A survey of straight-time hourly rates of male daily and hourly paid workers on the pay rolls of 13 selected cites in the spring of 1944 shows minimum hourly earnings as low as 37, 42, and 45 cents an hour. The percentage of hourly rate employees to total number of employees varies from 1 to 24 percent, but in most cases approximates 10 percent. These figures are cited merely as examples of the situation in some individual cities. They do, however, indicate that at least a number of cities varying in size from about 150,000 to over 5,000,000 population, and well distributed geographically, are paying a large percentage of their daily and hourly rate employees well under 65 cents an hour.

The Congress today is faced with the responsibility of playing its role in the common American effort to create a postwar world which will justify the ravages of World War II. No individual, no organization, above all no agency or representative of Government, is justified in setting its sights on the eve of victory at less than full employment and the more abundant life for everyone. We will fail in our objectives if we continue to look to the past or even to the present for our measure of what American wage policy is to be. The organized State and local government workers look to the Congress to accept the challenge of the future.

Proportion1 and range of rates2 of daily and hourly paid workers on pay rolls of 13 selected cities, spring, 1944 (preliminary)

Male workers only. Women were not numerous enough in hourly or daily paid occupations to justify presentation of rate ranges.

Excluding premium payments for overtime and night-shift work, but including oest-of-living bonuses paid by 7 of the 13 cities. Rates of daily paid workers are shown in terms of their hourly equivalents. All other employees studied in these cities are paid on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis, and are therefore not included in this tabulation.

Includes, in addition to laborers, such occupations as food service helpers, janitors, and watchmen. Includes such occupations as cooks, gardeners, guards, skilled craftsmen, stationary engineers, firemen, truck drivers, and heavy equipment operators.

Source: U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, Division of Wage Analysis, Oct. 3, 1944.

EXHIBIT 56

STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF THE 65-CENT MINIMUM WAGE BILL (S. 1349, PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT)

Submitted by International Fur and Leather Workers Union, CIO, October 8, 1945 The International Fur and Leather Workers Union, CIO, which represents 100,000 organized fur and leather workers, fully supports passage of the bill to establish a minimum hourly wage of 65 cents (S. 1349, proposed amendments to Fair Labor Standards Act).

Passage of this bill will aid in maintaining the purchasing power of the people through raising the floor under the national wage structure. Without maintaining and increasing the purchasing power of the people, a contraction

of our economy would result which would eventually develop into another terrible economic crisis.

Workers' wartime savings and even a greatly expanded foreign trade are not sufficient to bolster the Nation's purchasing power. Technological development has increased the productive capacity of industry to such an extent that only an expanded domestic market can provide the purchasing power necessary to maintain full production and employment. Unless immediate steps are taken by the Government to stimulate this purchasing power of the masses of consumers, we are headed for crisis and chaos.

The immense rise in the cost-of-living necessitates increased wages to enable workers to obtain even the minimum of necessary food, clothing, and shelter for themselves and their families to safeguard their health.

In March 1944, the University of California Heller committee issued a report on the basis of the cost of living at that time that revealed that a minimum of $2,964.13 is needed. And the cost of living has risen since then considerably. On the basis of the Heller committee's report, at least $1.42 an hour would be needed as the minimum hourly rate in order to provide the necessary annual income to meet adequately the economic, medical, and educational needs of a worker and his family.

Unless purchasing power is increased to meet the higher cost of living, history has shown that we will again be subjected to a contraction of our economy that will result in starvation, misery, insecurity, unrest, demoralization. This Nation still remembers the horrible wave of crimes and juvenile delinquency which ensued during the last economic crisis, when poverty and starvation forced women out into the streets as prostitutes in order to obtain sufficient money for food, small children into stealing to augment inadequate family incomes.

Nothing will prevent the most bitter and widespread strikes and struggles by the workers to win wages that will enable them to meet the cost of living. During the war the trade-unions had an extremely difficult task to uphold the no-strike pledge in order to maintain continuous production to defeat the fascist enemy. This restraint is gone today. The failure of government to take specific steps, such as the enactment of the 65-cent minimum, would serve only to encourage more and bigger strikes to obtain a decent wage.

