order. For example, by this agreement with the union, waitresses get 53 cents an hour less than maids. Thus it is apparent that an unqualified statutory minimum rate without a wage differential for tip employees would be financially devastating to our industry.

Further, we want to point out that many of our employees, in addition to wages, receive two meals per day and in some cases lodging is provided. Moreover, uniforms are furnished to a large number of our personnel. Meals are, obviously, of great benefit to our employees and are provided at a substantial cost to our hotels. At a value of only 50 cents per meal, those employees who receive two meals per day for 5 days are benefited by $5 weekly. Since many employees receive one or more meals daily as part of their compensation, this item is indeed one of great expense to our hotels. Because of the substantial value of meals to our employees, we respectfully submit that S. 860 should be amended so that our hotels will be credited with the reasonable value of this item as well as lodging and apparel in determining compliance with any statutory minimum rate.

We are also greatly concerned with section 3(b) of S. 860 which deals with overtime compensation. This would require payment to employees of 150 percent of their regular hourly rate for work performed in excess of 40 hours per week. Many of our employees work a 48-hour week due to the nature of our business which is open to the public 24 hours daily, 7 days a week. These people are paid a fair wage for their services and in most cases the hourly rate exceeds the minimum of $1.25 proposed by S. 860 except for tip employees. To be required to pay these employees a premium for overtime based upon their regular rate would work a tremendous financial hardship on our members. The Minimum Wage Board has recognized our problem in this area as evidenced by our current minimum wage order which provides for only a slight increase in hourly rates for time worked in excess of 40 hours. We therefore strongly urge that the bill be amended to provide that the Minimum Wage Board continue to set the minimum wage rates for overtime compensation and that section 3 (b) be deleted from the bill. Alternatively, if section 3(b) remains as is, then we ask that hotels be included only insofar as hours worked in excess of 48. The bill mentions possible future regulations concerning learners and apprentices which may be promulgated, by the Board of Commissioners. At present, under our wage order, a registered apprentice receives not less than 80 percent of the minimum wages prescribed for hotel employees. Such a provision should be included within S. 860. Our present minimum wage law pertains to women and minors only. We concur with those provisions of S. 860 which would extend the coverage of the present act to include male as well as female employees. In conclusion, we respectfully request that if S. 860 is to include hotels then immediate provision should be made, to take effect upon enactment, whereby the hotel industry would be given allowances or credits for tips, meals, and other benefits received by its employees instead of providing for possible adjustment at some future date. As we understand, the bill now so provides.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for affording us this opportunity to present our views on S. 860, and we will be glad to try to answer any questions you have.

Senator MORSE. This is a very helpful testimony, particularly on this matter of allowances for meals, tips, and lodging, and, if the bill is not clear on the point, it certainly needs to be clarified.

I would make this very brief comment on the matter. In the material that I have already put in the hearing record, dealing with the committee staff study analysis of the problem, the committee staff analysis of the problem reads as follows:

In addition, many restaurant employees receive tips. The BLS report notes that more than half of the employees receiving less than $1.25 in cash wages receive tips in addition. As S. 860 allows the minimum wage board and committees to make allowances for both meals and tips, both under the $1.25 minimum and under future wage orders, it would appear that the bill makes ample allowance for permitting adjustment of the high rates even by this relatively low wage industry. The same comments apply to hotels except that here one may expect to find more frequently an additional upward adjustment in wages reported in the study for lodging as well as in the adjustment for tips and meals already noted.

Then on page 10 of the bill, beginning on line 8, the bill reads:

(e) The committee report may include, but shall not be limited to, recommendations for permissible allowances for board, lodging, apparel, or other facilities or services, customarily furnished by the employer to the employees, or reasonable allowances for gratuities customarily received by employees in any occupation in which gratuities have customarily and usually constituted and have been recognized as a part of the remuneration for hiring purposes. committee may make a separate inquiry into and report on any branch of any occupation and may recommend different minimum wages for such branch of employment in the same occupation.

