Moving Hot Cargo

Mauled by the heaviest labor-lobby attack since the 1947 "slave labor" campaign against Taft-Hartley, the 30-man House Committee on Education and Labor last week approved a labor-reform bill that was even milder than the Kennedy-Ervin bill sent over from the Senate more than three months ago. G.O.P. Leader Charlie Halleck, coming from a White House conference, called the bill "a diluted version of a watered-down bill," thus fired the opening shot in the battle to force the Democratic majority in Congress to pass a strong bill or take the blame for none at all.

But tough Politico Charlie Halleck knew that the issues were not all that black or white. Key Democrats of the labor committee, in voting out the bill that he called "watered down," had marched uphill into the muzzles of Big Labor's biggest guns in one of the 86th Congress' bloodiest unsung battles. And it was Charlie Halleck himself who had provided six extra votes to push them over the top.

"We Can't Live." The wildest attempt to shoot down the bill came from Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters and their lobbyist, Sid Zagri (TIME, July 27), but the quiet power play came from none other than A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany himself. Making a personal trip to Speaker Sam Rayburn's office last fortnight, cigar-chomping George Meany growled out the facts of life as he saw them. Labor, longtime friend of the Democrats, could not live with the bill as it was being written, he warned. "We can't live with the hot-cargo clause; we can't live with the organizational picketing amendment."

Texas Democrat Rayburn told Meany some other facts of life: the American people are thoroughly aroused about labor scandals, and will not tolerate inaction or empty gestures on the part of the Democratic majorities in both houses. At stake in the labor bill, said Mr. Sam, is nothing less than the 1960 congressional elections, perhaps the party's hope for the presidency. Therefore, snapped the Speaker with cold-eyed sternness, the labor bill would have teeth, among them the two that Meany felt most painful.

"Road to Ruin." Meany and his union brass got a better reception from Mr. Sam's No. 1 House boy, Democratic Floor Leader John McCormack of Massachusetts. McCormack (67) is ambitious to succeed Mr. Sam (77) as House Speaker, is wary of rising competition from Missouri's youthful (43) Richard Boiling, who has been Mr. Sam's quarterback on labor-bill strategy. McCormack covertly began to work for Meany. Good Democrats should never split on labor issues, he soothingly told the Rayburn loyalists on the committee, and "Don't follow the Speaker down this road to ruin." As some of the Rayburn Democrats swayed, McCormack threw open support to a skeleton substitute bill drawn up by California's Teamster-tempted Jimmy Roosevelt.

At the critical committee session, Arizona's Stewart Udall and New Jersey's Frank Thompson Jr. rallied the ten Rayburn Democrats behind the relatively adequate committee bill. They teamed themselves with Republicans, sometimes with union-bloc Democrats to kill off seven substitute bills offered in fast succession. In the final vote, Republican Boss Halleck provided six Republicans to side with the Rayburn Democrats (with still another Republican safetyman ready to switch if necessary) and vote out the committee bill 16 to 14.

Cold, Cold House. The victory was important because it ranged the traditionally pro-labor House committee against Big Labor, and held the line against a worthless substitute bill. But the committee bill itself was now out in the cold, cold House where most Republicans and conservative Democrats intend to try to toughen it in three principal areas:

RANK & FILE RIGHTS: The committee bill provides civil court injunctions for bullyboy union bosses who deprive members of voting rights, use other undemocratic procedures; the Senate's KennedyErvin bill provides for criminal penalties (up to $10,000 fine, one year in jail).

ORGANIZATIONAL PICKETING: The committee bill prohibits picketing of a company already organized by a bona fide union, or within nine months after an NLRB election, but does nothing about other forms of "blackmail picketings." The Administration wants to prohibit all picketing designed to blackmail an employer into bargaining with a union when his employees do not request an election.

SECONDARY BOYCOTTS : The committee bill forbids unions, i.e., the Teamsters, to write contracts prohibiting management from handling so-called hot cargo--cargo from firms having labor trouble. The Administration wants a broad ban on all kinds of secondary boycotts.

In trying to strengthen the bill, Halleck and his allies will gain strength from the same argument that Rayburn used on labor's Meany: the American people mean business about labor racketeering, and they want a tough bill. The only question between them is how tough?

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