Both business and labor will suffer unless the purchasing power of the people is increased. The prosperity, well-being, health, and morale of the entire Nation is contingent upon an expanding economy to which increased purchasing power is essential.

The 65-cent hourly minimum proposed by the Pepper bill is itself entirely inadequate for a minimum of health and decency. No worker and his family can live decently on an annual income of only $1,352 a year which would be total earning if a worker were fully employed for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year at the rate of 65 cents an hour. We firmly believe that the 65-cents-anhour minimum proposed in the bill is insufficient, that a considerably higher figure should be established. However, the Pepper bill is a step in the right direction. Our experience in the fur and leather industries bear this out.

Our union has contractual relations covering 90 percent of the workers euployed in the fur industry. The overwhelming majority earn considerably more than 65 cents an hour under the provisions of union contracts. The very small percentage of four workers who do not, would of course benefit from passage of the bill. The general wage structure of the fur industry is higher than in the leather industry.

Our union is the collective bargaining agent for approximately 80 percent of the workers employed in the leather tanning and finishing industry. The large majority of these workers were organized during the past 5 years. We have contractual relations with approximately 300 companies, with the overwhelming majority of the large firms in the industry and in practically every State where tanning is carried on.

In a study of the leather tanning and finishing industry as a whole made by the Department of Labor, average hourly earnings in the industry in September 1939 were 62.3 cents. In January 1931 straight-time hourly earnings averaged 66.2 cents; in December 1943 they were increased to 87.7 cents; and in December 1944 to 90.6 cents.

The leather industry can well afford to abide by a 65-cent minimum wage, and higher. War Profit Study No. 12, issued by the Division of Research Financia Analysis Branch of the Office of Price Administration in March 1945, shows that the leather-tanning and finishing industry (excluding shoes and finished leathergoods products) made some of the greatest profits ever obtained in the industry.

For the first 6 months of 1944, it made 56.8 percent more than for the corresponding period of the previous year, 63.4 percent more than for the corresponding period in 1942, and an increase of 129.3 percent over the average for the corresponding period in 1939. This is after taxes. If the picture of profits in the industry could be shown before taxes, especially during the war when taxes rose considerably, the actual increase in profits would be much greater.

The leather industry enjoyed a rise in its profits of over 129 percent during the period when our union won substantial wage increases and increased wage rates approximately 45 percent. Price control of all tanned and finished leather by the Government during the war adds even greater weight to this point. Higher wages have proved a boon to the leather industry and in fact to all industries. The low-wage industries are the least healthy section of our economy,

On the basis of experience in our industries, the facts show that even the limited increases in wages won since 1939 were an asset to the employers in the leather industry as well as the workers. A healthier worker produces more. The miserably low wage level in the leather industry inevitably tended to keep production down because of malnutrition, ill health, high turn-over of labor force, and all the other results of a low standard of living. During the time when wage increases were obtained, productivity in the leather industry rose. While we cannot estimate the effects of purely technological improvements on productivity during this period, it is common knowledge that it was not the decisive factor and that the labor factor was of basic importance. The following figures on productivity were prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and published in August 1945. During the same 5-year period that wages rose, as represented by the jump in average hourly earnings from 62.3 cents in September 1939 to 90.6 cents in December 1944, output per man-hour increased steadily to the point that in 1944, 15 percent less workers produced 14 percent more leather after making allowances for overtime work. Productivity per man-hour was 14.2 percent more than in 1939.

While it is true that only approximately 5 percent of the leather workers earn less than 65 cents an hour, it is apparent that the low wage level of one section of workers is a threat to the wage standards of the workers in the rest of the industry. Those workers are mainly in the few unorganized shops, which are continually being reduced in number. Elimination of differentials in wages throughout the industry by raising the wage floor would aid in stabilizing the industry and eliminating unfair competition.

