Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

pression, certainly from the kinds of investigations we have made, is that it is really an over-all problem that we have.

Mr. WIER. May I ask you whether in the field of chemistry that same problem is met? In talking about work at the board, universally, people are accepted at a wage level, and the reason is based on the ability to meet certain qualifications for certain classifications of drafting work, and there is not any distinction.

During the war we had a lot of women who had taken up drafting. That is about as far as they go, but in that field we have about four classifications of drafting, and as they leave one they must be able to pass into, move up into the next classification.

The same thing applies to chemistry and a number of other fields where women have a qualification range rank, and are paid for the rank they qualify for.

Mr. BURKE. That is true, during the war particularly, we had some difficulty where they employed mechanical engineers with regular degrees in mechanical engineering or in metallurgy, and so on, and after some long and serious fights before the War Labor Board here we were able to get equal pay for equal work, which was the official policy during the time of war.

I know, of course, that there is no legislation that could possibly be drawn that would affect those people who work for fees, as independent, professional people, such as doctors, and so on. However, is there any experience that women in those fields have trouble in obtaining the same fees generally as men?

Miss MCQUATTERS. No; I think not. If you take the doctors, for example, I think you will find that they can enter into their profession and charge comparable fees to male physicians.

Mr. BURKE. You might say this is just a matter of curiosity on my part, having nothing to do with the legislation.

Miss MCQUATTERS. The Women's Bureau of the Department has a publication showing the median earnings of women, by chief occupations, which I think will give you an idea along that line.

In the professional groups, for example, in 1946, the median wage for professional women was $1,501 and for men, $3,345.

In the clerical field, for example, the median earnings for women was $1,460 against $2,246 for men.

Mr. BURKE. Does that cover substantially the same type of job, or was it on a wide range of jobs?

Miss MCQUATTERS. I take it the clerical classification does cover a rather wide field. These are from Census Bureau statistics.

Among the professional workers, the men's median earnings were more than double that of the women. Sales persons, for example,

had median earnings of $754 for women, $2,142 for men.

Mr. KELLEY. For the same hours of work?

Miss MCQUATTERS. That also is not indicated.

Mr. BURKE. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Wier.

Mr. WIER. I do not want to get too far afield, in a field where there is another problem, for instance, involving the question of married

women as against single women, that is, in the field of education, for example.

Miss MCQUATTERS. Yes.

Mr. WIERS. Married teachers as against single teachers, and the jobs in the department stores. The big department stores like the one here in Washington, Hecht, or a big department store in my city, where there are two people, buyers, similar buyers, one in the soap department at the top of the department, a woman, and where there is a man in the next department, the linen buyer, both of them being there for the same period of time, both probably as highly rated as possible, but where there may be about two times as much salary differential between the soap buyer on the one hand and the linen buyer. They both come to New York. In both jobs they do all of the buying, and have complete supervision.

There is an answer to that. There is an answer also in a number of other professional fields, and that answer, of course, is usually a stereotyped one. When you talk to the management it is a question of dependency against nondependency, and when you ask the manager why the man gets two times as high as the high pay as the one who is doing the soap buying, the answer is that he has got a family and she does not have a family.

Miss MCQUATTERS. I think that brings up what Mr. Burke brought out day before yesterday, when he said that we are not asking what they do with what they get.

However I would like to say this, because really it is causing us a great deal of difficulty, in social security and with respect to a number of other laws, that the dependents which women have are really not recognized. Women today are not working just for pin money. We find, particularly among our membership, that many of the women and girls are supporting someone who is disabled. In many instances, they are supporting children because of the death of a husband. And in many cases the support of the children may rest on the woman. The cases of women with heavy family responsibilities are much more widespread than the general public realizes.

