present act includes for canning workers and those employed on first processing of food and agricultural products. There are three type of exemptions:

(1) Complete exemption from minimum wages and overtime (sec. 13 (a)). Workers in fish canneries employing about 50,000 people have no protection under the law. "Area of production" canneries are entirely exempt. This has caused great confusion in administration. The bill would remove these exemptions.

(2) The exemption from overtime rates throughout the year (sec. 7 (c)). The workers affected by this exemption are those engaged in cotton ginning in cotton compressing, in cottonseed oil mills, and first processing of sugarcane and sugar beets, and the manufacture of butter and cheese. The bill would remove these exemptions.

(3) Exemption from overtime for specific periods. There are two overtime exemptions in the law. One in section 7 (c) denies to canners and packing shed workers any overtime payment for 14 weeks in the year. The second exemption in 7 (b) (3) provides 14 more weeks during which seasonal industries need not pay overtime until after 12 hours a day and 56 hours a week. The result is that canneries have found it possible to work for 28 weeks in the year without overtime pay. This bill would remove the 14-week exemption in 7 (c), but it would not remove the 14-week seasonal exemption.

Government studies of the canning industry all show very wide divergence in wages paid, indicating a wide divergence in degree of efficiency. The best managed canneries are able to pay high wages and overtime and still compete with low-wage units. The average hourly earnings in canneries even during the war years were 25 cents less than the average for all manufacturing. When the need for canned food was such a vital part of the war effort there was a serious manpower shortage due in large part to the low-wage policy of the industry. Many appeals went from canners to the War Labor Board asking permission to increase wages. In some communities it was necessary to use prisoners of war. An Ohio canner testified in the legislature that he had even resorted to getting people from the local jail.

We believe that both exemptions for overtime should be removed. Work during the peak season is exhausting. Many workers have periods of unemployment or slack hours when the peak is over and are entitled to extra remuneration for the long hours employed. Increasing the minimum rate and removing the exemptions, as proposed in this bill, are long overdue as a needed improvement in this business.

CHILD LABOR

The bill proposes to amend section 12 of the Fair Labor Standards Act by adding a new paragraph (b), which contains a direct prohibition against the employment of children in any establishment engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce. It would also bring within the coverage of the present child-labor provisions of the act establishments engaged in commerce but which may not be producing goods or shipping them in commerce.

At the time the act was passed there was some uncertainty as to the constitutionality of Federal child-labor regulation, with the result that the control of child labor was provided in a somewhat roundabout way; namely, through the provision that no producers, manufacturers, or dealers should ship any goods in commerce from an establishment within which oppressive child labor had been employed 30 days prior to the removal of goods from the establishment (sec. 12). There are instances on record where the minimum wage standards of the act have been violated by firms, simply by the device of holding the goods for more than 30 days before shipment. In such cases the Government is powerless to enforce the child-labor provisions of the act. There are instances on record also where young people have been employed at logging and lumber operations and have had no opportunity to attend school for an entire year. In these cases the Government has been without authority to enforce the child-labor provisions of the act because the logs were not shipped for several months after they were prepared. The direct prohibition of oppressive child labor contained in this new section will strengthen the machinery of enforcement since it will be necessary only to prove that the establishment is subject to the child-labor provisions and that the children are employed contrary to the standards set by the act. The ime which has elapsed between the production and shipment of goods will have no bearing on the violation.

The extension of the child-labor coverage to establishments engaged in interstate commerce will bring the child-labor provisions of the act in line with the

minimum wage and overtime provisions. The chief occupations which will be ivcluded will be telephone and telegraph companies, railroads and boats engaged in interstate commerce. Line construction and maintenance for both telephone and telegraph companies is heavy and hazardous work. Telegraph messenger work has a high accident incidence. Employment of children on track maintenance and construction and in repair and other jobs in connection with the operation of railroads is undesirable and unfitted for minors under 16 years of age. During the war employment of children as young as 14 and 15 years on boats has been reported by school authorities. These youngsters often secured their jobs and shipped on boats without going through the procedure of obtaining an employment certificate, as would have been the case in connection with other employment. But because the employment on boats did not come within the jurisdiction of State laws these children were not protected by either Federal or State regulations.