Passage of the bill would not be any hardship to the leather industry. To our knowledge, there is no data to show that when the 40-cents-an-hour minimum was established in the industry that any firm went out of business because of this. There are approximately the same number of workers today making less than 65 cents an hour in the industry as there were making less than 40 cents an hour at the time of the establishment of the latter minimum.

We urge passage of the Pepper bill, even though inadequate, as a step in the right direction of establishing a higher floor under the national wage structure that will protect the health and welfare of the workers, will help increase purchasing power, and help stabilize our economy. The well-being and prosperity of the Nation demands an expanding economy which can be achieved only through full employment and higher wages. Respectfully submitted.

INTERNATIONAL FUR AND

LEATHER WORKERS UNION, CIO,
BEN GOLD, President.
PIETRO LUCCHI,

Secretary-Treasurer.

EXHIBIT 57

HOTEL AND RESTAURANT EMPLOYEES' INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE,
AND BARTENDERS' INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF AMERICA,

Cincinnati (2), Ohio, October 23, 1945.

BRIEF FILED WITH SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, IN SUPPORT OF S. 1282 BY CHARLES E. SANDS, REPRESENTING THE ABOVE NAMED ORGANIZATION

1. Endorse the statements made in behalf of this bill by Mr. Louis Hines of the American Federation of Labor, and by Mr. A. E. Lyons, executive secretary of the Railway Labor Executives Association. And in further support of the

proposed amendment to subsection (3) which seeks to amend said section by inserting after the word vessel, "employees of common carriers engaged in serving food and beverages."

I attach herewith an editorial by our late General President Edward Flore. taken from pages 3 and 4 of the September issue of our official magazine, the Catering Industry Employee.

"NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM ON BEHALF OF THE DINING-CAR WORKERS

"The executive council of the American Federation of Labor, of which I am a member, at a recent meeting in Chicago, gave hearty approval to the amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act, as proposed by Senator Mead of New York and several colleagues in S. 1282.

"Our international union is especially anxious to have these amendments passed because a number of workers whom we represent are covered by some of the provisions of the bill and now receive less than 65 cents an hour. These particular people are the dining-car employees in the employ of approximately 90 percent of the Nation's railroads that have dining car service. The hourly pay of many of these workers is much lower than that of workers in other basic industries, and, while in most instances the pay now received is in excess of the minimum provided by the present law, it is less than 65 cents.

"Further, it was decreed by the former Secretary of Labor that time and onehalf provisions of the law (time and one-half after 40 hours) did not affect railroad workers. This, of course, included dining-car employees. Time and one-half contracts with railroads covering dining-car employees provide for time and one-half in case an employee works over 240 hours in a calendar month, which really only sets up the principle of time and one-half for it actually adds nothing to the take-home pay of the workers. It means a worker must work an average of 30 8-hour days in a month before he can earn overtime.

"From this obviously unfair situation the carrier has been able to deduct, under section 3M of the present law, the cost of board and lodging furnished dining-car workers. This is not board and lodging in the true sense, for !! is only furnished by the carriers when dining-car workers are away from their home terminal on the carrier's business. In other words, it is identical to the circumstances as that of the crew of a vessel that has left port.

"THE CATERING-INDUSTRY EMPLOYEE

"We now note that S. 1282 contains a proposal to amend subsection M, section 3, in the following manner:

"Wages paid to any employee, except members of the crew of a vessel, includes the reasonable cost, as determined by the administrator, to the employer of furnishing such employees with board, etc.'

"We sincerely trust that dining-car and other workers in the employ of the railroads, engaged in the preparation and service of food and beverages for the public, will be placed in the afore-mentioned amendment to the law in the same category as the crew of a vessel. Before the Fair Labor Standards Act there was no deduction for board and lodging furnished by the carrier to diningcar employees."

Respectfully submitted.

EXHIBIT 58

CHARLES E. SANDS.

STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY J. E. LENTIE, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE TOBACCO WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION A. F. OF L. ON S. 1349-AMENDMENT TO THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT

American employers have proved for the last century that high wages mex3 efficiency. To pay workers enough to maintain an adequate living standard is sound business, and it is a well-known fact that the most efficient workers are the highest paid workers, who have enough food, clothing, and good housing to maintain morale and physical energy.