Of course, again, the matter of whether an earning wage is to be based on the need of the individual or the ability of the individual to do the job is a philosophical point. But on these married women problems the organization has been extremely active. Of course, there is the problem of the married woman worker being put out of work during times of depression. We have quite a record in opposing State legislation, for example, which would prevent the employment of married women, because every single person realizes that once you begin curtailing, for one reason or another the ability to hold a job, that you begin to infringe on the right of people to work. Mr. WIER. What do you think would happen or will happen in the event of this kind of legislation if we should happen to-and there is the possibility of going back into another 1930 depression? I sat in the Minnesota State Legislature in the thirties. All the time of the depression from 1932 to 1939 and we had people bring in bills that would prohibit the employment of married women, on the basis of any income in that family. This is just the reverse of it.

Miss MCQUATTERS. That is what we are protesting, all of that type of legislation, and that came up in many States during the thirties."

Mr. WIER. That was especially true while I was a member of the board of education.

Miss MCQUATTERS. I know that is true.

Mr. WIER. And that is quite an objection, when you have about 2,400 teachers, where a woman is getting $4,500 as a maximum and the husband may be a very prominent attorney or an artist. But back of that is the thinking of the single teacher who is working, where she stands in the way of the need for another person. There is an economic side to this. And bear in mind that I am going to support this.

Miss MCQUATTERS. Yes.

Mr. WIER. I am not too enthusiastic about some of these things. For instance in the Government now you have a closed shop of Government-service men, superseniority.

Mr. BURKE. Is it not true that most union contracts have been written on the basis of employee ability, without making cut-backs of the type you speak of. That was quite frequent in the thirties. Miss MCQUATTERS. And there is a resurgence of it.

Mr. BURKE. I doubt the constitutionality of such legislation. I do not think that the constitutionality can be met of the employment of

Mr. WIER. Well, we are just discussing what could happen; we are just discussing it, not defending what happened.

Mr. BURKE. I understand. Does not this whole thing come down to this, that here we are in modern times and considering the evaluation, as I outlined the other day, of methods of determining wage payments, on the one hand, through individual bargaining, and collective bargaining on the other, and there is superimposed on the collective bargaining this groping for a scientific way of establishing job rate pay, the measurement of the job content; but at the same time those people who are more for the scientific method sometimes reach back into the old ways and want to bring in factors that have no business in any measurement of job content.

Miss MCQUATTERS. That is correct.

Mr. WIER. We heard the manufacturers' representative say here that "We are in favor of this bill, but."

Mr. BURKE. Yes.

Miss MCQUATTERS. Yes.

Mr. BURKE. Yes; they favored job evaluation "but."

Mr. KELLEY. Do you think that the passage of legislation of this kind would have a detrimental effect on the employment of women in a period of full labor supply? To be more specific, suppose I were a manufacturer and I was compelled to pay females the same rate of pay as I did a male employee; do you think I might take the position that I preferred to have male employees rather than females, even though they may perhaps be more efficient?

Miss MCQUATTERS. I think it is quite possible that certain employers might take that attitude. We have taken that very definitely into consideration. On the other hand, it is pretty difficult to run any business now without women. Women are holding positions in practically every kind of business and industry, and we feel that would take care of itself. Our position has always been, if the opportunities are equalized we are willing to take our chance, and while I

do not like to use the word "complete," we believe if we can get this principle established that we can hold our own.

Mr. KELLEY. The people affected are the people engaged in interstate commerce.

Miss MCQUATTERS. That is right.

Mr. KELLEY. Therefore most of the women you wish to help you cannot reach.

Miss MCQUATTERS. I intended to bring that out. It is very interesting that our organization has been supporting this, in view of the fact that really the majority of our members would not be directly affected. However, we have been active. We have been talking about a few State laws in the last 2 days, and our federations in those States have been most active in helping achieve the State legislation, and we feel that having this principle enacted into law, affecting the larger industries within these States, will raise the standard even in those States who are not directly under the law itself, because it sets a standard and a pattern for them.

Mr. KELLEY. It helps.

Miss MCQUATTERS. Yes.