For these reasons we strongly urge the inclusion of the additional paragraph to section 12 of the act.

EXHIBIT 29

STATEMENT OF THE SOCIAL ACTION DEPARTMENT OF THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WELFARE CONFERENCE IN BEHALF OF S. 1349, THE AMENDMENT OF THE WAGESHOURS ACT

The social action department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference wishes to record itself in favor of the proposed amendment to the wages-hours law. The social action department is that section of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the Catholic bishops' organization of the United States, which especially deals with this subject.

The department is the more anxious to speak in favor of the amendment be cause a guide of its work is the famous Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruetion, which over 27 years ago asked for family living-wage laws that would begin with requiring only enough for present normal maintenance but would gradually require enough for protection during sickness, accidents, invalidity, and old age. This amendment is a step toward those standards.

That program also stated that employees have a right to a living wage before an employer has the moral right to take interest on his investment. That is how seriously we consider the living wage.

The present 40 cents an hour of the law, paid for a full 40 hours of steady work during all 52 weeks of the year with no holidays, no vacations, and no lay-offs, provides only $16 a week and $800 a year. These amounts are wholly inadequate and where so when the law was passed.

Neither, for that matter, is the 65-cent minimum proposed by the present amendment a family living wage, nor is the 75 cents, which will be mandatory in the third year after the amendment passes and which can be introduced before then, industry by industry, on recommendation of advisory industry boards. Seventy-five cents an hour for 40 hours is $30 a week. The approximately 50 weeks of a full year's work reaches only $1,500; and with taxes and socialsecurity deductions it is much less. Hardly anyone would say that the full $1,500 is enough to meet even a small family's present needs. Yet prudence dictates the gradual approach to the legal enforcement of the living wage and asks us to be content with a 65- to 75-cent legal minimum now.

The 65-cent rate works out at some $1,300, Five cents an hour more or less means another $100 a year-at full-time work-less or more.

We wish to point out that the amendment does not establish at any of its figures a minimum family living wage. They move toward it, however, and that is so much to the good. We are in favor of the amendment.

Certain further comments on the bill seem in order:

(1) The principle of governmental protection of wages is already accepted in law and in American public opinion. No argument needs to be advanced on this matter.

(2) The jump from a 40-cent minimum in the law to a 65-cent minimum is a jump in lasy but not in fact. Very few who are covered by the law will get any increase under the ardment. Those who will get an increase will get very little. The amendmy, however, protect many persons from oppressive wage rubs to far bel

en the wages of those covered by the Federal be widened by this law. This is a serious situ

ation. But the Federal Government is not empowered to protect the wage rates of all the people and apparently does not wish to protect all whom it might protect. The plain answer is to go as far as Congress will consent to go within its powers and to work for like State legislation to protect those whom the Federal Government cannot or will not protect. That the Federal and State governments, in combination, do not protect all is no argument against the Federal Government's protecting some; it is instead an argument in favor of both protecting all, in combination.

(4) The laws, Federal and State, are not supposed to give full wage justice. They should instead direct themselves toward a minimum living wage and then leave to collective agreements decisions on improvements. Therefore, it is not a valid argument against this amendment to complain that it does not establish the full standard of living which Americans should have. The Government should not try to do everything; that way is the way to totalitarianism.

(5) The system of industry boards, which the amendment retains, possesses the great qualities of bringing labor, business, the public, and Government closer together, of making the law more flexible, and of adjusting wage rates to the conditions of particular industries.

(6) If a few industries have to increase their prices to meet these wage rates, that is a small thing to pay for the promotion of wholesale justice. If certain individual firms within particular industries cannot meet such wage rates, that is simply proof that labor and the community are subsidizing their inefficiency. There is something radically wrong with an industry or a firm that cannot support its people. It should be overhauled by its employers and labor. If needed, they should call on the counsel of Government. The Government should be forehanded in giving them its counsel and help. Such industries and concerns are diseased.

(7) Extension of the law to seamen and to canning and processing of fish, and canceling the ambiguous provision about "the area of production" seem justified. The people concerned are surely in industry, as the term is commonly used.

