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Not in Public Interest

Click to see original imageThe verbal exchange the other day between Labor Secretary Ray Marshall and Utah’s Sen. Orrin G. Hatch gave a clear glmpse of battle lines drawn in the fight over the controversial common situs picketing bill in Congress. The bill would permit striking construction workers to picket and possibly shut down — an entire project in a dispute with a single subcontractor. Secy. Marshall, who was questioned before the Senate Labor Committee, said President Carter has agreed to sign the bill if passed by Congress. Following a long fight by labor interests, Congress passed the bill during the previous administration but President Ford vetoed it. This year, it appears the measure again will be pushed very hard on Capitol Hill – and the move has the added impetus of the President’s apparent support. This despite: (1) Such picketing was ruled an illegal secondary boycott by the Supreme Court 25 years ago; and (2) a new nationwide opinion study by the Roper Poll, commissioned and released by the National Right to Work Committee, indicated over threefourths of the American People feel building trades should not have the power to picket an entire construction site. Marshall portrayed the situs picketing bill as a vehicle to bring economic stability to the construction industry. It seems rather vague how this result would be accomplished. Certainly the contractors groups which oppose it take the opposite view. Sen. Hatch (R-Utah) and Sen. S. I. Hayakawa (R-Calif.) who questioned Marshall insisted the measure would protect violence, feather-bedding and discrimination by the nation’s building trade unions. Sen. Hatch pictured the bill as a prelude to labor’s efforts to win repeal of Section 14B of the Taft Hartley Act which allows states to prohibit union shops. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO declared the opponents were motivated by a desire to destroy the country’s labor movement. “Their stand is based upon their opposition to organized labor and to their fear that a stronger union movement will curtail their opportunities to secure contracts by undercutting wage and labor standards,” argued Robert Georgine, head of the AFL-CIO Building Trades Departments. The public has a big stake in the controversy. To us, the policy of giving striking workers the power of shutting down an entire project because of a dispute with one subcontractor doesn’t seem fair – nor in keeping with the public interest. We urge that Congress reject the common situs picketing bill.