Congress of Industrial Organizations

“ Combinations of capital organized into trusts to control the conditions of trade among our citizens, to stifle competition, limit production, and determine the prices of products used and consumed by the people, are justly provoking public discussion, and should early claim the attention of the Congress.
The Industrial Commission, created by the act of the Congress of June 18, 1898, has been engaged in extended hearings upon the disputed questions involved in the subject of combinations in restraint of trade and competition. ”

“ The union of the Factory-Shop Committees of different concerns must be accomplished on the basis of the different trades, in order to facilitate control over the whole branch of industry, so as to come within the general industrial plan; and so as to create an effective plan of distribution among the different factories of orders, raw materials, fuel, technical and labour power; and also to facilitate cooperation with the Trade Unions, which are organised by trades. ”

“ If the evil is taken to be the corruption of national elections and federal officials by the expenditure of large masses of aggregated wealth in their behalf, the statute is neither so phrased nor so limited, even in its legislative construction. Indeed the Government does not explicitly argue corruption per se arising from union expenditures for publication in the same sense as gave rise to the original and later legislation against corporate contributions down to the War Labor Disputes Act of 1943. ”

“ Concerned over the economic impacts of intensifying global competition in the manufacturing sector and facing political fallout from a growing number of high-profile plant closings and mass layoffs, Congress debated a variety of proposals in the late 1970s and early 1980s. ”

“ If the newspaper is prepared and distributed and circulated by means of the expenditure of union funds, then how could a line be drawn between that and political literature or pamphlets or publications of that nature? It is perfectly easy for a labor union to publish lawfully a bona fide newspaper and to charge subscriptions for that newspaper, either by itself or as a corporation. ”

“ Here the restriction in practical effect is prohibition, not regulation, when it is considered with respect to the objects of suppressing corruption and 'undue influence.' It is not a limitation it is a prohibition upon expenditure of union funds in connection with a federal election. Unions can act and speak today only by spending money, as indeed is true of nearly every organization and even of individuals if their action is to be effective. ”

“ It would be well to give the right of appeal to Congress because the industrial parliament would consist of producers and each would have an interest in securing for his industry the largest price possible. It may be feared that a few powerful industries might, by the number of votes they control in the chamber elected proportionately to numbers, secure for itself privileges not fair to other industries. ”

“ From joint committees in individual establishments, meeting at periodical intervals for little more than purposes of conference and consultation, the principle of representation should lead to the establishment of permanent standing joint industrial councils, embracing all the workers and all the employers in a given trade or industry and concerned with the determination of industrial policies, and the fixation of industrial standards enforceable throughout by the co-operation of Government, representing the Community and protecting its interests. ”

“ If it were supported b union funds contributed by union members as union dues it would be a violation of the law, yes. It is exactly as if a railroad itself, using its stockholders' funds, published such an advertisement in the newspaper supporting one candidate as against another. If the paper called Labor is operated independently, if it derives its money from its subscribers, then of course there would be no violation. ”

“ It maintains that large expenditures by unions in publicizing their official political views bring about an undue, that is supposedly a disproportionate sway, of electoral sentiment and official attitudes. In short, the 'bloc' power of unions has become too great, in influencing both the electorate and public officials, to permit further expenditure of their funds in directly and openly publicizing their political views. And the asserted evil is to be uprooted by prohibition of union expenditures as such, not by regulation specifically drawn to meet it. ”

“ There can be little doubt of Congress' power to regulate the making of political contributions and expenditures by labor unions, as well as by other organizations and individuals, in the interest of free and pure elections and the prevention of official corruption, by appropriate measures not trenching on those basic rights. But when regulation or prohibition touches them, this Court is duty bound to examine the restrictions and to decide in its own independent judgment whether they are abridged within the Amendment's meaning. ”

“ These are made up of representatives of trade unions, factory committees, and productive co-operatives, and aim at regulating the economic life of industrial plants using hired labor, the control in each enterprise being effected through the elective bodies of the workmen, together with the representatives of the salaried employes. ”

“ The Government's brief states that the legislative history of the 1943 Act shows that the principal basis of the extension to labor unions, like that of the same and earlier acts applying to corporations, 'was the securing of elections in accordance with the will of the people through removing disproportionate influences exerted by means of large aggregations of money.'↑ Congressional committees investigating campaign expenditures in 1946 and 1947 had recommended that 'expenditures' be added to the prohibition of § 313. ”

“ If a certain candidate was unfriendly to the interests of labor, they would publish a special edition of their paper and would put that special edition into circulation in the area where that candidate was running for office, and would place it in the hands of labor-union members and also in the hands of the public generally. ”

“ The system of worker's participation in the administration of production shall, for the present period, be established in state-owned enterprises. This means that factory administrative committees shall be set up under the leadership of the factory managers. In privately-owned enterprises, in order to carry out the principle of benefitting both labour and capital, collective contracts shall be signed by the trade union, representing the workers and employees, and the employer. ”

“ To the extent they are curtailed the electorate is deprived of information, knowledge and opinion vital to its function. To say that labor unions as such have nothing of value to contribute to that process and no vital or legitimate interest in it is to ignore the obvious facts of political and economic life and of their increasing interrelationship in modern society. ”

