once every 48 seconds. Given the breadth of the affecting commerce jurisdiction, it is realistic to assume that half of these, some 60,000 incidents a year, would become Federal crimes. And we have not noted the incidents of property destruction crimes. We are willing to hazard that no single proposal has ever promised such an enormous increase in the Federal criminal jurisdiction.

No one doubts that such crimes should be investigated and prosecuted, but in our Federal system that has never been a sufficient justification for Federal jurisdiction. Historically, a clear understanding has been that the States and localities have the basic responsibility to keep the peace. That understanding rests in no small part on the long-term consensus that it is not in the public interest to expand the Federal Government by creating a national police force.

As Edwin Meese, Counselor to President Reagan and a former prosecutor and professor of criminal law noted at the recent American Bar Association meeting, and I quote, "We would hope," and I take it "we" means this administration, "to clearly define the role of the Federal Government, a role which has been somewhat diffused over the past 10 years as to its responsibilities for the crime problem. The Federal Government, to be sure, has a role, but that role is a limited one and it should be recognized as a limited one. The principal responsibility for the control of crime, particularly the kind of crime that affects most citizens-the robberies, the burglaries, the murders-are the responsibilities of State and local governments."

It is telling that the proponents of S. 613 do not even mention the practical consequences of this portion of the bill. The reason for their silence is not difficult to discern. Proposals before Congress to fund the Justice Department call for a decrease in appropriation, not a dramatic increase. And these budget cuts, which are part of the overall stringency facing the Federal Government, come at a time when Federal law enforcement authorities are severely strained in meeting uniquely Federal priority demands, such as racketeering, official corruption, drug trafficking, tax, securities and bank fraud, and insurance fraud.

Against this background, to sum up our views on this portion of the proposed amendment, it does not make good sense to require the FBI and Federal prosecutors to keep their eyes on the factories and workers of America and to pursue individuals already subject to arrest by local police under local laws dealing with assaults and with vandalism while drug pushers and narcotics importers, arson for profit businessmen and stock swindlers breathe easy.

There is one aspect of this bill that is aimed directly at labor and labor unions. That is the proposed to expand the Federal law on extortion and to overrule the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Enmons. In that case the court held that the Hobbs Act prohibition against extortion does not reach the use of physical force or the threatened use of such force in connection with an attempt during a labor dispute to achieve such legitimate objectives as improved wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.

As the Court recognized in Enmons, the Hobbs Act reflects a congressional determination as to the area of proper Federal concern

with respect to the crimes of extortion and robbery. That congressional determination includes a judgment as to the appropriate roles of the Federal Government and the States in policing threats of violence that occur in connection with legitimate labor disputes. Congress, in the Court's words, has recognized a strong Federal interest in preventing unions or union members from using their protected status to exact illegitimate payments from employers; for example, payments for unwanted and superfluous services.

On the other hand, where union objectives are legitimate, such as improved wages and working conditions, unlawful force in connection with such efforts is no different from the misuse of force in other contexts. Congress has therefore concluded that such wrongdoing, ordinarily policed by the States, should not convert legitimate union bargaining demands into wrongful conduct and should not be viewed as a matter of Federal concern.

There are two legal points that we would wish to stress in terms of our opposition to this aspect of S. 613. The first is that, contrary to the arguments which have been made by its proponents, of this change would not remove an exemption from the Hobbs Act. It would create an entirely new and unsound concept of extortion. Under S. 613 extortion is stated to be "obtaining property from another induced by actual or threatened force or fear." Those statutory words are not limited by any reservation.

Applying that provision to a strike situation, union members would be subject to an extortion prosecution if the union is seeking to obtain employment benefits, and during the course of the labor dispute one or more such members uses physical force. The coincidence of union bargaining demands, no matter how legitimate, and such strike misconduct, would make out the elements of a case of extortion sufficient to permit a prosecutor to secure an indictment and to have the case sent to the jury.

