continued competition for license, misread the outcry along the lines of the gospel according to the NÁB, and concluded that S. 2004 was needed more than ever. I respectfully reject such logic; we may be like the blind men and the elephant, but I still think it is clear the overwhelming majority of the people of every political persuasion are in favor of more competition, not less, and more action at the FCC, not making it into a wastebasket.

They want to shake these guys up. They are happy today to see it. America is competition, it is getting on top of the other guy. Maybe it involves a couple of hundreds in legal fees.

I sued the networks. I know how they react. The minute you sue them, they come back on with you with depositions. This is what they are doing. They are only getting some of their own medicine now. Lawyers, representation, tying them up, delaying their licenses. The networks are on appeal to the court of appeals now. They are only going to get their own medicine. The people favor preserving the FCC and not making it a wastebasket. Not as I saw yesterday when the Commissioners were here threatening as one Senator said, “I hope if you get another chance you are going to revoke the license of

that station.

These people at Pacifica were it. I respect their right to disagree. I have never been to see "I Am Curious, Yellow," but the point is I respect the right of other people to see this thing and do these things. If a man wants to put it on the air, I say if you want to put it on the air, that is America. No, I don't want it and the Senators don't want it. They are all two generations removed from the people of this country.

Senator PASTORE. I just thought you got through saying that the air belongs to the public.

Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. That's right.

Senator PASTORE. It belongs to the homes of the country.
Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. I agree.

Senator PASTORE. Don't you think they have a responsibility in showing that which is decent?

Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. Whose definition of decency is going to be used?

Senator PASTORE. The commonsense definition.

Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. Your commonsense view differs from mine. Senator PASTORE. I know, but the fact still remains that we have a lot of young children, we have a lot of adolescents.

Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. What difference does it make what is said on WBAI, on FM station, at 3 a.m. in the morning?

Senator PASTORE. You can go downtown now and see "I Am Curious, Yellow" if you want to, but I am saying to you it would be a disgrace to show it on television in the homes of America.

Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. I bet it will be top audience draw. Senator PASTORE. I get your point, but let me end up by asking, isn't this a beautiful country when a young fellow like you can come here in the Senate of the United States and blow off the steam without interruption the way you have been allowed today?

Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. I don't think so, Senator.

Senator PASTORE. Are you that much of a pessimist?

Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. I think if this bill passes and some of the other things passes, I am.

Senator PASTORE. I wish

Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. The muscle is still in the NAB.

Senator PASTORE. I wish some day you would come around and have a good word for somebody and something and particularly for your country.

Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. It is because I love my country that I am opposing you, because you are forcing us out and make the blacks more alienated and not less. You have sat here and told us for 2 days why you agree with it, but all the arguments you use are the establishment's arguments. It is a great country. They are destroying it possibly. S. 2004 is one more break in.

You are saying young people cannot own stations. You are saying after 1953, when the licenses were handed out, I can't own them. I am fighting to protect this country, to save and defend it. I think you are trying to destroy it. I don't think you are listening. You have let me come and talk. It is Mayor Daley's tactics. It is the same antidemocratic legislation that came out.

Maybe you gave me a chance to come here and you figure you have got the votes and the lobbyists running around, the Lee Loevingers here all the time.

Senator PASTORE. You are talking about something you know nothing about. I didn't tell you I have got the votes.

Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. I read the New York Times and you were optimistic that it was going to pass.

Senator PASTORE. I never made that statement.

Mr. MARTIN-TRIGONA. Seven out of the nine members on the subcommittee are cosponsors. If they are so interested, the cosponsors, why aren't they here, because they are doing it just to placate the big sponsors back in their States and they don't care about the public. When the end comes, then, when the time comes to vote, it is the rich people and the vested interest that always seem to win, Senator, and that is what is killing, a beautiful country.

I want to keep it beautiful, and I hope you listen to young people, and maybe you will come over to our side and maybe we will have a better country and one that we will be proud to fight for.

Senator PASTORE. The committee will adjourn until tomorrow at 10. (Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the hearing was recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., on Wednesday, December 3, 1969.)

TO AMEND THE COMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1934 TO ESTABLISH ORDERLY PROCEDURES FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF APPLICATIONS FOR RENEWAL OF BROADCAST LICENSES

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1969

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m. in room 5110, New Senate Office Building, the Honorable John O. Pastore (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senators Pastore and Baker.

Senator PASTORE. I do not know how many witnesses are here, but today we have a rather difficult situation, and I thought I should like to share my difficulty with the witnesses so that there would be no inconvenience to anyone. We have a very important vote coming up on the tax bill at 11:30. We are starting now at 10 o'clock. That is the signal for the session. This vote at 11:30 of course will be followed almost immediately-there are 20 minutes to each side on the Gore amendment, which will take it up to 12:30 or so. Then there will be votes this afternoon. This is, of course, the busy time during the session because we are really in the last leg now before adjourning sine die. When we are going to do that, I do not know. There is talk about us being here until December 24 and then coming back the day after Christmas.

Some of the statements here are short and some of them are long, and many people have come from quite distant places and I want to accommodate everyone as much as I can. The first one that I have on my list is Mr. Clifford Gorsuch. You have a rather short statement. Would you like to make it now, sir?

