Mr. MURDOCK. So in order to have the election mean anything, as I understand your policy, you must determine that complaint case first.

Mr. FAHY. That is right, that is the policy.

Mr. TOLAND. Let me comment on that there, that this union was not involved in the complaint case.

Mr. MURDOCK. You mean the A. F. of L.?

Mr. TOLAND. No, sir; it was a charge against an independent union. That had nothing to do with the right of this union under the law and under the statute that asked the relief of this Board and to be certified.

Mr. MURDOCK. Let me ask this question. Would the independent union be in the election picture?

Mr. FAHY. Exactly, that is the point, you see.

Mr. MURDOCK. That is the point that I am trying to develop, that you have got the C. I. O., the A. F. of L., and an independent union all in the election picture. That complaint case is filed, as it was, against either the A. F. of L., the C. I. O., or the independent union, pending the election that should be disposed of prior to holding the election.

Mr. TOLAND. As I have maintained from the beginning, the matter of conclusions to be drawn is a matter that rests upon the committee. All I want to say

Acting Chairman HEALEY (interposing). Mr. Toland, let me interrupt right there, that in the opinion of the Chair what you have just said is perfectly true. We have developed into an argumentative situation here, and these are facts which you gentlemen have just recited, I believe, or rather your conclusions may be drawn from the facts.

Mr. FAHY. I think it is within the factual

Acting Chairman HEALEY (interposing). That may be related. Mr. Toland has put in the chronology of the case, and he has corrected him in one or two instances.

Mr. TOLAND. I have stated them correctly.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. He has supplied some additional information.

Mr. TOLAND. That is all.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. I think we ought to go on from here

now.

Mr. MURDOCK. Mr. Chairman, I don't know whether it is the Chair's intention to class my statement here as argumentative. It was certainly not intended as such, but I was in the dark as to just what the status of this thing was, and for my own enlightenment, was trying to get the facts.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. The Chair gladly absolves you from stating a question as argumentative.

Mr. Fahy, what further do you want to say?

Mr. FAHY. Would this be a proper point to refer on the record to the citations of the Board's decision in the two cases?

Mr. TOLAND. All right; yes.

Mr. FAHY. In the complaint case which is now pending in the court, the decision of the Board appears in volume IX at pages 701 et seq. volume IX, N. L. R. B., and the decision of the Board in the

representation case under which these elections were ordered appears in the same volume IX, N. L. R. B., pages 742 et seq.

Then the supplementary decisions in the "R" case, volume X, N. L. R. B., page 65; XI, N. L. R. B., page 63.

Now, in answer to Mr. Toland's inquiry about the filing of the record in the complaint case, the petition for review, I think he said, was filed January 4, 1939.

Mr. TOLAND. Right.

Mr. FAHY. And the Board filed the record with the court March 1,

1939.

I can give you some reasons for the delay that may be argumentative, but all you asked me was whether the record had been filed. The record has been filed.

Mr. TOLAND. That is all.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. The Chair would like to ask just one question of the witness. When the election was held in this case, did all three unions appear on the ballot?

Mr. GILL. No, sir.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. The C. I. O., the A. F. of L., and the independent union?

Mr. GILL. No, sir.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. How many did, sir?
Mr. GILL. Two, sir.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. Which were they?

Mr. GILL. The C. I. O. and the A. F. of L.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. Do you know why the independent union was not on the ballot?

Mr. GILL. Yes; the C. I. O. protested their eligibility, I believe, because they were supposed to be a company-dominated union.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. And the Board so held in that case?
Mr. GILL. Yes, sir.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. That is all. Go on.

Mr. TOLAND. I would like to point out in that connection that the election was not held on the petition filed by the American Federation of Labor union on the 2d day of February, 1938 until the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 15th day of January, 1939, even after the petition that was filed by the respondent in the "C" case in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and in which there had been no action or decision by the Board in that case.

Mr. FAHY. By the courts, you mean?

