55

45

Truck driver_

50

Important: Keep this envelope as Superintendent helper.. your statement of earnings and deduc- Roustabout___ tions.

TESTIMONY OF JERRY SCALF, EMPLOYEE OF AMERICAN ZINC Co. OF TENNESSEE, MASCOT, TENN., AND MEMBER OF LOCAL 188, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF MINE, MILL, AND SMELTER WORKERS, CIO

My home is in Mascot, Tenn. I work for the American Zinc Co. at its zine mine in Mascot. There are about 650 men employed at this mine. More than half of these men make 67 cents an hour or less; 87 of them make 58 cents.

I am submitting recent pay slips for John H. Hart, William L. Davis, and Roy E. McMurtry, showing that over a course of several weeks every cent of wages was deducted by the company for groceries, rent, medical fees, and taxes. pay slips are typical for the majority of the employees of this company.

These

$8.15

1.00

2.00

17.05

1.80

Name: Roy E. McMurtry.

Page 44. Line

Earned:

7 Extra for overtime___

$2.14

47 At 61-

28. 67

Milk

TESTIMONY OF J. T. DABBS, FINANCIAL SECRETARY, HATTIESBURG CHEMICAL WORKERS UNION, LOCAL 592, IUMM AND SW-CIO, HATTIESBURG, Miss.

I work for the Hercules Powder Co. in Hattiesburg, Miss. The plant in which I work employs about 400 workers. I am receiving the highest rate of pay in the plant, with the exception of the manager and supervisor. I work on a aver age of 56 hours a week, including 2 hours on Sundays. My wage rate is $1 an hour. About 85 men in the plant receive this rate. More than 300 men in the plant receive wages of from 55 cents to 81 cents an hour. The majority of these receive 55 to 66 cents an hour. All are now working on a 48-hour week, but it is understood that within the very near future the hours will be cut to 40 a week for everyone.

My income, which includes $40 a month from outside the plant, amounts to about $300 a month. I have a wife and three children, two of school age and one 17 months. I am buying a 6-room house, for which I am paying $6,000. The following shows what it costs us for minimum requirements for 1 month:

For groceries__

For electricity.

For payment on the house (this house could not be rented for less than $50 a month) –

$75.00

33.00

For gas to provide heat and cocking.

For water_.

4.50

2.00

4.00

4.00

6.00

25.00

1.50

15.00

30.00

5.00

10.00

5.00

5.00

The total of $261.50 is what is required for a family of five to live moderately well in Hattiesburg under present conditions. We are expecting the company to cut out all overtime work by the first of the year. This will cut my income to about $200 a month providing I can still maintain the extra income of $40 a month. Under such circumstances I will not be able to continue paying for the house, or replace my car or any of the household equipment. I have not been able since moving into the house I am buying to save anything out of my income. Most of the workers in our plant earn between 55 and 66 cents per hour. They and their families live in two- and three-room shacks, for which they pay $15 to $20 a month rent. These houses are located in the least desirable part of town near the plants where there are no improved streets or sidewalks. The houses are unpainted both inside and out. Very few have electric lights. All of them are lacking in indoor plumbing. There usually is an outdoor faucet from which several families get their water. These houses are not piped with gas, and therefore the people have to cook and heat with wood. At the present time wood costs them $32 a cord. At this rate, wood is more expensive than gas for cooking and heating. Of course, they must pay just as much for food as I do. The only explanation as to how these workers in our plant live who make an hourly wage of 55 to 66 cents is that their wives go out and work, they keep their children out of school, and they go without many necessities. Because of the scarcity of labor during the war, many of them found odd jobs after their day's work in the plant, thus supplementing their income by working two shifts in 1 day.

To illustrate that the prices we must pay for the necessities of life in Hattiesburg are just as high or higher than they are in places where wage rates are much higher, I want to point out that a one-room apartment which used to rent for $10 a month before the war now costs $35. A good furnished apartment rents for $65. As for groceries, they are just as high in Hattiesburg as in Washington. I have done the marketing for my family for the past few years so I am familiar with food prices. We used to buy corn meal before the war for 21⁄2 cents a pound, now we pay 62 cents a pound. Turnip greens which were 5 cents a bunch before the war are now 10 cents for a much smaller bunch. Green peas could be bought for 5 cents a pound before the war; now they are at least 25 cents a pound. Canned milk which used to be 39 cents for a half-gallon Oranges are 14 cents a pound; apples are 122 cents a

is now 19 cents a pint. pound. Clothing is more than twice as high as before the war. Work shirts that sold for $1 before the war are now $2.50. The same is true for work gloves and socks. The lower-priced goods are not available in the stores. Baby clothes are three times as high as before the war. Felt baby shoes that used to cost 98 cents are now $1.95.

