TESTIMONY OF J. T. DABBS. FINANCIAL SECRETARY. HATTIESBURG CHEMICAL WOOKIEUNION, 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 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 hour. About 85 men in the plant receive this rate. More than 300 men in th plant receive wages of from 55 cents to 81 cents an hour. The majority of the receive 55 to 66 cents an hour. All are now working on a 48-hour week, but it understood that within the very near future the hours will be cut to 40 a wee for everyone.

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

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

$75 1

334

They

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

To illustrate that the prices we must pay for the necessities of life in Hattiesrg are just as high or higher than they are in places where wage rates are uch higher, I want to point out that a one-room apartment which used to nt for $10 a month before the war now costs $35. A good furnished apartment nts for $65. As for groceries, they are just as high in Hattiesburg as in 'ashington. I have done the marketing for my family for the past few years so am familiar with food prices. We used to buy corn meal before the war for 4 cents a pound, now we pay 62 cents a pound. Turnip greens which were cents a bunch before the war are now 10 cents for a much smaller bunch. reen peas could be bought for 5 cents a pound before the war; now they are at 1st 25 cents a pound. Canned milk which used to be 39 cents for a half-gallon now 19 cents a pint. Oranges are 14 cents a pound; apples are 122 cents a und. Clothing is more than twice as high as before the war. Work shirts that sold r $1 before the war are now $2.50. The same is true for work gloves and ks. The lower-priced goods are not available in the stores. Baby clothes > three times as high as before the war. Felt baby shoes that used to cost 98 its are now $1.95.

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

EXHIBIT 24

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

am appearing here as president of United Transport Service Employees of erica, a labor organization affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Orizations. Our organization has 10,000 members and holds jurisdiction over caps, station porters, dining-car employees. Our members are employed in of the fields over which we have jurisdiction, working for railroads, bus panies, and air lines. We have been certified by the National Mediation ird as bargaining agency for employees on 47 railroads and air lines. We 1 a total of 40 signed collective bargaining contracts.

have come here today to place our organization on record emphatically in or of the bill. We repeat and endorse the arguments which have been made 'ou by the witnesses who have appeared before this distinguished committee. 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, Pres. dent Philip Murray, of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the othe qualified and competent witnesses who have given the committee valuable evidence and statements in support of the bill. Our organization is directly interested i the bill because a substantial number of the employees in the crafts which we re resent are paid wages lower than 65 cents per hour. Red caps generally receive ** cents per hour less deductions for uniforms. Dining-car waiters generally r ceive 57 cents per hour less deductions for board and lodging. In the mang departments, pullman laundry workers receive only 57 cents per hour. Thes wages should immediately be increased to a minimum of 65 cents per hour for £ 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 ma 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 cor pleted by the mere enactment of a statute prescribing a minimum. The der and loopholes which many employers use to evade any established minimum m be outlawed so that a fixed minimum wage will be a minimum wage in act practice. We have two amendments to suggest.

First, we ask that the committee amend the bill so as to provide that tips sh not constitute wages, whether or not reported or accounted for in any man by the employee. The members of the committee will recall the Fair LabsStandards Act of 1938 requires the employer to "pay to each of his employe * * wages" at the minimum rate. Nevertheless the Supreme Court in W liams v. Jacksonville Terminal Company (315 U. S. 386), expressly ruled that th clear enactment of Congress did not prevent employer from avoiding payment minimum wages by the fiction of a tip-reporting system. Under that system !! employee theoretically "accounts" to the employer for tips received and the ployer theoretically refunds the tips to the employee without ever touching the The vice of such an arrangement is evident. Under threat of discharge and 2. employment, the employer requires the employee to file inflated reports show. not less than the legal minimum wage. Once those tips are reported, the t ployer's obligation is legally discharged with the approval of the Supreme Ce of the United States. Yet the employer has paid nothing and the employee starve Three of the Supreme Court Justices said that the plan contains an element. 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 requires from Congress.

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

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

you a hundred examples. Many of them are collected in the Transcript of Record in the Supreme Court in the case of Townsend v. New York Central, October term, 1944, Case No. 171.

Obviously Congress never intended to allow the railroads to avoid the clear meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Nevertheless, when the agreement came before the Supreme Court, Justice Reed said that the tip-reporting system simply represented an efficient method of complying with the mandate of Congress. Three of the Justices dissented vigorously.

For the time being the railroads have changed their method of payment. Paying wages of 57 cents per hour to red caps, the railroads are charging the traveling public 10 cents for each bag handled. We believe, however, that this is a temporary wartime situation, put into effect and kept in effect by the great increase in railroad travel which commenced in 1940. The air lines today do not charge the public anything for baggage handled by red caps. With a likely increase in air travel tomorrow, the railroads will undoubtedly be forced by competition to eliminate their 10-cent charge. When they do, they will push the red caps back to the tip-reporting system and will again be able to evade paying minimum wages unless Congress amends this bill. Since we are subject to such a great danger at any time, we earnestly ask that this committee not only approve the bill in its present form but strengthen it by outlawing tip reports or tip accounts in payment of the statutory minimum wage. This protection is needed by all employees in interstate commerce, since the employees in the tipping trades are traditionally among those least well able to bargain effectively.