I would suggest to all of the witnesses that all your statements will go in the record in their entirety. When they are short I am going to ask you to read them and when they are very long I am going to ask you to have them put in the record and then recapitulate the salient points. You will notice, of course, that I am the only one here because of the pressures on the floor and other obligations and responsibilities on the part of other members of this committee. They just cannot be here. So I have read every statement, every statement that has been submitted, because the rule here is they must be submitted within 48 hours before you make them. I know what is in them. It is not a matter of reading them for my benefit. It is a question of putting it in the

record for others. If you read them as fast as you can it is all right with me.

STATEMENT OF CLIFFORD GORSUCH, REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCAST EMPLOYEES AND TECHNICIANS, AFL-CIO

Mr. GORSUCH. The National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, AFL-CIO-herein referred to as NABET-hereby urges the Congress of the United States of America to amend the Communications Act as provided in S. 2004, a bill introduced in the Senate by Senator John O. Pastore in April of this year.

NABET is a labor organization, affiliated with the AFL-CIO which represents for purposes of collective bargaining approximately 8,000 employees in the broadcasting industry. Obviously, we have a primary and direct interest in the economic welfare of those employees. Our interest also extends to all other employees in the industry, both organized and unorganized. Further, we are impelled to manifest our motivating concern with the development, advancement, and improvement in the public interest of all aspects of broadcast service. One vital aspect of this concern goes to the security of those employees now working in broadcasting and to the continuing development of equally secure and rewarding employment opportunities in the future.

Television and radio broadcast employees are highly skilled and talented individuals such as engineers, technicians, writers, reporters, performers, artists-just to name a few examples. They are career specialists who shun the office, the laboratory, or the factory. Broadcasting provides uniquely rewarding challenges and opportunities for personal expression and achievement that are lacking in so many other industrial pursuits.

As you well know, it was dedicated response to this type of challenge and opportunity that put Apollo 11 on the moon. The same dedication by broadcast employees enabled the entire world to witness that historic event.

The contribution to the Nation's cultural growth by this corps of dedicated people must not be inadvertently jeopardized by an unsettling instability in the industry that many of them helped to create and develop. The results of such instability would, in our opinion, lead to a deterioration of the overall quaity of broadcast service.

Accordingly, then, we vigorously support S. 2004 for the following

reasons:

1. Television and radio broadcasting is a very costly and complex enterprise requiring large sums of money for facilities and qualified personnel. Such economic and human resources investments should not be treated lightly. In addition, the industry is a highly sensitive one in matters of social, cultural, moral, educational, and political responsibilities. These responsibilites should not be subject to assumption by the highest bidder whose offer involves only promises and is devoid of knowledge and experience. Not only is the broadcast licensee obliged to perform his services in the public interest, convenience, and necessity, but, his employees must be dedicated to such interest, convenience, and necessity if they are to properly perform their duties in carrying out the licensee's public obligation.

2. We are basically concerned and morally disturbed at the possibility of industrial restructuring by agency fiat. While we are ideologically in accord with the establishment of policies that are aimed at protecting the public interest, we seriously doubt that any policy that creates an atmosphere of uncertainty, instability, and confusion could possibly be considered to be in the public interest. To the contrary, in our opinion.

3. We do not believe that better public service by broadcasters can be achieved by procedures that open the door to the triumph of promise over performance. Most assuredly, in our opinion, such procedures would, eventually, undermine the viability and economic structure of the industry-with the public winding up the innocent victim. Part and parcel of the viability and economics of any industry is the ongoing opportunity and security afforded to the employees in that industry. As a labor union, we in NABET must and shall concern ourselves with such opportunity and security for all employees in broadcasting organized or unorganized. We firmly believe that the adoption of statutory policy that jeopardizes employment viability constitutes a very real and uniquely dangerous flouting of the public interest. Therefore, with regard to the industry's employees, the implementing of an inhumane and unstabilizing procedure would, we fear, lead to any one or more of the following: Loss of employment, reduction in the established levels of compensation, loss of seniority benefits, employment fringe benefits, insurance and pension programs, and the abrogation of labor agreements.

4. It is evident that a new licensee would have no responsibility whatsoever toward the employees of the former licensee. It is equally evident that the new licensee would be able to practically dictate the terms and conditions of the purchase of facilities for which the former licensee has no further use. At this point, the new licensee moves into the market with an extremely unfair advantage over the established competition. It should be obvious, then, that a "claim-jumping" applicant at license renewal time would be primarily interested in mercilessly exploiting a highly profitable enterprise of which he is neither morally nor economically deserving.

5. Familiarization with the legislative history of the entire block of existing labor statutes will clearly reveal the obvious intent of the Congress in matters concerning the vested rights of employees and of labor unions as well. This congressional intent can best be summed up in the one word "stability"--stability of the employee-employer relationship and stability of the organized labor-management relationship. Further, we would fervently hope that the Federal Communications Commission would not deliberately proceed down a path that is strewn with the seeds of widespread labor unrest in this sensitive, strategic, and socially complex industry.

Regardless of the outcome of this committee's deliberations and efforts on the substantial merits of S. 2004, we wish to take this opportunity to urge the Congress toward additional legislation that would require any new broadcast licensee to assume full responsibility for the continuing employment viability of the former licensee's employees and for all existing labor agreements, if any-without unilateral modification.