clouding the issues through the use of a publicity campaign that is best characterized by its absence of factual support. Even if one ignores this obvious failure to provide any support for federal intervention in an area of police power that has traditionally been reserved for the states, the impact of the passage of S.613 on the successful collective bargaining system adopted in this country would be devastating. S.613 Will Return The Labor Policy Of The Congress recognized almost fifty years ago that institutionalizing industrial conflict and defusing it through mandatory collective bargaining between employer and worker representatives was the best way to reduce industrial strife and the consequent violence that occurred. As two outstanding experts in the field of labor relations have noted: The most important single cause of violence As I will detail below, there is no statistical evidence to prove the contrary, because the Wagner Act and the model it set in place in the United States has worked effectively and continues to work with a minimum of violence. S.613 seeks to once again revive the early 1800's conspiratorial view of combinations of workers engaged in 3/ collective actions against employers. Worker participation in strikes under S. 613 would become the subject of review by federal criminal enforcement agents. As in the early labor cases in this country: 2/ 3/ Bok and Dunlop, Labor and the American Community, 229 Commonwealth v. Pullis, Mayors Court of Philadelphia 92-211 0-82--14 The stress of the prosecution (will be] which were not (refusal of association). 4/ In other words, the acts and statements of workers, whether or not they are related to violent activities, become evidence in criminal investigations. Moreover, under the S. 613 scheme, workers will be subjected to dual prosecution for the same act once at the state level and then again at the federal level. All of this and more is the result of what can only be termed as a perverse view of the generally accepted concept of extortion. Defying belief, union busters have classified worker efforts to gain improved wages and benefits from employers as attempts to obtain the property of another by extortion if accompanied by any type of isolated nonrepetitive violence. As this Subcommittee previously noted in its Report On The Criminal Justice Reform Act of 1975, "since there is no intent thereby to obtain the employer's property through the use of force and the acts do not in fact cause the employer to part with his property . . . such isolated acts of violence do not partake of the nature of extortion." S.613's rewrite of the law of extortion inevitably invites (Report at 624) a return to the days when combinations of workers to raise wages were viewed as an unlawful conspiracy. Thus, the passage of S.613 will cause labor relations in this country to return to a pre-Wagner Act atmosphere, similar to that presently occurring in Poland. There Is No Evidence To Support Expansion Of Federal Extortion Law In order to gain a realistic perspective as to the severity of the alleged problem of labor violence in the 4/ Nelles, The First American Labor Case, 41 Yale L.J. 165 (1931) (emphasis added). context of legitimate collective bargaining, we asked our Research Department to conduct a search for all relevant statistics compiled by the various agencies of the federal government. We found that the statistics maintained on laborrelated violence were notable only by their absence. In addition, we discussed the question of labor violence and its alleged pervasiveness with representatives of major criminal law enforcement agencies. Similarly, we found no support for federal intervention in labor disputes based on the professional experience of these organizations. There Is No Statistical Evidence To Support S.613 The Department of Justice, through its Bureau of Justice Statistics, compiles the Source Book on Criminal Justice Statistics. In the most recent edition, for the year 1980, there are no statistics maintained on labor-related violence in any form. Similarly, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in its annual uniform crime reports, Crime in the United States 1980, does not mention labor-related violence in any of its statistics on crime. Furthermore, sources at the Labor Department Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Division of Information of the National Labor Relations Board indicate that no statistics are maintained on incidents involving labor violence. In point of fact, the only federal government statistics that we could find with respect to labor-related violence in any form come from the annual report of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in the publication Explosives Incidents 1980. In that publication, "labor related" is the described motive in 28 bombing and incendiary bombing incidents (Tables 9 and 10), and 24 arson incidents (Table 27) in 1980, a total of only 52 incidents in the country in one year. These include all acts committed outside as well as within the context of a labor dispute for legitimate collective bargaining objectives, and the use of the expression "labor related" is usually only a conclusion of the Bureau based on facts that may be only coincidental in that the act of violence may have occurred at a time and place where a labor dispute was in progress or suspected. But the event could have been totally unrelated to the dispute. It is important to keep in mind when considering these statistics that the term "labor related" includes the acts of both employers and employees. Lest anyone be led to believe that employers do not engage in threats and acts of violence to discourage union organizing efforts or for their own personal gain, we refer you to the recent findings of fact by a United States District Court in the case of Great Coastal Express v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 108 L. R. R. M. 2155 (E. D. Va. 1981) (memorandum of findings of fact dated August 27, 1981 attached). In this case in 1972, Great Coastal Express was awarded a sum of $1,300,000.00 for damages during a labor dispute which had been marked by acts of violence allegedly committed by the members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters during a labor dispute for legitimate collective bargaining objectives. On a motion to reopen the judgment based upon newly discovered evidence, the District Court found that not only had the employees of Great Coastal Express given false statements to authorities and committed perjury under oath at trial, but that they, under the direction of the management of Great Coastal Express, had actually committed the acts of violence and property destruction that were some of the bases of the suit. In this regard, it should be noted that the efforts to amend the Hobbs Act to put workers in federal prisons for long jail terms for acts that occur during a legitimate labor dispute do not extend this liability to management and their agents who commit similar acts. Getting back to our principal point, in view of the apparent lack of statistical verification for any significant problem of acts of violence occurring during legitimate collective bargaining, we find ourselves in a position of having to respond to the few incidents alleged by the supporters of legislation to amend the Hobbs Act as being of crisis proportions, requiring the attention of the Congress of the United States. Although we lack the capacity to investigate the facts of each incident, we would be happy to assist the Subcommittee staff in any way to respond to these allegations. Even without specific responses at this time, we would submit that a substantial number of the incidents alleged at these hearings were or will be dealt with at the state or local level with appropriate severity. In this regard, the excellent submission by Laurence Gold, Special Counsel for the AFL-CIO, analyzing the alleged incidents of violence, is very revealing. We further submit that though threats or acts of violence committed by workers are the convenient source of headlines, cases such as the Great Coastal Express decision rarely are. Although the lack of statistics on labor-related violence should provide some insight to the reality of the alleged problem, various law enforcement and prosecutorial authorities are another source of evidence as to the exaggerated claims made by advocates of Hobbs Act amendments. Criminal Law Enforcement Organizations Do Not Support Federal Intervention Our research concerning the position of key law enforcement agencies on the need for federal intervention in the labor violence area reflects the following: 1. The National Association of Attorneys General, in their resolutions on criminal code reform adopted in federal criminal jurisdiction for statutes such as the Hobbs |