For our second amendment, we ask that the committee amend the bill so as to prevent another favorite device used by employers to evade payment of the minimum wage. We refer to deductions made for uniforms, for meals, and for lodging furnished by the employer for the employer's convenience in order to make possible the performance of the employee's duties. In all such cases the employee would rather live in his own dwelling place, wear clothes of his own selection and eat meals of his own choosing or of his own family's cooking. However, the conditions of work imposed by the employer require the employee to use the uniform, the meals, and the lodging furnished by the employer. Since these items are furnished by the employer for the employer's own benefit, they should not be charged to the employee. Particularly the employer should not be allowed to deduct the cost of such items as a method of avoiding payment of the statutory minimum wage.

Our members who are dining-car employees are subjected to wage deductions for board and lodging even when they do not receive any board or lodging. May I give you an actual example from our experience? Some dining-car waiters live in Chicago and have homes there. Arbitrarily one railroad creates the fiction that their home terminal for purposes of wage deductions shall be Des Moines, Iowa. Thus when these men are in Des Moines, Iowa, and actually have to pay for their lodging, the railroad furnishes them no lodging facilities because, fictionally, they are at home. Yet when these men are in Chicago, where they live at home, the railroad makes a deduction from their wages for lodging facilities theoretically furnished to them at Chicago, where actually they live at home. Thirty-six men are defrauded in this manner.

On the same railroad in the Middle West we have eight members who are club-car men and whose wages are trimmed for board and lodging. Nevertheless, no provision whatsoever is made for them to eat. The trains on which they ride do not even carry any dining cars.

The entire program of establishing a minimum wage is likely to be destroyed if railroads and other employers are allowed to make deductions for lodging which is furnished primarily for the employer's convenience. On one of our western railroads 200 out of the 550 men in the dining-car service are required to sleep in the dining car itself while they are en route. As if this were not sufficient inconvenience, the railroad in addition charges these men for sleeping in the dining car and deducts the amount from their pay checks. Incidentally, on this same road the deductions apply only to the dining-car waiters and to the cooks, who receive 57 cents an hour. No deductions are made from the pay of cooks receiving more than 57 cents an hour. We point this out to you merely to show that the railroads are particularly interested in avoiding payment of the minimum wage and to show that the outlawing of such deduction devices is essential to the successful operation of a minimum-wage program. On one of the Atlantic seaboard railroads the railroad furnishes lodging at the terminal, but the quarters are so unsanitary that the men are unable to use them and are required to sleep in the dining car. Nevertheless, a lodging

deduction is made from the employee's minimum wage. On this same railroad all of the extra crews handling military trains are required to sleep in the dining cars.

On one of the southern railroads, out of 17 circuits covered by the dining-car crews, 8 circuits make no sleeping provisions except in the dining cars. In those 8 cases likewise the railroad reduces the minimum wage by an amount fictionally designed as a deduction for lodging.

Surely it is no privilege for a worker to sleep in a dining car or in a bunk car or in a bunk in a baggage car or in the lodgings away from home furnished at railroad terminals. The employees sleep there because they are required to do so in order to perform their work. To protect the minimum-wage structure it is essential that the railroads be prohibited from making fictional deductions for lodging.

The same is true of uniforms. Again the railroads require the employees to wear uniforms and to purchase them at designated places according to desig nated specifications. The purpose of the uniforms is to satisfy the railroad's desire for the appearance, convenience, and orderliness of the terminal. Although there is no objection raised to the uniform, there is no reason why the employee should pay for the employer's overhead. Here again fictional deductions for uniforms are used by the railroads to avoid payment of the minimum wage.

The same is true of meals. Before 1938 the railroads made no charges for meals served to dining-car employees. There should properly be no charge because actually the overhead operation of the dining cars necessarily includes sufficient food provide meals for the employees. After the railroads became obligated to pay a minimum wage they then conceived the notion of avoiding their legal obligation by setting up a fictitious charge for meals. In order to do this they averaged the meals served to all persons and put the employees' meals on a virtually equivalent financial basis with the meals of passengers. We now have the spectacle of railroads deducting substantial sums for employees' meals in order to avoid payment of the minimum wage.

We would like to call to the subcommittee's attention another violation of the minimum wage requirement which also calls for preventive legislative action. There are many railroad employees who are required to be on call and available for duty. Nevertheless, their wages are eliminated during these hours even though as a practical matter they are actually called during most of these hours. Sleeping-car porters, for example, are allowed hours during which they may rest. This rest is necessary for the adequate performance of their work for the carrier. Although during these hours they are available for call, their wages are eliminated. Thus the sleeping-car porter on the run from New York to Chicago or Washington pays almost as much for his berth as the passenger. In presenting our testimony before you, I have stressed the plight of railroad workers because I know their situation best and our experience is widest in the transportation field. I do not wish to be misconstrued, because the problems of the railroad worker are not essentially different from the problems of all other workers. When aided by unemployment or pressed by a selfish desire to cut costs, any employer is likely to put into effect a system of deductions. Similarly the devices used to cut wages of railroad employees who receive tips can be used with an equally devastating effect to cut the wages of all employees in the tipping trade. Our research department's studies reveal that there are a million or more employees in tipping occupations in the United States. Although not all of these employees are engaged in work affecting interstate commerce. many of them are. Thus the problems which I have illustrated by my experience in the transportation field are actually problems of general concern. Both justice to the worker and the social validity of minimum wages require not only that Congress pass the bill pending before it but also that the bill be strengthened to eliminate the weaknesses which I have described.

EXHIBIT 25

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL CANNERS ASSOCIATION ON S. 1349 BEFORE A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR

The National Canners Association is a voluntary trade association, the membership of which includes more than a thousand canners of vegetables, fruit, and fish, with canneries located in 44 States and in the Territories of Alaska, Hawaii,