Lumbermen Ait Labor Views Before Senate Committee

Washington, March 4, 1947-300 million board feet of badly needed lumber was not produced in 1946 due to a still unsettled strike in the redwood industry, members of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare were informed today by Fentress Hill, of the Northern Redwood Lumber Company, San Francisco, California. Mr. Hill, in outlining the circumstances surrounding the fourteen month old strike in the Califomia redrvood industry, stressed that the strike, involving more than 4,000 rvorkers and a large percentage of the total production of redwood lumber, had been called over the single issue of the Union Shop.

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"May I make it clear at the outset that this strike rvas not caused by any attempt or desire, on the part of the companies I represent, to break the Union or to avoid collective bargaining," Mr. Hill told the Committee. "On the contrary, all but one of these companies were already operating under contracts with the Union when the strike was called, and there were no disputes that could not.fiave been readily adjusted, excepting the Union leaders' demand for a lJnion shop in lieu of the maintenance of membership clause under which they had been operating."

After a complete shut-down of the mills for a six-month period during which all operator proposals were rejected by union representatives, mills were re-opened behind picket lines. Mr. Hill cited many acts of violence on the part of the union members to halt production in the reopened mills, and to force Union shop contracts on smaller mills. Trains hauling carloads of "hot" lumbdr were stopped by pickets for days at a time. At one time, 60 miles of freight cars, many carrying perishables, were backed up on side tracks as a result of striker intervention. Hundreds of miles from the scene of the strike, lumber yards and housing projects handling and using redwood lumber are being picketed.

Terming the Nation-wide scope of the lJnion's action a ."sinister force" which, if continued with Government acquiescence, would render all industrial property in the United States valueless, Mr. Hill asked that Federal laws be revised to equalizg the rights of employers and nonunion workers lvith those of organized labor.

"This alone would remove much of the present incentive to labor leaders to foment strikes." Mr. Hill testified.

"I am profoundly convinced that just so long as ambitious union leaders have it within their power to enforce compulsory union membership as a condition of employment, by methods now being ernployed, managementlabor relations r,r'ill continue to deteriorate," Mr. Hill concluded.

N{r. Hill's testimony rvas followed by statements of representatives of the tu'o principal west coast lumber producing regions-George Beardmore, representing the Western Pine Lumber Industry, and A. L. Raught, Jr., of the Douglas fir region.

The testimony presented a composite picture of labor relations in the great lumber producing areas of the west and northwest.

NIr. Beardmore, appearing for the Western Pine Industry u'hich produces 24 percent of the Nation's entire softu,ood lumber production, labelled the labor problem in this industry "a Wagner Act problem created by tliat Act and the National Labor Relations Board policies which give labor unfair advantages over an employer, both in organizing and in bargaining. We have seen a demonstration in this country where the 'right' to strike has been carried to the extreme. Instead of a 'right,' it has become an oppression,"

A. L. Raught, Jr., representing the Douglas Fir industry, entered a recommendation for legislation designed "to remove special privileges from labor unions and restore certain freedoms denied management under the Wagner Act." Mr. Raught stressed that "in spite of the tense situation created by double union jurisdiction in our industries, and the periodic races betlveen them to see which union can get the most from employers" his industry was not looking for punitive or "anti-labor" legislation from Congress.

"We do feel strongly, horvever," he said, "that the time has come to remove the special benefits and privileges accorded to labor unions under the protective legislation passed by Congress in the early thirties, and that some of the shackles placed upon employers by federal statutes are due for removal in the public interest'"