the procedures of the so-called industry committee are so inadequate and unfair that they would even put the so-called kangaroo courts to shame. Inasmuch as the proposed amendments would provide for identically the same kind of industry committees as established the 40-cent minimum wage for this and the multitudinous other industries, we see no reason to believe that the establishment of minimum wages for particular job classifications would be treated any differently. If the Congress had any thought that there would be any detailed study of the question of wages for individual job classifications, we are afraid that they are doomed to disappointment. Just as in the 40-cent minimum wage proceeding, the Administrator had prepared and presented to the industry committee precisely the recommendations he wanted written out to the last comma the industry committee consideration called for under the proposed amendments would be limited to meeting with the representatives of the Administrator who will have already prepared their idea of just exactly what should be done and this will be unanimously ratified by the public and labor members of the so-called industry committee. 4 It has always been our understanding that the purpose of the Fair Labor Standards Act was to impose minimum living standards for certain employees. This is accomplished by establishing a minimum wage. We know of no basis upon which Congress or anyone else can say that minimum living conditions for a man while engaged in loading or unloading cotton require a minimum wage of 65 cents per hour, but that when he is trucking this cotton through the plant by use of a hand truck that his living conditions have so changed that he must then receive 85 cents per hour. We earnestly request that the Congress refuse to impose this additional strait-jacket upon industry. APPENDIX G AREAS THAT PRODUCE COTTON 1. The States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. 2. Any county in the State of Texas except the counties of Dallam, Sherman, Hansford, Hartley, Oldham, and Potter. 3. Any county in the State of Oklahoma except the counties of Cimerron and Texas. 4. Any county in the State of Arkansas except the counties of Washington, Madison, Benton, and Carroll. 5. The counties of San Joaquin, Stanilaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, Kern, Riverside, and Imperial in the State of California. 6. The counties of Uma, Maracopa, Pinal, Pima, Santa Cruz, Cochise, Graham, and Greenlee in the State of Arizona. 7. The counties of Hidalgo, Luna, Sierra, Dona Ana, Otero, Eddy, Chaves, Lea, Roosevelt, Curry, Quay, and Harding in the State of New Mexico. 8. The counties of Chautauqua and Montgomery in the State of Kansas. 9. The counties of Taney, Ozark, Howell, Oregon, Ripley, Butler, Stoddard, Scott, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, and Dunklin in the State of Missouri. 10. The counties of Pulaski and Alexander in the State of Illinois. 11. The counties of Fulton, Hickman, Carlisle, Ballard, McCracken, Graves, Calloway, Marshall, and Livingston in the State of Kentucky. 12. The counties of Lake. Obion, Weakley, Henry, Dyer, Gibson, Carroll, Benton, Humphries, Lauderdale, Tipton, Shelby, Fayette, Haywood, Crockett, Madison, Hardeman, Chester, McNairy, Henderson. Decatur, Hardin, Wayne, Perry, Hickman, Lewis, Lawrence, Giles, Maury, Williamson, Marshall, Lincoln, Bedford, Rutherford, Wilson, Cannon, Coffee, Moore, Franklin, Marion, Greendy, Warren, White, Van Buren, Hamilton, Rhea, Meigs, Bradley, McMenn, Polk, and Monroe in the State of Tennessee. 13. The counties of Pittsylvania, Halifax, Charlotte, Price Edward, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Brunswick, Notoway, Amelita, Chesterfield, Dinwiddie, Greensville, Southampton, Sussex, Prince George, Surry, Isle of Wight, Nansemond, Norfolk, and Princess Ann in the State of Virginia. 11. The counties of Alachua, Baker, Bay, Bradford, Calhoun, Citrus, Clay, Columbia, Dixie, Dival. Escombia, Flagler. Franklin, Gadsden, Gilchrist, Gulf, Hamilton, Hernando, Holmes, Jackson, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lake, Leon, Levy, Liberty, Madison. Marion, Monroe, Nassau, Okaloosa, Orange, Pasoo, Pinellas, Putnam, Saint Johns, Santa Rosa, Seminole, Sumter, Suwanee, Taylor, Union, Volusia, Wakulla, Walton, and Washington in the State of Florida. Pp. 140, 141, Informal Hearing and Meeting of Industry Committee No. 62. 15. The counties of Rutherford, McDowell, Burke, Caldwell, Wilkes, Alexander, Catawba, Lincoln, Cleveland, Gaston, Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Montgomery, Randolph, Guilford, Richmond, Scotland, Moore, Lee, Chatham, Iredell, Davis, Yadkim, Forsyth, Davidson, Rowan, Stanley, Union, Anson Alamance, Orange, Caswell, Person, Granville, Durham, Wake, Harnett, Cumberland, Roberson, Bladen, Columbus, Brunswick, Pender, Duplin, Sampson, Wayne, Johnson, Wilson, Nash, Franklin, Vance, Warren, Halifax, Northampton, Edgecombe, Pitt, Greene, Lenoir, Jones, Onslow, New Hanover, Carteret, Craven, Pamlico, Beaufort, Martin, Washington, Tyrrell, Hyde, Dare, Bertie, Hartford, Chowan, Gates, Perquimans, Pasquotank, Camden, Currituck, Hoke, and Polk in the State of North Carolina. Source: U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Mr. RAMSPECK. Thank you, Mr. Blackburn. The next witness is Mr. Steinbrenner, representing the Commercial Telegraphers' Union, A. F. of L. STATEMENT OF HENRY G. STEINBRENNER, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, COMMERCIAL TELEGRAPHERS' UNION, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, WESTERN UNION DIVISION Mr. STEINBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I have a prepared statement which I would like to read into the record. Mr. RAMSPECK. All right. Mr. STEINBRENNER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I appear here on behalf of the Commercial Telegraphers' Union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor. Our organization represents the great majority of commercial telegraph workers including the majority of the employees of merged Western Union Telegraph Co. I have noted with considerable surprise that this large group of skilled workers has