The

Then I think we ought to put in the hearing record, and I will want your comment on it if you care to either now or by a subsequent memorandum, a portion of the bill on page 12, dealing with administrative regulations, and I realize that part of your testimony goes to this matter of administrative regulations:

Such regulations may also include, but are not limited to, regulations governing pieces rates, bonuses, and commissions in relation to time rates; part-time rates; minimum daily wages; wage provisions governing split shift and excessive spread of hours; provisions governing uniforms, tools, travel, and other items of expense incurred by employees as a condition of employment; permitted allowance for board, lodging, or services customarily furnished by employers to employees; allowances for gratuities in any occupation in which gratuities have customarily and usually constituted and have been recognized as a part of the remuneration for hiring purposes; or allowances for such other special conditions or circumstances which may be usual in a particular employer-employee relationship.

I am well aware of the fact that the difficulty with this knotty problem is a difficulty of administration, and a problem of making available to the employer an administrative procedure where he can act with some certainty of knowledge as to what the minimum wage is that he is going to have to pay.

I frankly have a great deal of sympathy with the employers' problem in regard to that matter and have expressed myself over the years when this has arisen in various cases in which I have been involved in the adjustment of wages.

As one holding to the point of view that we ought to do everything that can be done to make this phase of the minimum wage problem as specific as possible, as free of as much administrative redtape as

possible, and the setting up of an administrative procedure that will provide the employer with what I have in the past called a rule of certainty as to what the actual wage is that he is going to have to pay as the minimum, it may very well be that this part of this bill needs some improvement in its language.

There is certainly no intention, at least on my part as author of the bill, to have your clients pay a minimum wage in fact higher to those hotel employees that get gratuities and meals and lodging than they are required to pay to other employees that do not receive those benefits.

I hope that counsel of the committee and the legislative assistants on the committee will take note of this testimony of yours and be prepared to brief the committee in executive session on the question that I now put in the hearing record.

The committee must work out an administrative procedure in the bill that in its operation is going to be fair to the hotel employers and the restaurant employers in regard to these groups of employees that come under the general term "recipients of gratuities of one kind

or another."

I have always felt it could be done. I have been hopeful and still am hopeful that the procedure outlined in this bill will prove to be reasonable in its operation.

The objective, of course, is to see to it that these employees who receive these gratuities do get at least an equal minimum wage in fact.

That is what we are seeking to accomplish. I want to assure you and you can assure your clients that, before I vote to bring this bill out of the subcommittee to the full committee, the staff will have to satisfy me that this point that we are now discussing has been fairly covered.

If you have any further statement you wish to make tonight, in view of the observations the chairman has just made, or any memorandum that you may wish to file as a supplement to your statement, I want to assure you that it will be received.

Mr. Jones, do you have any further comment? You are certainly welcome to make it now or file a written statement, or both.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like, first of all, to say that I know Mr. Dawes joins me in expressing our pleasure at the chairman's comments concerning the attitude that has been made in reference to tips, gratuities, and other allowances and credits of our hotel members.

Because of its importance to us, I would like to make one or two comments.

Senator MORSE. I will be glad to hear them.

Mr. JONES. In referring to your bill, at page 10 you read into the record section (e), which begins at line 8, "The committee report.' It then goes on to list the allowances for which we want credit. Mr. Chairman, the committee report, as you undoubtedly know, is not filed. The earliest date that would be filed would be a year after the enactment of this or the effective date of this legislation.

Therefore, there would be at a minimum a year's delay before applicability of section (e).

Senator MORSE. And the employer won't know all that time what liabilities accrue.

Mr. JONES. Exactly, Mr. Chairman.

Now, further, another matter that concerns us in regard to this area is the proviso on the same page, line 4 of page 10, which would be section 5(d) of your bill, again referring to the committee report, which is convened after a year and the committee report to the Board, the proviso that "the wages recommended shall not be less than at the rate of $1.25 an hour or the rate prescribed in the wage order then applicable to such occupation, whichever is higher."