Let me interject at this point that prior to the Enmons case, from the time the Hobbs Act was passed in the 1940's until the early 1970's, so far as our research shows, there was no effort to apply the statute to wrongdoing during legitimate strikes. Then the Justice Department decided to look into the question of whether the statute could be expanded. The Department did so despite the fact that in earlier cases in its briefs, the Department advised the Supreme Court that the statute reached only racketeering activity, namely activity for an illegitimate objective.

Three prosecutions to our knowledge were brought at that time. One involved a situation in which a picket struck a strikebreaker crossing a picket line. The second involved a situation in which an organizer put dye in dirty laundry which was being collected by a laundry company against which there was a strike. The third was the Enmons case, which has already been discussed.

I note those prosecutions simply to make it absolutely clear that the Justice Department, in its enforcement of the Hobbs Act, is completely unable to distinguish between minor incidents of misconduct and major incidents. These test cases spanned the gamut of the kinds of misconduct that may occur in a labor dispute and which ought to be handled for the kind of misconduct it is, rather than as the Department attempted, by reason of the fact that that conduct was taking place during a labor dispute, to label extortion.

We ought to keep in mind that the difference between an assault, which is normally punishable by a far lesser penalty than extortion, and extortion is the motive or purpose of the actor. Normally, his motive or purpose is shown by something that he individually has said or done or by showing that there has been a command by somebody else who has already made an illegitimate demand.

So far as we know, there is no situation, other than the labor dispute situation, in which a lawful demand for a lawful payment, standing alone, particularly a demand made by a representative on behalf of a group, makes any subsequent misuse of force by any one of the perhaps thousands of individuals who might benefit from the payment subject to an extortion prosecution. There simply is nothing in the general law of extortion permitting this type of imputation of an intent to extort, based on actions of one person and subsequent misconduct which could arise for any of 100 reasons-fear, animus, the heat of the moment-and to turn what would normally be an assault or property damage into extortion. We believe that the effort to do so twists the law of extortion into a novel and grotesque shape, and that this effort leads to an expansion of the Hobbs Act which loses all touch with the reason for providing Federal jurisdiction in the first place; namely, to check racketeering activity.

There is a second matter which causes us grave concern with respect to this portion of S. 613. That is that the statute, despite the soothing words that Mr. Rose stated and that the sponsors of the legislation state, is a perversion of the national labor policy because it provides that the Federal Government will respond to two identical acts during the same labor dispute-one, the unlawful use of force by an employer opposed to union bargaining demands, the other, the same unlawful use of force by a union member who is supporting those demands-by subjecting the union member and the union member alone to stiff Federal penalties.

We think that it is entirely unfair to have a situation in which the law says that there will be a confrontation which is permitted between management and labor to settle the terms of a collective agreement, and then to apply completely disparate penalties to wrongdoing thereafter, depending on whether or not it is the employer and his agents or the union and its members that is involved.

We understand that S. 613 strains to appear evenhanded by including within its scope both acts for a legitimate labor objective and for a legitimate business objective. But the reality of labormanagement relations belies the statutory language. The employer would not be subject to such prosecutions even if he or his agents engage in widespread violence. In the nature of things, the employer does not demand or receive the employee's property in or as a result of collective bargaining, and there has never been a Hobbs Act prosecution against employer violence during labor disputes, and there is just no doubt that there would not be such prosecutions under the new bill.

To be blunt and to be clear, we think that that portion of S. 613 is a sham.

To this point I have treated the legal aspects of this bill. As Senator Specter's questions indicated, it is worth asking the question, Why is Congress confronting this issue at all? Normally there has to be a showing of justification for the extraordinary step both of overruling a Supreme Court decision and of enacting a law which gives the Federal Government new power.

That being so, it should be noted that strike-related violence by employees or unions is now subject to punishment by the States and localities. In addition, misuse of the strike weapon for illegitimate ends is now a Federal crime under the Hobbs Act. And the use of explosives during strikes is now punishable by Federal law as well. Moreover, incidents of arson where State lines are crossed are also subject to Federal investigation and prosecution.

I want to underline my next point. There is not a single wrong that would be made a Federal crime by S. 613 that is not also a Federal, State, or local crime today. S. 613 will not close any enforcement gaps left open by either State, local or Federal law. There simply is no warrant in our view for expanding the law.