not been included in the general grouping of those workers whose wage rates have, heretofore, been referred to publicly as substandard. I think I am correct in saying that perhaps no other group of skilled workers, engaged in a vital war and peacetime industry, has been required to maintain a sustained productivity over such a long period of time and under such disturbing conditions; a major war, a seriously disturbing merger, and a national representation case-all occurring at the same time, with wage rates of such random, inadequate, and substandard proportions, as to be almost unbelievable. Who are these communications workers? What is required of them in the performance of their duties? For the answer to the first question, I invite your attention to pages 29 and 54-Study of the Telegraph Industry-United States Senate, Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce, hearings of May 19, 1941. I refer especially to that testimony stating that over 75 percent of the employees in Western Union, then under appraisal, had been in the industry 10 years or more; 50 percent for 15 years or more, one-third for 20 years or more, and over 15 percent for 25 years or more. While this clearly indicates the specialized nature of the industry, the low and ill-coordinated wage structure is causing an exodus from the industry--something which the merger was designed to prevent. In this connection, the Federal Communications Commission, in the matter of the Application for Merger of the Western Union and Postal Telegraphs, said: One of the most acute problems in the telegraph industry today is the maintenance of an adequate and stable labor force. Many of the major ills of the industry are directly attributable to the shortage of skilled telegraph workers. Inadequacies in the labor force have been responsible for excessive overtime, increasing absenteeism, and decreased efficiency and productivity. For the answer as to what is required of the workers, I turn to the characterization of its employees by the Western Union Telegraph Co. itself in a statement before the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, early in 1940, reading: From the very nature of their industry, the employees of Western Union are engaged in work requiring to an unusual extent, skill, independent judgment, and individual responsibility in meeting the duties they are called upon daily to perform. They are not segregated. They are in close contact with the main strea mof our life-commercial and personal-and do a type of work like that performed by the skilled employees of railroads, with which they have been so closely allied. That they have, in fact, performed this skilled type of work, even under the most trying of conditions, and in doing so, have kept the communications system of the Nation functioning efficiently during the war period and thereafter, is a matter of record. In this connection, the president of the company, in the eighty-ninth annual report to the stockholders, by order of the board of directors, said: It is a tribute to the efficiency and cooperative spirit of Western Union people in all branches of the organization that, with a smaller force than a year ago, they have handled a larger volume of traffic and have improved the speed of service. The directors and officers of the company wish to express their sincere appreciation of the services rendered by the employees during another year of unusually difficult conditions. No one knows better than the employees themselves how difficult— how tragically difficult-these conditions were, as they struggled against the ever-rising prices, and I hesitate to attempt to visualize the ill-health, the degradation, and the hardships which inevitably must follow in the wake of wages which will not buy even the bare necessities of life and, in order that this committee may the better appraise the serious import of the situation in the industry, I turn now to the wage rates paid these skilled communications workers: The wage rates I am about to quote, gentlemen, are Nation-wide wage rates. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, the American Federation of Labor bargaining unit encompasses the entire Nation-including the Home Office of New York City-but excluding the metropolitan division in New York, which is represented by the ACA-CIO. These wage rates do not include the wage rates of messengers, students, or temporary employees. They do include the rates paid to 38,806 employees, included in the bargaining unit, as of April 1, 1945, and are as follows: Hourly rate ranges: 40 cents per hour__ Over 40 cents but less than 45 cents. 45 cents per hour but less than 50 cents. 50 cents per hour but less than 55 cents. 55 cents per hour but less than 60 cents. 60 cents per hour but less than 65 cents_ 65 cents per hour and over__ Employees 676 1,586 4, 130 5,308 4, 538 3,994 18, 574 Therefore, 20,232 employees, or approximately 52 percent of the total therefore, have wage rates below 65 cents per hour. We have noted that in the committee hearings in the Senate on the 65 centsper-hour minimum-wage bill, a spokesman for the company when questioned regarding the low and inequitable wage rates, indicated in his reply that the low rates were uniformly those of employees with little service in the industry. We cannot let that statement go unchallenged. As proof that it is not alone the employees of little service who carry the low and random wage rates, we point to exhibit A and B. The exhibits show that in one district alone, 15 employees classified as "clerk-operators" whose length of service ranges from 10 to 31 years have a straight time average wage rate of 59 cents per hour. In the same district, even managers of offices, with length of service of 5 to 10 years, have a straight time average of 63 cents per hour. Moreover, with no great variation, these quoted rates can find their counterparts in almost any section of the country. The same spokesman also referred to the voluntary retirement plan as a possible magnet which held the employees in the industry, however, he failed to state that well over half of the employees are not covered by the plan insofar as pension rights are concerned. |