(8) The committee might well consider an amendment to bring migratory agricultural labor under the law because of the very terrible conditions which that kind of labor meets and because of the special character of their work and the market for the products.

(9) We take this opportunity to appeal to the States to pass like laws to protect those under the jurisdiction of the States, including ordinary farm labor.

(10) It is sometimes said that the Fair Labor Standards Act is defective since it gives the same minimum wage to both single persons and heads of families. This is, in fact, a defect, if the living wage alone is considered. Yet the wage that is set under the present amendment is barely enough for support of a single individual. Really, to correct this defect, the present amendment should be passed so as to pay the 65-75 cents minimum to everyone, and a further law should be passed to provide more money to a man with a wife and something additional for every child. Failure to introduce that new kind of system makes mandatory a law that covers everyone on the same basis. There are, however, other considerations in this respect, such as the right to equal pay for equal work.

(11) The bishops' program of social reconstruction, referred to above, advocated only State living-wage laws. It did so because at that time the Constitution was so interpreted as to forbid Federal laws on general wages. Instead of this limitation of the bishops' program being an argument against Federal laws to cover most of the persons who are now under Federal jurisdiction, it is a further argument for State laws to cover those whom the Federal Government cannot or will not protect.

(12) Two other considerations present themselves: People getting enough to live decently can produce better. People getting enough to live decently can buy more goods and services and thus can reduce unemployment. Fuller production and fuller employment will result from this law.

(13) We look upon this amendment as a companion piece to, and an even more important proposal than, the full employment bill. However, that bill, if passed, can help this bill, if passed, by the provision in the Senate full employment bill for mandatory conferences of business, labor, and agriculture to work out the conditions of full employment.

EXHIBIT 30

STATEMENT BY MRS. GERTRUDE FOLKS ZIMAND, GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE, SUBMITTED TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR WITH REGARD TO SECTION 6 of S. 1349, AMENDING THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT

Section 6 of S. 1349 amends the child-labor provisions of the Fair Labor Stand ards Act by including, in section 12 of the present act, a subsection (b) directly prohibiting an employer engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce from employing oppressive child labor in or about, or in connection with, any enterprise in which he is so engaged.

Under the present act only those employers are covered by the child-lab provisions who actually "produce" and "ship" goods. This means that childre employed in such work as telegraph messenger service, or on boats or railroads operating in interstate commerce, are not protected by the act.

More children under 16 years are employed in telegraph messenger servic than in any other single industry. On March 31, 1943, it was found that 11.14 percent of the messengers employed by the Western Union Telegraph Co. were under 16 years of age (U. S. District Court, Southern District of New York Katharine F. Lenroot, Chief of the Children's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor plaintiff versus the Western Union Telegraph Co., a corporation, defendant) Messenger work is one of the least desirable forms of employment for childr under 16 years. The accident rate is high, and the work frequently involves nig employment for boys attending school.

The 16-year minimum age for employment set by the Fair Labor Standards Act, with work at 14 years permitted only in those industries and under those conditions which the Chief of the Children's Bureau finds will not interfere wi their health, schooling and well-being, is the minimum of protection which shou be granted to children employed in all industries under the act.

The minimum wage and overtime provisions of the act already apply to th broad coverage. Surely there should be no hesitancy in extending the covers of the child labor provisions to include all the industries already covered by 'îr wage and overtime provisions.

We urge a favorable report by the subcommittee on section 6 of S. 1349.

EXHIBIT 31

STATEMENT OF CALIFORNIA FISH CANNERS ASSOCIATION, INC.

California Fish Canners Association, Inc., is a trade association composed of canners and processors of fish,' with its principal office at Terminal Island, Ca Its members can the major portion of tuna fish produced in the United States and also can large quantities of mackeral and sardines. They also produce is meal and oil.

Senate bill No. 1349, now being considered by the Senate Committee on En. tion and Labor, provides, among other things, for the elimination from sect 13 (a) (5) of the sea food and fishery exemption of the Fair Labor Standards A the following words: "and including employment in the loading, unloading. (* packing of such products for shipment or in propagating, processing, marketi freezing, canning, curing, storing, or distributing the above products or byp ucts thereof."

1 Members of the California Fish Canners Association, Inc., are: California Marine Curing & Packing Co., Terminal Island, Calif.