The tobacco industry has always been one of the sore spots of the American economy because of its low wages. Yet in plants organized by the Tobacco Workers International Union wages have been raised to 65 cents or more for the vast majority of the employees. We have proved that the 65 cent wage is practical and efficient and that our employers can operate profitably under it.

Yet in unorganized plants many workers receive little more than the 40-cent minimum wage required by law. Cost of living has increased during the war, and they live in conditions of utmost poverty. Their homes are shacks and many have no water or inside toilet facilities. All their water must be carried from a hydrant.

Workers and their families living on wages of less than 65 cents an hour cannot get the food they need. They live on corn bread, fatback, and beans. This diet, when examples of it were shown to the United States Department of Agriculture, was pronounced by it to be a "pellagra-producing diet."

Living conditions are much better for those making 65 cents an hour. They are better clothed, better fed, and live in very much better homes.

In the tobacco industry wages form a very small part of total production costs. The 1939 census of manufacturers shows that while the production of the entire tobacco manufacturing industry amounted to $1,320,000,000 in 1939, wages were only $69,000,000, or 5 percent of the value of the product.

This means that wages can be raised by the amount necessary to meet the 65-cent minimum without imposing a serious burden upon the industry.

It is significant that profits in the tobacco industry have been at a very high level. OPA figures show that 15 leading tobacco manufacturing companies earned 18 percent on their net worth in the first half of 1944 before taxes. Profits of these companies were 20 percent above the average for a similar period in the years 1936-39. All the evidence we have shows that tobacco companies, large and small, can well afford to pay the 65-cent minimum wage.

*

**

Reports from Standard and Poor's industry surveys show that the outlook for both cigar and cigarette manufacturers in the postwar period is favorable. "Cigarette companies will retain the great bulk of the wartime gains in consumption," says this service. "Earnings of cigarette companies are expected to be well maintained this year the industry has no reconversion problem, and reduced takings by the armed forces should be offset by increased civilian consumption." The service says also "the longer term outlook for the cigar industry is favorable." For the smoking-tobacco industry the production is: "Smoking-tobacco sales are expected to recover considerably from the low 1944 level ** * higher costs will narrow margins * * * earnings from Smoking tobacco, however, are likely to improve moderately on the better volume." This service also shows that profits before taxes for 10 leading tobacco and tobacco-products companies in 1943 were 64.5 percent above 1935 and 44 percent above 1939.

With the high profits now being earned and the excellent outlook for this industry there is no question that it can well afford to lift its workers up to the 65-cent minimum-wage level. The total cost of giving the workers a minimum 65 cent wage, which will mean better food, better health, and a better life for thousands, will amount to only one-half of 1 percent of the income from sales of all companies in the entire industry or about six and one-half million dollars. The profit increase has been $50,000,000 from 1939 to 1943 for only 10 of the leading companies in this industry. There can be no question of the ability of this industry to pay a 65-cent wage.

EXHIBIT 59

STATEMENT OF RICHARD LEWIS, ACTING SECRETARY-TREASURER, OF THE UNITED OFFICE AND PROFESSIONAL WORKERS OF AMERICA, TO THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR ON THE PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT (S. 1349)

The United Office and Professional Workers of America, representing 65,000 employees in finance, insurance, publishing, nonprofit industrial and commercial offices, supports the proposed amendments to the wage-and-hour law (S. 1349). We regard the enactment of all six amendments as essential to provide rates of pay sufficient to insure minimum levels of health, security, and decent living standards. We urge the adoption of these amendments providing minimum hourly rates of 65 cents to 75 cents as essential to eliminate the threat of hunger, privation, ill health, and lowered efficiency from the lives of millions of American workers and particularly the white-collar workers whom we represent.

They are also necessary to fill the pockets of Americans with the purchasing power needed to keep our industrial machinery moving and our Nation prosperous and strong. National purchasing power is now declining as a result of increasing unemployment and reduction in workers' earnings. Higher minimum rates in the