“ The organizations into which those engaged in the various industries and services will group themselves, whether trade unions or professional associations, may be made the basis of a further organ of social and economic life.
“Alongside Parliament it may be desirable that there should be a National Industrial Council, composed of representatives of the various organizations of trades and professions into which the persons belonging to each occupation may voluntarily group themselves. ”

“ I said that union funds could not be used for that purpose. They could conduct a newspaper if they wanted to, just as a corporation can conduct a newspaper. But why should a labor organization be able to publish pamphlets or special newspapers against one candidate or in favor of another candidate, using funds which that organization collected from the union members?' (Id. 6436-6437.) ”

“ The trade union committee of a collectively owned enterprise shall support and organize the participation of workers in democratic management and democratic supervision, and defend their powers in electing and removing managerial personnel and deciding on major questions concerning operation and management. ”

“ There is hereby established the Division of Business Cooperation, the function and purpose of which shall be to aid in the voluntary maintenance by trade and industrial groups of standards of fair competition, in the elimination of unfair competition in the employment of labor or in trade practices, and in maintaining sources of information and records of experience useful in the work of the Division of Review, and to otherwise assist in effectuating, so far as possible, the policies of the National Industrial Recovery Act as amended. ”

“ When Congress began to consider the Labor Management Act of 1947 it had as a guide the 1944 presidential election, an election which had been conducted under the above amendment to the Act of 1925. In analyzing the experience of that election, a serious defect was found in the wording of the Act of 1925. The difficulty was that the word 'contribution' was read narrowly by various special congressional committees investigating the 1944 and 1946 campaigns. [17] The concept o 'contribution' was thought to be confined to direct gifts or direct payments. ”

“ Representatives elected by the workers, organized in their industrial organizations, will constitute the industrial parliament of the future, the workers' commune in municipal, national and international affairs. ”

“ If the statute outlaws all union expenditures for expression of political views, it is a bludgeon ill-designed for curbing the evils said to justify its enactment, without also curbing the rights. If the section does less, the exact thing forbidden is too loosely defined and the consequent cloud cast over the things not proscribed but within the Amendment's bearing is far too great. In this aspect and in view of the criminal sanctions imposed, the section serves as a prior restraint upon the freedoms of expression and of assembly the Amendment was designed to secure. ”

“ Our aim is that, for example, one hundred revolutionary organized workers shall have an influence on another nine hundred workers, and it is clear by putting the question in such a way, all limitations of participating in the elections of Factory and Shop Committees do not stand any criticism. The First Congress of the Profintern in its resolutions on the organizational question, opposed all limitations, advocating the idea of creating Factory and Shop Committees through general and equal franchise in the factories and shops. ”

“ American Federation of Radio Artists, supra. It rests upon the presumption that the majority are out of accord with their elected officials in political viewpoint and its expression and, where that presumption is not applicable, it casts the burden of ascertaining minority or individual dissent not upon the dissenters but upon the union and its officials. The former situation may arise, indeed in one notable instance has done so. But that instance hardly can be taken to be a normal or usual case. Unions too must often operate under the electoral process and the principle of majority rule. ”

“ During the whole of this century, in fact, the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, and the Congress itself, have failed to grapple with the work that calls out to be done by some national organisation of the Trade Union world. ”

“ Vagueness and uncertainty so vast and all-pervasive seeking to restrict or delimit First Amendment freedoms are wholly at war with the long-established constitutional principles surrounding their delimitation. They measure up neither to the requirement of narrow drafting to meet the precise evil sought to be curbed nor to the one that conduct proscribed must be defined with sufficient specificity not to blanket large areas of unforbidden conduct with doubt and uncertainty of coverage. ”

“ In order that a contest may fairly invite adjudication it is not necessary that the parties should be personally inimical to one another. On the other hand, the fact that the outward form of a litigation has not been contrived by pre-arrangement of the parties does not preclude want of a real contest whc h is essential to this Court's exercise of its function, one of 'great gravity and delicacy', in passing upon the validity of an act of Congress. ”

“ With those objects in mind as throwing light on the section's coverage under the broad language employed, we turn to the legislative history on that subject. The Government centers the discussion, both on coverage and on constitutionality, around the 'minority protection' objective. And the legislative discussion, taking place almost exclusively in the Senate and dominated largely by the Labor Management Act's sponsor in that body, also took this purpose as the central theme. ”

“ Green can talk all he wants to, if he pays for his own time or if the members of the union desire to make individual contributions for such a purpose. For another thing, most unions operate and manage newspapers, and the most of them are maintained by advertisements or by subscriptions from members of the union and from other sources. The proceeds from such newspapers are not union funds. ”

“ What is a forbidden because a political comment? [31] What sorts of union activities outside of publishing a newspaper with unsegregated funds would fall under the ban? [32]
The catalogue of doubt and uncertainty need not be extended. Throughout the preceding discussion, both of coverage and of validity, instances have been noted which demonstrate its encyclopedic scope. The case is not one where a hard core of certain prohibition has been formed, with only a fringe of doubt narrow in scope at its outer boundary. ”