Mr. TOLAND. Mr. Gill, would you tell the committee briefly what you know of your own knowledge as to the condition that exists in the plant with respect to the members of your organization now as the result of the recent order of this Board to order a run-off election, and at which time your name is not to appear-that is, the name of your organization is not to appear on the ballot-and the effect that it is having on the members of your organization at the present time? Mr. GILL. Our members definitely don't like that. They feel they are being discriminated against. They have a right to feel that way. We think we should be on that ballot, and we feel that we are going to be on that ballot eventually, some way or another. This is certainly not a fair trial or a fair application of the Wagner Act in any sense

of the word. Here are two unions with almost the identical number of votes. It is a matter of simply 90 votes difference.

Mr. TOLAND. May I state for the record right there the total vote? Acting Chairman HEALEY. All right.

Mr. TOLAND. In the election January 1939 there were 2,806 votes out of a total number of 2,977 employees. Of these, 1,072 voted for the I. B. E. W., affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, and 1,164 voted for the U. W. O. C., affiliated with the C. I. O.

Now, as the result of the order

Acting Chairman HEALEY (interposing). Do you mind stating for the record the number that voted for Neither?

Mr. TOLAND. It doesn't show.

Mr. MURDOCK. I didn't get the number that voted for the A. F. of L. Mr. TOLAND. One thousand and seventy-two, and one thousand one hundred and sixty-four for U. W. O. C. I have the complete tabulation here.

Mr. GILL. Five hundred and six, I believe.

Mr. TOLAND. Five hundred and six votes were cast for Neither, fifty-two challenged ballots, one blank, and eleven void ballots. Acting Chairman HEALEY. Now we have the full result?

Mr. TOLAND. Yes, sir.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. All right.

All right, Mr. Fahy.

Mr. FAHY. I am sorry, Mr. Toland, but I think another fact should be called attention to before going on with another line of inquiry. You stated, as I understood you, that the election was held not on the petition of the A. F. of L. but on the petition

Mr. TOLAND (interposing). I said the election, held on the petition of A. F. of L., was not held until the 10th day of January, 1939. Mr. FAHY. I thought you said it was not held on the petition of the A. F. of L.

Mr. TOLAND. No.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. No allegation has been made to that effect, Mr. Fahy, and the committee will draw their conclusions based on these facts.

Mr. FAHY. This is a plain question of fact.

Mr. TOLAND. Will you tell this committee the statements that are being made to the employees, within your own knowledge, by the representatives of the U. W. O. C. in connection with the proposed run-off election that is to be held as the result of the order of this Board of February 16, 1940?

Mr. GILL. Yes, sir; the representatives of the C. I. O., the regular organizers, are saying that there will be a vote that is going to decide, or that means there will be a C. I. O. or no union on the property. Reports we get from some of our members are that there will be no union, that it is against the law to even have a union unless the C. I. O. is elected the bargaining agent.

About two representatives of the C. I. O., a Mr. Hamilton and a Mr. Tomlinson, told me definitely that it was the case of the C. I. O. or no union, that we all should get in there and vote for the C. I. O. Mr. TOLAND. Are those statements having any effect, as the result of the action of the Board in this case, on the membership in your organization?

Mr. GILL. Yes, sir; it has a definite effect. It means that we have to go and contact these men, not in all cases, but in a lot of cases these fellows believe that. They don't seem to realize the type of men these C. I. O. organizers are, and if they are there last, they more or less believe that. It sounds logical the way it is put to them. But we have been doing our best to contact these men, and once we explain the situation they realize that we have been on this property for something like 6 years now, and we are going to continue on this property.

Mr. TOLAND. Isn't it a fact that there were members of your organization employees of this company long before the C. I. O. came into that plant?

Mr. GILL. Yes, sir.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. He has just stated that.

Mr. TOLAND. I am getting it definitely.

Mr. GILL (continuing). Yes, sir; in 1933, I believe in the first part of the year.

Mr. TOLAND. Were you present at the hearing that was held on the petition filed by your organization, and did you testify during the month of August, namely the 28th and the 29th of August, 1938, before Trial Examiner Dudley?

