1 - American Memory
1 - American Memory
1 - American Memory
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18<br />
Mr. JARMAN. On behalf of the subcommittee, I want to thank our<br />
colleagues in the Congress. I think this is an excellent presentation and<br />
certainly points up a very real problem facing the islands.<br />
Mr. Harvey ?<br />
Mr. HARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I want to join the chair-<br />
man in saying I think this is an excellent presentation. My only diffi-<br />
culty is that I don't understand it. I was always under the impression<br />
that the maritime industry was under the Taft-Hartley Act and here<br />
we are amending title II of the Railway Labor Act to insert another<br />
injunctive provision. Could you explain that, any one of you?<br />
Mr. MATSUXAOA. The bill was referred to this committee, as the<br />
gentleman observed, because it amends the Railway Labor Act. The<br />
reason for doing that is that a similar bill introduced in the Senate<br />
was referred to the Commerce Committee in the Senate. H.R. 7189<br />
was introduced subsequent to the introduction of the Senate bill, so<br />
that we on the House side felt that if the bill were referred to the<br />
counterpart committee in the House, matters would be much more<br />
readily i-esolved if differences should occur and a conference between<br />
the Senate and the House were to become necessary.<br />
Moreover, I might point out to the gentleman that this bill does<br />
pertain to interstate commerce, a commerce which is vital to the<br />
economic life, if not the very welfare of the people of Hawaii. This<br />
committee certainly has proper jurisdiction over the matter.<br />
Mrs. Mink would like to respond further.<br />
Mrs. MixK. If I could respond to that further, there are actually<br />
two pieces of legislation which the Hawaii delegation have sponsored.<br />
One of them is pending before this committee. The other bill is before<br />
the Education and Labor Committee and the counterpart over in the<br />
Senate, the Public Walfare Committee. That bill deals with the ques-<br />
tion of uniform expiration dates because we believe that also is a very<br />
important matter. We are seeking 3-year contracts and the requirement<br />
that these 3-year contracts all expire at the same time.<br />
I believe there are seven or eight unions involved and one of the<br />
big difficulties is that the expiration dates of each agreement now<br />
comes up at whatever time each decides without any question of what<br />
the impact is on a State that is totally dependent upon ocean commerce.<br />
So we felt that in addition to the urgent question presented in this<br />
bill, that we also try to seek a 3-year agreement and an agreement<br />
that would with respect to all of the bargaining units expire at the<br />
same time so we could have at least 3 years of stability in our State<br />
to which we feel we are entitled.<br />
Mr. HARVEY. I appreciate the statement further explaining what the<br />
delegation is trying to do. Last year when we were very much con-<br />
cerned with the effect of restrictions in the railroad industry and in<br />
the longshore industiy and when this committee heard at length testi-<br />
mony relative to legislation to settle emergency strikes in tliose fields,<br />
we found that there was quite a jurisdictional dispute between this<br />
committee and the Education and Labor Committee. Each committee<br />
was quite jealous of its prerogatives in each separate field. This com-<br />
mittee does have jurisdiction of the Railway Labor Act and yet the<br />
other committee does have jurisdiction of the Taft-Hartley Act.