them have done a remarkably subtle job in their report; but they are not supposed to make recomendations.

Now, as I understand your report, you are of the opinion that the prohibition against restrictions should be left in, and the discretion to make or not make recommendations should be left with the factfinding board.

Mr. CHING. Yes.

Senator MORSE. With which I am in complete sympathy.

Now, after that fact-finding board has made its report, the injunction lifts, does it not, after the cooling-off period has passed?

Mr. CHING. Under our existing law, the NLRB has 20 days, after the 60 days, in which to make its report, and after that the injunction is automatically lifted.

Senator MORSE. And the men are free to strike?

Mr. CHING. Yes.

Senator MORSE. And in some instances they have done so, the maritime case being the most noteworthy example.

Now, the question of national health and safety is just as important at that point as it was at the beginning, is it not?

Mr. CHING. It is.

Senator MORSE. But all that can happen then, under the existing law, is for the President to make a recommendation to the Congress

Mr. CHING. Right.

Senator MORSE. As to what action he may wish to take or wish the Congress to take.

Of course, in the maritime situation, the Congress was not even in session, was it?

As far as I know, we have not had a report on that case yet from the President.

Mr. CHING. I don't know whether the President has made a report. I think he has made a report. I do not know.

Senator MORSE. I doubt it. You may check that, but I do not think we have it.

I suppose he might say, with some merit, in view of the fact that the strike was finally settled, it would be very moot for him to submit a report at this late date, with which I disagree.

I still think, under the present provisions of the Taft-Hartley law, we ought to have a Presidential report, because the purpose of those Presidential reports, among other things, is to inform the public as to exactly what happened, as the President saw it, and I think such reports could lay a precedential foundation for future cases. Be that as it may, what I am trying to draw out from this examination is that, as you have indicated in your report, under the existing emergency provisions of the Taft-Hartley law we can get into a situation where we can have a very costly strike after running the gamut of all the provisions of the present bill, and so, to that extent, it would

seem to have the present bill-some false teeth in it, too, would it not?

Mr. CHING. There is no question but that you come to the place. where a strike can go on with the same devastating effect that would occur if the strike had taken place before any action was taken by the Government.

Senator MORSE. Therefore, if a union is strong enough-and I think we would want strong unions-if the union is strong enough under the existing law to hold its men together and wait for the fact-finding report and still remain adamant, you can have a strike in spite of the antiparalysis phrase of the Taft-Hartley law.

Mr. CHING. That is quite true.

Senator MORSE. Now, let's go into the question of the strike itself. Did you take the position that in so-called national emergency cases, the right to strike should be absolutely prohibited?

Mr. CHING. I stated previously that I will think out loud for the committee. I am not making any recommendation. I would like to explore that.

When you deny the right to strike, then it seems to me that the Government is obligated to set up suitable machinery so that the people who are denied the right to strike may have the same opportunity that they would have under collective bargaining, to have, say, their side of the case explored; so, that presupposes, and again I am thinking out loud that presupposes some form of compulsory arbitration.

Well, assume that you have compulsory arbitration, and you have an award of the arbitration board, and one side or the other will not comply with the award. What do we do then?

You are in the same place then as you were before.

I do not know what the answer is.

Senator MORSE. That is the question I was trying to get to, What do you do there?

Mr. CHING. You don't use an injunction, then a certain time period runs out, then you're faced with that situation-what do you do? You do use an injunction, and if a substantial portion of people, a sufficiently large group of people should say, "We won't obey this injunction"-what do you do then?

Those are the questions that always come up in any exploration of this subject, and frankly I do not know.

Senator MORSE. Do you think we ought to put them in the Army? Mr. CHING. I think we have to be extremely careful that we do not expose the impotency of democracy. I think we have to work through democratic channels, that is, still do it as much as possible by persuasion.

Senator MORSE. In other words, we have to stay within the framework of public opinion and keep both parties constantly aware of the fact that in the long run, although they may win an individual strike or lock-out, if they lose public opinion, they lose their case.

Well, now, I want to deal for a moment on the meaning of health and safety in these national emergency disputes, because I think it is a phrase that is being very glibly used in America as an over-all excuse in so-called national emergency labor disputes, to have the Government step in and take whatever forceful action is necessary

to maintain normal operations of economy. That is the premise I question.

If you will bear with me for a moment, and I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, to take so much time, but I know of no other tribunal or forum where we can secure from a witness as able as this one, what I think will be a worth-while opinion on this problem.

Let us take a utilities case, where this law has been enforced, and still a strike occurs, to the great detriment of a city.

If you are going to use Government compulsion to protect the national health and safety, do you think, Mr. Ching, that the Government should take those actions necessary and at least try to maintain complete economic life of the community as it existed prior to the strike, or should it take those steps necessary to simply operate those facilities of the city necessary to protect health and safety?

Mr. CHING. Well, if I understand your question, Senator Morse, you say: If it were necessary, in the case of a large electric light company, to take over, should the Government only operate sufficient of the facilities to take care of, we will say, the hospitals, and so forth? Was that the type of question?

Senator MORSE. Yes.

Mr. CHING. I would not have an opinion. I think it would depend pretty largely on what the situation is. I am thinking again of this situation that confronted us recently in New York, where we had a tugboat strike there, with 12,000,000 people that might be affected, and affected very seriously, if that strike had taken place.

There was the question of fuel, and some of the food supply, and so forth.

I assume, in that kind of a case, you could distinguish-I assume that in that kind of a case you could say, "All right, the Government will operate sufficient to furnish fuel to maybe schools and hospitals and homes to the extent that it is necessary."

And I assume you could draw some line there, but I think it depends pretty largely on the kind of a case it is.