Mr. GILL. No, sir; we had another man who was present then.
Mr. TOLAND. That is all.

Mr. GILL. Might I make an observation, Mr. Toland and Mr. Chairman?

Mr. TOLAND. Yes.

Mr. GILL. As you noticed, we had 1,164 for the C. I. O., 1,072 for the American Federation of Labor, and 506 votes Neither. Now, I would like to make this observation. There are something like 2,250 men on that property who want and have asked for sometime to have this question settled on the policy. As to this 506, they also want a voice in determining what is going on, because some of those men, I think a great many of them, belong to this independent organization, which threw their support, or favor, but it didn't amount to very much. Men living in outlying districts, if they received a letter saying they favored our organization they couldn't go by that, they had been told for a year that we weren't the organization. Since then we have taken in a lot of those men. They definitely want the conditions on this property cleaned up so we can go to our work in the morning and forget this battling after work, going out after work and trying to keep the conditions on our property the way we want them.

But I would say there are something like 2,500 men on the property-by the way there are 3,200 working there, about 2,500 of these at least would like to decide what union they want. You can see there is not much difference in that election. In fact, in Pontiac where the C. I. O. was supposed to be very strong, the American Federation of Labor received 85 votes but we haven't been able to establish a local there because of intimidation and pressure put on the men in this district by the automobile workers due to the fact that they are close there, and the C. I. O. members can get help when they need it. While we received 85 votes in that election in Pontiac, the C. I. O. only received 143, and there were 61 cast for

218054-40-vol. 18- 4

Neither. They haven't been able to get a foothold in there due to the fact that none of the men would stick their necks out.

In Saginaw it didn't go quite so good with us but we did receive 71 votes and 99 voted Neither, and 373 voted for the C. I. O. But in Lansing we received 104; there had been a lot of labor trouble in Lansing. We received 104 votes. The C. I. O. received only 162. We feel today that if an election was held, with what we know of what is going on in the property, that we would receive the majority, and the C. I. O. believes that also. That is the reason I think that we are going on this ballot. They tried to stop the first election. They were very much against the election. They wouldn't ask for it. So the condition up on the property in Michigan is very much upset. The conditions there we know are unsettled. We think that the Wagner Act is one of the greatest acts that labor has ever had in its favor, that is one of the reasons why we were organized in 33. We didn't really start going places until 35 and 36, and then even though the C. I. O. had an agreement, we gained members all through that time, and it was tough. Because the two organizations are on the property we have a lot of men what we term "sitting on the fence." They don't belong to the C. I. O., they don't belong to us. We contact them and they say they don't know who is going to win so they are just sitting there.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. May I interrupt there to ask you to explain, if you can, the reason for the growth in your own membership?

Mr. GILL. I didn't understand.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. Didn't you state your membership had continued to grow steadily?

Mr. GILL. Yes.

Acting Chairman HEALEY. To what do you attribute the cause for that?

Mr. GILL. We have a lot of members that believe in it, that have stayed with it and have been working on it. Some of the reasons have been the conditions the C. I. O. have established on the property. For example, there were 17 men indicted in the last strike, some of them I think have received jail sentences for the charges they are charged with. I understand they can get as much as 5 years.

That hasn't helped the C. I. O. They went out in the minority. We know that. When the strike was called, a lot of men went out because they thought there were a lot of men going to go out. That was on a week-end, but on the Monday there were very few out. The picket lines-there were no picket lines that I know of outside of Lansing, Flint, Bay City, and Pontiac. I don't know so much about that, but we have had a man there for sometime and he states that most of the pickets were from the auto workers, but we do know that service wasn't shut down, only in minor instances, but 17 of these men have gotten into trouble. They have lost their jobs. Those men were very much the same as men in our organization who got off on the wrong foot. They had bad leadership. You can't say the men in Pontiac are any more radical or outlaws, or words to that effect, than we are in Grand Rapids. They thought they were doing the right thing. The result is that 17 of them are indicted.