Coast Fishing Co., Wilmington, Calif.

Franco-Italian Packing Co., Inc., Terminal Island, Calif.

French Sardine Co., Terminal Island, Calif.

Sardamack Fisheries, Wilmington, Calif.

Southern California Fish Corp., Terminal Island, Calif.

South Coast Fisheries, Inc., Terminal Island, Calif.

South Pacific Canning Co., Long Beach, Calif.

Terminal Island Sea Foods, Ltd., Terminal Island, Calif.

Van Camp Sea Food Co., Inc., Terminal Island and San Diego, Calif., and Asteria,
Oreg.

West Coast Packing Corp., Long Beach, Calif.

Westgate Sea Products Co., San Diego, Calif.
Western Canners Co., Newport Beach, Calif.

The effect of this amendment will be to subject the canners of fish and processors of the byproducts of fish to the minimum-wage and maximum-hour provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The California Fish Canners Association, Inc.. hereby protests the enactment of such legislation or any similar legislation changing the present seafood and fishery exemption in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

It is elementary that after fish are recovered from the ocean and other waters, the recovery must be followed as rapidly as possible by canning or processing in order to preserve the catch. Canning or processing commences immediately following the landing of the fishing boats.

On May 24, 1938, Congressman S. O. Bland, chairman of the Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, United States House of Representatives, speaking in behalf of certain provisions of the bill that is now the Fair Labor Standards Act, said:

"By all the rules that apply to agriculture, and then some, the fishery industry ought to be exempted. If there is any industry under heaven that cannot measure its operations by the rules that are applicable under this bill, it is the fishery industry. It is as varied in the different sections of the country, almost, as the different fishing sections themselves, some by reason of participation in the fish caught, some by reason of wages, as well as various other operations. The industry is confronted not alone by the vicissitudes that apply to agriculture, but also wind, wave, action of the tide, fogs, and various other conditions that must, necessarily, determine operations in the fishery industry. You may legislate all you please as to the number of hours, but the fish that are running will not obey your legislation. You may legislate all you please with respect to any provision in this bill, but when it comes to fogs and waves and wind and tide you are dealing with a situation that is far beyond this bill or the operation of any bill. You are dealing, when you deal with the fishery industry, with a condition that needs assistance, that needs help, and has received just about as little as any industry in the country.

"I ask you, in defense of this great interest, that it be given the same benefits that are given to agriculture'" (83 Cong. Rec., p. 7408).

Fishing, fish canning, and fish reduction are now equally important parts of the same industry. Congress recognized this in joining the treatment for all of these parts of the industry in one exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act, the seafood and fishery exemption, section 13 (a) (5).

The processing and canning of fish, like time and the tides, wait for no man, and the number of hours required to process fish after the landing of a fish boat cannot be forecast. These "facts of life" caused Congress to enact the seafood and fishery exemption (sec. 13 (a) (5)) in the first place. These facts likewise caused the operation of fish canneries and fish-processing establishments to be based on:

(a) Processors ready to process fish as scon as fishing boats land; and (b) Processors and the employees thereof ready and willing to continue processing operations without interruption as long as necessary after the fishing-boat arrivals, to insure the preservation of the natural resource-fish. Collective bargaining agreements negotiated in each and every instance in southern California on the part of the workers by strong unions-either affiliates of the AFL or CIO-provide not for a 40-hour week but for continuous operation until fish is processed.

Congress, in enacting in the Fair Labor Standards Act, sought to eliminate "labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of minimum standards of living, necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers" (declaration of policy contained in 29 U. S. C., sec. 202).

There are no labor conditions "detrimental to the maintenance of minimum standards of living necessary for health, efficiency, and the general well-being of workers" in the fish-processing industry in southern California.

Imposition of the 40-hour week on this industry would actually lower average pay and contribute to a reduction of minimum standards of living of employees. Congress should not add to the momentum of forces constantly discriminating against small business that necessarily tend to force monopolistic conditions. The small fish processor cannot stand additional regimentation. Respectfully submitted.

CALIFORNIA FISH CANNERS ASSOCIATION, INC., By CHAS. A. WINKLER, Secretary.