There are roughly 75,000 collective-bargaining agreements negotiated each year. A relatively small number, maybe a couple of thousand, result in strikes. In addition, there is probably somewhere on the order of 10,000 organizing campaigns, that go on each year. Finally, there are some 20 million union members in this country. One would expect, even though it is distressing, since we are dealing with human beings and situations where emotions run high, that there is going to be some wrongdoing. But there has been absolutely no showing that there is widespread wrongdoing by unions or union members, and there has been, and this seems to us even more to the point, no showing that by and large the State and local authorities are not fully competent to handle wrongdoing where it occurs.

You are going to hear of an episode in this instance or an episode in that instance, but let me say this: A person who came to Congress and said I can show five incidents of wrongdoing in the State of South Carolina, to use the State of the prime sponsor of this legislation, that were not corrected by local authorities and, therefore, I suggest that the Federal Government prosecute all crimes committed in the State, would, quite properly, be laughed out of this committee room.

It seems to us that the incident here and the incident there during a labor dispute which can be shown is a similarly ludicrous basis for an expansion of Federal jurisdiction.

The truth of the matter is that the major backing for S. 613 comes from the National Right to Work Committee, an employerfinanced front organization which supports neither rights nor workers. In support of this bill, the Right to Work Committee has conducted a massive and inflammatory direct mail campaign characterized by subtle misrepresentations and outright falsehoods.

In our testimony we note the tactics that have been used, and in the next 2 or 3 minutes I will tick off the major headings, give an example or two and then conclude.

Senator Grassley referred to one of the prime ingredients of the rightwing's propaganda, namely, and we quote from one of their publications: "The U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco and Firearms reports that labor-related violence has replaced political terrorism as the No. 1 cause of property damage by explosives in this country."

The fact is that the 1980 report of the Bureau shows that laborrelated incidents, which includes acts against workers as well as any acts by strikers, account for 4.3 percent of all reported bombing incidents.

Senator MATHIAS. Mr. Gold, if I can interrupt you, since that is a disputed matter, it might be useful to include table 9 from that report as a part of your testimony.

Mr. GOLD. If we might we would appreciate the opportunity to submit that part of the report. That puts the labor-related category a distant fifth on the list. And when we discussed this question with a spokesperson for the Bureau, it was made clear that the category labor-related refers to acts which could have been perpetrated by members of labor or management or others attempting to embarrass either group.

Senator MATHIAS. It appears that it would be about 10 percent of the vandalism.

Mr. GOLD. And the Bureau's statistics are not based on indictments or convictions but solely on incidents reported.

The second charge is that ever since Enmons, "union bosses" haven't had to worry about Federal prosecution for crimes of violence. Let me simply say that we know of no Federal law which treats a violent incident during a labor dispute any differently from any other, aside from what we regard as the rational and sensible definition of extortion in the Hobbs Act.

You referred, Mr. Chairman, to the Thordarson case. In that case the ninth circuit said and the Supreme Court refused to review the matter that the Hobbs Act aside, whether you have an incident of a bombing or arson, you have a Travel Act prosecution. And it is absolutely irrelevant whether it is the employer or a union member who is the defendent or whether the incident takes place during a strike or not. Federal jurisdiction is precisely the same. Also, I know of very few people who commit wrongs simply because they can't be prosecuted by the Federal authorities when there are State and local authorities.

The next element in this literature and in a 30-minute film which has been produced called "Scepter of Violence" is to cite incidents of labor violence. By and large, any relation to the truth in this material is entirely accidental. We have a number of appendices to our testimony and let me just give you one example.

In the film it is alleged that in Stormer, Nebr., striking workers "pinned down and terrified a nonstriking worker and repeatedly and expertly slashed the man with a razor." According to the local chief of police, the city administrator, the city prosecutor, the county prosecutor, and the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board, no such incident occurred. Local officials, however, are aware that a union steward got beat up pretty bad and that his assailant was arrested.

Next, this propaganda says that local government officials are overawed by "powerful union chiefs" and are therefore extremely reluctant to prosecute cases of strike-related violence. But the very incidents that the Right to Work Committee cites show the oppo