The men in our plant who are working for 55 to 66 cents an hour, 48 hours a week, must maintain their families under intolerable living conditions. It is inconceivable how they would be able to exist under present conditions when the hours per week are cut to 40. To raise the minimum wage to 65 cents an hour by the proposed amendments to the wages-and-hours law would help, although it is not possible under present conditions to support a family decently in Hattiesburg on 65 cents an hour.

EXHIBIT 24

STATEMENT OF WILLARD SAXBY TOWNSEND, PRESIDENT UNITED TRANSPORT SERVICE EMPLOYEES OF AMERICA (CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS)

I am appearing here as president of United Transport Service Employees of America, a labor organization affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Our organization has 10,000 members and holds jurisdiction over red caps, station porters, dining-car employees. Our members are employed in all of the fields over which we have jurisdiction, working for railroads, bus companies, and air lines. We have been certified by the National Mediation Board as bargaining agency for employees on 47 railroads and air lines. We hold a total of 40 signed collective bargaining contracts.

I have come here today to place our organization on record emphatically to favor of the bill. We repeat and endorse the arguments which to you by the witnesses who have appeared before this dis

78595-45-61

We would indeed be presumptuous if we attempted to add to the able statements made to you by Secretary of Labor Schwellenbach, Commissioner Hinrichs, President Philip Murray, of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the other qualified and competent witnesses who have given the committee valuable evidence and statements in support of the bill. Our organization is directly interested in the bill because a substantial number of the employees in the crafts which we rep resent are paid wages lower than 65 cents per hour. Red caps generally receive 57 cents per hour less deductions for uniforms. Dining-car waiters generally re ceive 57 cents per hour less deductions for board and lodging. In the mangle departments, pullman laundry workers receive only 57 cents per hour. These wages should immediately be increased to a minimum of 65 cents per hour for all the reasons which have been capably given to you by preceding witnesses.

In addition to endorsing the whole bill, we desire to point out the necessity of strengthening the bill in several respects so as to close the loopholes which many employers use and would continue to use to avoid payment of the minimum wage established by Congress. The establishment of a minimum wage is not com pleted by the mere enactment of a statute prescribing a minimum. The devices and loopholes which many employers use to evade any established minimum mus be outlawed so that a fixed minimum wage will be a minimum wage in actual practice. We have two amendments to suggest.

First, we ask that the committee amend the bill so as to provide that tips shall not constitute wages, whether or not reported or accounted for in any manner by the employee. The members of the committee will recall the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 requires the employer to "pay to each of his employees * * * wages" at the minimum rate. Nevertheless the Supreme Court in Williams v. Jacksonville Terminal Company (315 U. S. 386), expressly ruled that this clear enactment of Congress did not prevent employer from avoiding payment of minimum wages by the fiction of a tip-reporting system. Under that system the employee theoretically "accounts" to the employer for tips received and the employer theoretically refunds the tips to the employee without ever touching them. The vice of such an arrangement is evident. Under threat of discharge and unemployment, the employer requires the employee to file inflated reports showing not less than the legal minimum wage. Once those tips are reported, the en ployer's obligation is legally discharged with the approval of the Supreme Court of the United States. Yet the employer has paid nothing and the employee starves Three of the Supreme Court Justices said that the plan contains an element of deceit and "does not accord with the meaning of the language used by Congress." They were outvoted by five other Justices. Relief is now urgently required from Congress.

I am not stating to you a theoretical objection conceived in the mind of an ivory-towered philosopher. I would like to tell you briefly the actual experience of our organization with such a tip reporting system.

In 1938 this Congress, which included several of the distinguished members of this subcommittee, enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act, unambiguously fixing a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour. Many of our red caps were not receiving 25 cents an hour in tips. The railroads were faced with the legal obligation of paying the red-cap employees 25 cents per hour. In order to avoid the congressional obligation, the railroads, acting through their domestic cartel, the Association of American Railroads, devised an ingenious scheme Just before the effective date of the new law they served a written notice os all red caps, telling them that henceforth red caps must report their tips and that the railroads would be pleased to pay them the difference between t reported and the statutory minimum wage. Taking the railroad's statement seriously, some red caps honestly reported the tips that they were receiving All over the United States stationmasters and superintendents called the red caps together and informed them that unless they reported tips equal to the , legal minimum wage, the red caps would be laid off. In 1938 there were 10,000,000 unemployed. The threat of unemployment hung even more heavily over the red cap who was a Negro. When the railroads cracked their whip. the individual red caps had to choose between walking the streets and reporting the minimum as ordered by the railroads, even though not received. The railroads did not mince words. One supervisor said, "You are supposed to sign $2 (for an 8-hour day) on the slip right away or you will not have a job." In another station a red cap asked the stationmaster, "What if we don't make that much?" The stationmaster answered, "You are supposed to put down the 25 cents per hour." Red caps were laid off for truthfully reporting and then reinstated on their promise to inflate reports. If we had time, I could give