Letters, prepared statements, etc.-Continued General Electric: Boulware, Lemuel R., General Electric Co., letter July 24, 1957, 200-214 326 Exhibit A-General Electric's report to employees re operation of Exhibit C-Extract from General Electric's annual report for 332 "How your General Electric pension trust helps provide and pro- 207 ees-- General Motors Corp., view of, re benefit plans. Holbrook, A. M., Jr., deputy, health and welfare division, office of State insurance commisisoner, State of Washington, concluding Holbrook, A. M., Jr., office of insurance commissioner, State of Wash- ington, Olympia, letter July 22, 1957, re concluding statement, etc., to Fred G. Hussey, chief clerk, House Committee on Education and Holbrook, A. M., Jr., State of Washington Insurance Commissioner, Holbrook, A. M., Jr., State of Washington insurance commissioner's Labor, United States Department of, explanatory statement on title II of H. R. 7802 and H. R. 7960, embezzlement provisions of welfare Memorandum re dates Legislative Reports were requested from Labor Fitzhugh, G. W., letter July 12, 1957 to Fred G. Hussey, chief National Association of Insurance Commissioners Code of Ethical Practices With Respect to the Insuring of the Benefits or Union-Management Welfare and Pension Funds__. Reply to a question raised by Mr. James Roosevelt regarding General Electric's disclosure to its employees on group in- surance at the welfare and pension fund legislation hearing before the House Committee on Education and Welfare July 11, 1957 Mitchell, Hon. James P., Secretary of Labor, letter August 19, 1957, 326 85 Comments on table of pension and other employee welfare funds Letters, prepared statements, etc.-Continued New York, State of, superintendent of banks-Continued Regulations employee welfare fund regulation No. 1-Distribu- Reuther, Walter P., president, industrial union department, AFL-CIO, State of New York Insurance Department-annual report filed with the superintendent of insurance for the calendar year 1956 or the fiscal year ended September 30, 1956, boilermakers national health and welfare fund, 231 South La Salle Street, Chicago 4, Ill., pur- suant to article IIIA of the New York insurance law-March & McLennan, Inc., administrator; March & McLennan, Inc., board of trustees, boilermakers national health and welfare fund, fiscal United Mine Workers of America: Lewis, John L., statement, prepared, originally presented before 547 254 220-221 New York State Employee Welfare Fund Regulation Act, effective Schedule of benefits of the United Mine Workers of America Wel- fare and retirement fund in effect as of July 9, 1957---- STATISTICAL INFORMATION 222 234 235 230 Dependent coverage an added benefit (including: (1) medical ex- 328 Employee coverage, including: (1) Life insurance, (2) accidental General Electric insurance plan-cost and participation data_--- 327 WELFARE AND PENSION FUND LEGISLATION WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1957 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, Washington, D. C. The committee met at 10:30 a. m., pursuant to notice, in room 429, Old House Office Building, Hon. Graham A. Barden (chairman) presiding. Present: Representatives Barden, Perkins, Wier, Landrum, Metcalf, Green, Roosevelt, Thompson, Udall, Gwinn, Kearns, Bosch, Holt, Rhodes, Wainwright, Frelinghuysen, Nicholson, Ayres, Griffin, and Haskell. Staff members present: Fred G. Hussey, chief clerk; John O. Graham, minority clerk; A. Regis Kelley, clerk; Kennedy W. Ward, assistant general counsel; and Russell C. Derrickson, chief investigator. Chairman BARDEN. The committee will come to order. It was my hope this morning that the committee would assemble a little earlier so that I might have the opportunity of introducing Mr. House to each individual member. For some time I have been trying to get a setup whereby we could at least approach an attempt to handle the problem of the welfare funds in the many fields in which they are operating now. I, of course, felt that the position of special counsel should be filled by a specialist in the field. I think most of us are to some extent generally familiar with the objectives and to some extent with the operation of possibly some of the individual pension or benefit or welfare fund programs but I did not feel that the staff we had was capable of doing the type of job that I thought the committee would want done so that I set about to get a man who was qualified. I did not know Mr. Martin S. House at that time but I did get possession of one of the reports which he made to the State of New York at the time he conducted the whole research program and helped get the State of New York program in operation from the State level. I then set about to satisfy myself as to his integrity, his character, his reputation and his ability. All of those met my ideas and standards and I am hard to please in those departments. I found that Mr. House had operated in many fields, was not owned by any, and I found from his report that his criticisms were not withheld regardless of whom it happened to hit. I then called on Mr. House to come to Washington and we had 2 or 3 meetings here in Washington. I decided that I believed he was exactly what the committee would want and in starting off the hearings this morning I asked Mr. House if he would start the committee off with a general discussion of the various types of pension, welfare, and insurance programs in existence in the country at this time. He very kindly agreed to do that. I did not and do not now request Mr. House to give either his private or professional opinion upon which fund is good or which is bad or which is better than the other. I thought the committee would be interested and certainly I was interested in having made available a general discussion of the programs. I frankly admit and I believe that most of the members of this committee would admit that we are far from experts in this field so that at this time I would like to introduce to the committee Mr. Martin S. House, of New York City. Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman, before we do that, do we have any idea yet what the scope of the activity by the committee is going to be in this field, or is Mr. House to tell us? Chairman BARDEN. I think we have or at least I have some general idea of it. I did not attempt to introduce a bill because I did not have sufficient information to introduce a bill. I believe you will find this to be true: That when you open up this field you will find some things that probably need safeguarding that you do not now think of. I could say that the general welfare fund program as we understand it will undoubtedly be of major consideration to the committee. I think the place of the State in the picture will undoubtedly come up for discussion. It might even go so far as to help protect or help clarify some of the problems that exist. For instance, the Labor Relations Board has found itself in a tough spot because the Supreme Court has handed down a decision saying that the State has no jurisdiction here and the National Labor Relations Board takes the position they have no jurisdiction and you leave a no man's land in there where apparently chaos is liable to take over; but that will not be a major consideration. I simply mention that as illustrative of what position we may find ourselves in when we open up the picture. Mr. THOMPSON. I am glad that the chairman did because with respect to that no man's land area some of us who are members of the Perkins subcommittee have been doing some research with a view to looking into that particular question. We have not arrived at a point as to whether we should or not until some legislation which is under consideration in the House is disposed of one way or the other. Chairman BARDEN. There have been some bills introduced and, of course, those bills will be considered. I do not have a list of them before me at the moment but they are in the committee. Mr. WIER. I think when it is all said and done we will do as the Senate did and write our own bill. Chairman BARDEN. In a field of this type unless I have misjudged the majority of the members, I think that would be the only wise approach because, very frankly, even though I have done a lot of reading and especially in the last 2 or 3 weeks, I certainly do not have in my mind any cut pattern or any cure-all for the problems that I have run into. I might say at this point that this committee, if I can avoid it, will not feature the investigation of badly operated funds as individual operations. I think enough evidence has been accumulated in that field to alert us and let us know that that bad exists and so instead of taking the attitude, for instance, of trying catch all the thieves before we pass a law against stealing we know that some of that is going on and the thing, I think, which will command our attention principally is how to safeguard these funds for the people to whom they belong and the people for whom they are set up. Does that help the gentlemen? That is a lot of words. Mr. THOMPSON. The chairman has answered my question. I have no preconceived notions as to what any final form of legislation might be or even should be, and I am constrained to agree with my friend, Mr. Wier, that probably we will end up writing a bill. I just wondered in my mind whether the legislation which has been introduced by some of the members of the committee is to be considered, and you have answered that. I think that on both sides of the aisle here several of us have bills. I have one. Mrs. Green has one. There are others. Chairman BARDEN. All of those bills bearing on that subject will be under consideration here and that, I think, has been understood by the committee for some time. We could have probably started earlier but right now I am in somewhat of a conflict with my friend, Mr. Kelley, who is not here, because he has made arrangements for some hearings. It is not too easy to set up a program that is satisfactory and convenient for everybody with subcommittees in operation, but I will do my best on that. Mr. THOMPSON. I recognize that and I applaud the start of hearings on this subject. I am also glad that we are going to use the general approach as the chairman suggested, of before we go putting any thieves in jail let us find out what the whole subject is about. Chairman BARDEN. By all means give them a jury trial. Mr. THOMPSON. Except, of course, in cases where jury trials are not traditionally given. Mr. GWINN. Mr. Chairman, some of the members on our side seem to feel unacquainted with the scope of what we are attempting to do or what we are going to do and feel that this is really the first notice some of them have had. We have had no conference on our side possibly due to my own negligence, but I think we would like to have a little more of an outline of the scope and the ultimate objective, if there is one formed at this time. Chairman BARDEN. Let me say this, Mr. Gwinn. There has not been any caucus on any side. It has not been a pleasant job for me. I will say that. It was not pleasant for me to spend all day Saturday. I was able to get 2 or 3 members to sit with me and I might say, if that is any consolation, that it was bipartisan. I was not concerned with the politics and I am not concerned with it in this. If there is a wrong being committed it is of as much concern to the Republicans as it is to the Democrats and vice versa. The worst thing we could possible do in my opinion in this type of legislation is to inject any kind of politics into it from a partisan angle. I think it would be horrible because the people who own an interest in these welfare funds are both Democrats and Republicans and they do not care whether it is a Democrat or a Republican that is depleting or mishandling those funds. They want it stopped. Therefore, rather than to sit here and attempt to tell you that there is a fixed objective other than to approach this problem and try to make up our minds as to what is the wise thing to do, I have sense enough to know this, I think: That we cannot cure the whole problem in one act. It has never been done in the House yet nor in the Con |