Now, perhaps, Mr. Chairman, subsection (e) then clears up the fact that credits are to be allowed on that $1.25, but my suggestion, Mr. Chairman, would be that after "whichever is higher" the language be included "subject to the provisions of subsection (e) hereinafter set forth," or words to that effect, so that there be no doubt whatever.

Senator MORSE. That makes sense to me, and I would like to have counsel check to see if we can't make that suggested change.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Of course, our other point is that it be made effective immediately rather than a 1-year lapse of time.

We certainly appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Senator MORSE. Thank you very much.

The next witness will be Mr. A. Julian Brylawski, president of the Metropolitan Theatre Owners Association.

Mr. Brylawski, we are delighted to have you with us.

STATEMENT OF A. JULIAN BRYLAWSKI, PRESIDENT, MOTION PICTURE THEATRE OWNERS OF METROPOLITAN D.C.

Mr. BRYLAWSKI. I venture to say the chairman remembers seeing me before on this subject.

Senator MORSE. Yes, you have been before me before.

I am always glad to hear you.

Mr. BRYLAWSKI. Before listening to Mr. Jones' testimony I thought I was going to have the dubious distinction of being the first opponent of this bill.

Senator MORSE. There will be more next Tuesday night.

Mr. BRYLAWSKI. And I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that I am not here in opposition to the bill but just to certain parts of the bill.

I have a prepared statement, which I have copies of, which I have furnished to the committee, but I would like to read it.

My name is A. Julian Brylawski. I am president of the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of Metropolitan D.C., an organization which includes all but two of the theaters in operation in the District of Columbia. I am appearing in opposition to the provisions of Senate bill 860, which bill is the subject of the present hearing.

I am seeking an exemption for employees of the motion picture theaters of the District of Columbia.

I have appeared before this committee and before the honorable chairman several times in previous years and have sought the same exemption. I am sure that the committee is well aware of the precarious position of the motion picture industry today and in the past few years. Under the new impact of television, night baseball, football, racing. bowling, and other competing amusements, the attendance at theaters has dwindled to a point of bare subsistence. I can bring the statistics

and records to show that the attendance in the motion picture theaters of today has decreased in excess of 70 percent and yet the theaters struggle to keep their heads above water, frequently at a loss, to afford some insurance against the total destruction of their properties. Theaters are a one-purpose building. Few, if any, of existing theaters can be used for any other purpose. If the loss entailed by increased expenses and diminishing returns forces the closing of motion picture establishments, the final result is usually demolishment of the building because it is suited for few other purposes. The exhibitor's investment in bricks, motors, seats, and other equipment, is lost. I feel-in fact, I am certain-that the passage of this bill would inevitably force the closing of many theaters in the District of Columbia. Your committee has seen the closing of the Columbia Theatre and its demolition. You are aware of the Capitol Theatre and its demolition and, in a short time, you may see the closing of other places of amusement which are becoming too expensive to operate.

Before coming I made a survey of the existing motion picture theaters in the District of Columbia. I find that we have 28 operating theaters in the District.

My association extends past the District. We embrace the adjoining counties of Maryland and Virginia.

60.

Then I looked back, and I found that some years ago we had nearly

I tried to write down from memory, sitting here tonight, the names of the theaters that have vanished. It is almost like a list of the automobiles that have vanished.

I wrote down here, and I have here, 18 names of theaters that are gone.

Senator MORSE. Let's put them in the record at this point.

Mr. BRYLAWSKI. I can make this more complete if I have more time. Senator MORSE. You have time. You may supplement your state

ment.

(The list referred to follows:)

MOTION PICTURE THEATRE OWNERS OF METROPOLITAN D.C.,

Mr. RICHARD JUDD,

Professional Staff Member,

Senate District of Columbia Committee,

U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., October 21, 1963.

DEAR MR. JUDD: Here is a list of Washington, D.C., theaters that have gone out of business (not complete):

Mr. BRYLAWSKI. The passage of this bill would only hasten this catastrophe.

I am sure that the Senator and other members of the Senate District Committee and the Senate are aware that in the recent revision of the