Senator MORSE. It absolutely depends on the fact of each individual

case.

What I am trying to draw out by this examination is, if we start with the premise that labor shall be preserved in its right to strike, then the public has to get it out of its head that labor can exercise that right without public inconvenience and injury; that that right, itself, is going to be recognized as a right of freedom, it is not one that can be granted with the public not suffering some inconvenience as the result of it.

It seems to me that sometimes in these matters of national emergency dispute cases, the public seems to take the attitude that although labor shall have the right to strike, it can do nothing to inconvenience the public. To me those are just irreconciliable concepts, because the purpose of the strike is to bring economic power to bear, both on the employer and, in some degree let us say frankly, upon the public in an endeavor to get the public to start giving some heed and attention to the causes of the strike.

If that is not one of the purposes of the strike, I don't know what the purpose is.

Let me press it a bit further. If we have to render a judgment, as a government, in a national emergency dispute, then it is not the ob

ligation of the Government, if it is really going to protect the right to strike, not to take any action favorable to the employer which will break the strike, over and beyond taking the action that the Government ought to take to protect the public interest and health and safety?

Mr. CHING. I don't think the Government should go beyond protecting the health and safety of the people.

Senator MORSE. You can define it in an individual case by a factual analysis. That, at least, ought to be the principle the Government should follow.

Mr. CHING. That is, under the emergency powers, I am now talking about.

Senator MORSE. Let's look at the restriction on the right to strike during the 80-day period.

Do you think it is true that one of the reasons for labor's resentment against the 80-day cooling off period, so-called, is that under the present procedures of the act, the Government says to labor: "You must work for a period of time under the direction and the orders of the employer, or go to jail for contempt." And labor says: "We think that interferes with an inalienable right to work as we choose." Mr. CHING. I have heard that statement made.

Senator MORSE. That labor expresses that feeling?
Mr. CHING. Yes.

Senator MORSE. Now, mark you, I am not arguing that the Government should not exercise a strong arm if necessary, to protect the public interest when any group, labor or any other, endangers the national health and safety. I have always taken the position, in decision after decision, that labor has to exercise its right to strike in a manner commensurate with the public health and safety. But, we need to redefine some of our conceptions of health and safety. To the extent that Government comes in by way of an injunction and says, "For this period of time, you must not strike, or if you must exercise your right to strike, it must be done in accordance with these restrictions," doesn't the Government have a corollary duty to say to the employer-unless you are willing to assume it is always labor's fault. in these cases, and I have yet to see one of those that "To the same extent that we exercise control over labor and interfere with its rights, so, too, are we going to interfere with your right as a property owner, in this instance, and you are going to lose some of your rights for a corresponding period of time"?

Mr. CHING. I am afraid, Senator, that you are trying to make me overstep what I said before, that I did not want to get into controversial subjects, and now you are on a highly controversial subject. Senator MORSE. I am sorry.

Mr. CHING. I am not trying to evade the answer.

Senator MORSE. I mean it when I say, and I have said it before, that there is no man whose judgment I would rather have than yours. Mr. CHING. Thank you.

Senator MORSE. And I think I have got my fingers on a very important point here.

If the Congress really means to balance the equities and interests in these cases, because I think I know something about labor's resentment to the injunctive process, unless the result of the exercise of the injunctive process in a national emergency case also is detrimental to

the employer, you are never going to overcome labor's resentment to the injunctive features of the Taft-Hartley law.

Mr. CHING. We had one interesting case, in the case of the Oak Ridge atomic energy operation, where it was the employer who was forcing the issue and the employer was trying to change the conditions. That was the sole issue in the case, so the injunction maintaining the status quo prevented the employer in that case from making the changes the employer desired.

Senator TAFT. It worked both ways?
Mr. CHING. It worked both ways.

Senator MORSE. Yes; it does.

Mr. CHING. In that kind of a case it does.

Senator MORSE. That is the whole approach I am trying to make, in the law we are striving to draft. I want to see that all this procedure works both ways, and I want to stay, as much as we can, within the framework of voluntarism, mediation and conciliation and arbitration, with the Government saying "You must" in only the most extraordinary circumstances, but reserving a clear right of Government to say "must," if necessary, to both sides.

I want to participate here this morning in a conversation with you of past experiences on a similar case during the wartime, but I think you would agree with me, Mr. Ching, that there is one thing we did. on the War Labor Board: When we stepped in, on a so-called emergency case, we stepped in on the necks of both sides.

Mr. CHING. I quite agree with you.

Senator MORSE. And we were criticized for it. It is an awful power, and even to talk about the exercise of such power, I am going to be one that insists that it works both ways.

Leaving that subject for a moment, let me ask you a question about measuring the efficiency of your Service as an independent agency, as contrasted with the agency when it was a part of the Department of Labor.

Do you know of any quantitative formula that can be devised to measure the qualitative efficiency of your Service?

Mr. CHING. I think it is extremely difficult, Senator, to get any statistics that would mean much. We will see what we can get.

We

Now, I am basing my opinion on this: I think it is fair to assume that if you will increase salaries, you get better people, and you would probably improve the quality of the people you have when they are better paid. We increased salaries in the Service on a new scale. have not added any more people. I think we are doing the work, as much work as was done before on a case-load basis, and I think it is done in my opinion a little bit more effectively because I think the work that is being done now by our men is being done in a way that when a thing is settled and they go away, it is with the idea of leaving a better relationship between the parties. That is one of the first things I insisted upon when I came in the Service-not to get a case settled, that didn't mean a thing, but on the basis that better relationships were established and then you would not have to go back again. That was an important contribution, and I think more and more that is being done, and the only way I can adjudge of that is from discussions from men all over the country, and I will read the record on that, those contacts with the Service over the country.