Mr. BURKE. I might ask you one other question: In times, you might say, of a glutted labor market, it is true, is it not, that in many industries, particularly the ones I know best, the metal-working industry and I know the needles trade has been more or less met by women-but in the metals trade, the women were first brought in to take over the lighter jobs, because in many instances they would do it cheaper; and then through the process of the years, finally, through collective bargaining, and so on, and then the establishment of a scientific job measurement system, it was found that women were better fitted for certain jobs in those industries than men.

For example, I worked in a factory where I could handle the rear axle work very well, but when it came to setting the small springs in an automatic hydraulic system my fingers just would not handle it as well as a woman. And, women were more efficient in jobs like that.

It is true also with automobiles: Women are better fitted, for instance, to fit the wiring on the armature, the wiring that goes into the instrument panel and connects with the motor, and so on, because they can fit their hands into the smaller parts more naturally. So that I do not think there will be any assumption that is well founded on a trend to get rid of women workers on those jobs as there have been in times past.

Miss MCQUATTERS. I agree with you.

Mr. KELLEY. It is just like the Wage and Hours Act: In trying to bring up the level of wages, the people who really need it are those you cannot reach in the States.

Mr. BURKE. Yes.

Mr. KELLEY. I am not bringing that up as being opposed to this legislation, but I am just trying to point out that the thing you are trying to do we cannot always do through Federal legislation."

Miss MCQUATTERS. That is correct.

Mr. KELLEY. Many of the stores employ women at very low wage rates. I might say that only recently I heard of a case where a woman had been working for a department store for 30 years and was still getting just $14 a week.

Are there any further questions?

Mr. FORSYTHE. In connection with section 2, which is the heart of the bill

Miss MCQUATTERS. Yes.

Mr. FORSYTHE. The prohibition of wage rate differential based on sex. Are you familiar with the experience which any of the States may have had in administering the State's equal pay law? How do they handle this administrative problem? A number of witnesses have indicated they believe that the enactment of this section would inevitably present a comparative job to that which the States have had in enforcing the equal pay provisions in the States. Do you have any knowledge as to whether there is a similarity in any of the State laws, and if so, how they have met the problem?

Miss MCQUATTERS. As I said in my testimony, we do recommend that there be a slight change in the wording. But the New York State law is not so different, and I have here the background, the statutory interpretations and the penalties in New York, in some cases, that they have had under that law.

For example, a radiator manufacturing company paid a male timekeeper $29, and the female timekeeper was paid $28, that is, the starting pay. After the matter had been brought to the attention of the manufacturer, after it had gone on for some time, the question of equal pay was brought up and an adjustment was made to comply with the law.

In some of these cases there was a difference in the work to be performed and in those cases the wage differential was permitted to exist. For example, a biscuit company employed women who received 71 cents per hour, and during the time there was a labor shortage, men who were engaged in other work, were called in to fill the gap. They continued to get the rate paid for utility men, which was 75 cents an hour, and the Labor Department decided there was no discrimination in that case, that they were actually utility men.

Mr. WIER. Most of the contracts call for that. I imagine that the biscuit company had a union contract.

Miss MCQUATTERS. Yes.

Mr. WIER. Usually when you take men off of a higher pay, when they are moved to a lower-paid job, they will still draw the higher rate. Mr. BURKE. Yes.

Mr. KELLEY. If there are no further questions, we thank you, Miss McQuatters.

Miss MCQUATTERS. We thank the committee for the courtesy of placing our views before it, and sincerely trust our recommendations will be given consideration.

STATEMENT OF MISS FRIEDA S. MILLER, DIRECTOR, WOMEN'S BUREAU, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Mr. KELLEY. Miss Miller, the committee will be very glad to hear you at this time.

Miss MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, my name is Frieda S. Miller; I am Director of the Women's Bureau, United States Department of Labor.

I think the committee knows the Secretary of Labor plans to be here today to testify in favor of the bills you are considering. Owing to a Cabinet meeting, he is unable to appear until later in the morning.

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »