 To solve its jurisdictional and political problems , the Senate established on January 30 , 1957 , an entirely new committee , the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management , and gave it broad subpoena and investigative powers . The new select committee was given a year to complete its work , and charged with studying the extent of criminal or other improper practices in the field of labor @-@ management relations or in groups of employees or employers . Half the membership was drawn from the Committee on Government Operations and half from the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare . McClellan , Ervin , McCarthy , and Mundt were drawn from Government Operations , and Kennedy , McNamara , Ives , and Goldwater from Labor . An equal number of Democrats and Republicans sat on the Select Committee . Senator McClellan was named chair of the Select Committee , and Republican Senator Irving Ives of New York vice chair . Democrats and liberals , primarily , criticized the committee for not having a neutral attitude toward labor . Only three of the committee 's eight members looked on organized labor favorably , and only one of them ( Senator Patrick McNamara ) was strongly pro @-@ labor . The committee 's other five members were strongly pro @-@ management , and that included the Select Committee 's Southern conservative chair , John L. McClellan . McClellan hired Robert F. Kennedy as the subcommittee 's chief counsel and investigator . Kennedy , too , did not have a neutral opinion of labor unions . Appalled by stories he had heard about union intimidation on the West Coast , Kennedy undertook the chief counsel 's job determined to root out union malfeasance and with little knowledge or understanding of or even concern over management misbehavior . The biases of the Select Committee members and its chief counsel , some observers concluded , led the committee to view corruption in labor @-@ management relations as a problem with unions , not management , and management as nothing more than a victim . 
