1 - American Memory

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