Orlando-Sanford area.-Celery, peak April 15. Some acreage in beans, sweet corn, escarole, etc. Estimated number of migrants in area, 3,600, including citrus workers. Some available for out-of-State by May 1. SOUTH CAROLINA Coastal area. Irish potatoes, beans, cucumbers, squash, and strawberries are from a week to 10 days in advance of last year. Piedmont section.-Peach crop is a 60- to 75-percent loss by recent freezes. Cotton planting will begin around the first of May. Pee Dee section.-Cotton planting is in full progress. LETTER OF JULIUS S. GROSS, PRESIDENT, L. N. GROSS CO., CLEVELAND, OHIO Senator CLAUDE PEPPER, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR SENATOR PEPPER: I am writing this letter in place of personal testimony before your committee in favor of a minimum wage of 75 cents per hour. There seems to be a peculiar idea that all employers are interested in keeping wages as low as possible. This is not the policy of our firm. We are engaged in the manufacture of dresses and employ approximately 450 workers which makes us an important factor in our field. The wages of almost all of our employees is above the 75-cent hourly figure and we find that not only do decent wages enable our employees to buy more goods, thereby improving general business conditions, but decent wages improve their productivity, to our own advantage. Competition in our industry is great. A few firms who pay less than 75 cents an hour to their employees are able to sell their garments for less, and are in a position to cut into our markets. If employers paying substandard wages were able to put decent firms out of business, it would mean that we would be penalized doing what the Government has asked us to do-pay decent wages and give decent working conditions. We feel that the 75-cent minimum wage would give us the protection which we have earned. It would guarantee a wage of $30 a week for a 40-hour week, which isn't too high, in our opinion. It would mean more money in the employees' pocketbooks to spend and thereby increase business, both in our city and generally. And, even though it sounds hard, we feel that employers who depend upon low wages to make their profits should not be in business and in a position to put us out of business. We don't mind competition, but all should be compelled to play ball with the same rules. Yours very truly, JULES S. GROSS, President. LETTER OF JAMES W. HALEY, SECRETARY AND GENERAL COUNSEL, NATIONAL COAL ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D. C. Hon. CLAUDE PEPPER, NATIONAL COAL ASSOCIATION, Washington 5, D. C., April 29, 1949. Chairman, Subcommittee on Fair Labor Standards Act Amendments, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Under date of January 15, 1949 the National Coal Association directed the following telegram to Hon. Elbert D. Thomas, chairman of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare: "Press reports indicate you plan asking committee report out without hearing amendment Fair Labor Standards Act raising minimum wage from 40 cents to 75 cents per hour. On behalf owners and operators bituminous coal mines of the Nation we protest such action without hearing. While average earnings in bituminous industry exceed proposed 75 cents minimum we nevertheless feel matter is of such importance and involves so many collateral aspects no action 90175-49- -72 should be taken by committee without full hearing particularly in view of fact there may be significant changes and developments since matter was last considered before committee. Moreover it is submitted new members committee should be given benefit of actual hearings. We earnestly ask your consideration of this request and if hearings are set we ask leave to present brief testimony." Under date of January 26, 1949, Mr. Thomas replied to the above-quoted telegram as follows: "Thank you for your telegram of January 15, protesting against any precipitate action by the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare with respect to proposed amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act. 'As you have probably noticed in the papers, the committee plans to hold immediate hearings on the revision of the Taft-Hartley Act and under these circumstances I feel that we will have to delay further action on the minimum wage amendments until the proposed hearing is completed. "Members of the committee felt that in view of the rather thorough investigation of the proposed amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act, it would be possible to dispense with hearings during the present session of Congress This may not prove to be the case and if hearings are scheduled, I am sure that your request for time will be given all due consideration." Under date of April 11, 1949, Mr. Earl B. Wixcey, clerk of the committee, wrote the National Coal Association as follows: "At several meetings of the subcommittee and its own committee on the selection of witnesses, your request to testify on proposed amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act was given every consideration. The subcommittee decided that in view of the feature of the Reorganization Act which prohibits duplication of testimony, and in view of the fact that the House Education and Labor Committee has held hearings this year and the appropriate subcommittee in the Senate held extensive hearings as recently as last year, much information could be learned from those hearings. "It was with the deepest regret that your request to appear could not be accepted by the subcommittee. I have been instructed to request, however, that if you desire, your prepare a statement for consideration for the printed record of the hearings. You may be given every assurance that the members of the Committee will study your statement if it is submitted." We are well aware of the fact that the committee is pressed for time in connection with the hearings concerning amendment of the Fair Labor Standards Act. We should much prefer to present our views, but acceding to the committee's ruling, we take this means of stating our position. We respectfully request that this communication be placed in the official record and included in the printed proceedings. The National Coal Association, speaking for the owners and operators of bituminous coal mines throughout the United States, expresses the view that the Fair Labor Standards Act should be amended, if at all, as follows: (1) The minimum rate should not be increased beyond 70 cents per hour, in keeping wih the rise in the cost of living. No provision should be made for further increases through industry committees. (2) The meaning of the term, "regular rate," should be clarified to m ke it certain that it does not include overtime payments for work after a specif ed number of hours per day or week (whether specified by statute or contract), ror overtime for holidays, payments to welfare funds, and discretionary bonuses, This amendment should apply to all industries and should be made retroactive. (3) The arbitrary exclusion of large retail establishments from the retail exemption should not be adopted. (4) The 2-year statute of limitations established by the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947 should be left as it is. (5) It would be unwise to give the Administrator authority to collect back wages and damages for employees. (6) The enforcement of this law should be left where it is, not transferred to the Secretary of Labor. Further, no additional rule-making authority is necessary, since the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947 permits employers to rely upon interpretations of the Administrator. To adopt these two proposed changes would place the impartial administration of the law in grave jeopardy, since the Secretary of Labor is committed by law to the advancement of the welfare of labor. (7) The coverage of the law should not be enlarged to "activities affecting commerce" or to employees of employers engaged in the production of goods for commerce. To do so would be to further encroach upon the already-minimized rights still left to the States, and would advance Federal control to many activities which are purely local in character. Yours respectfully, JAMES W. HALEY, Secretary and General Counsel. LETTER OF ROY HICKMAN, COMMUNITY ICE & STORAGE Co., WAUCHULA, FLA. WAUCHULA, FLA., March 11, 1949. DEAR SENATOR: We are very grateful for your help in getting our views before the committee on the proposed wage-hour legislation. Having had a little time to figure just to what extent it would affect our business, if enacted into law, I am submitting the figures for your information. At the present time our lowest paid laborer receives $33.92 per week for 56 hours of work. If the bill should be enacted it would be necessary to increase that amount to $48 per week, an increase of $14.08. We have 7 year-around employees who would have to be increased in like manner, which would mean seven times $14.08 times 52 weeks per year or a net increase of $5,125.12 per year in our labor cost. Since ours is a small operation in a small agricultural community, the proposed increase could not be borne by the ice plant and should not be imposed on the overburdened community. Thanking you for your past favors and trusting you will give further consideration to this issue which vitally concerns our community, we remain,. Sincerely yours, COMMUNITY ICE & STORAGE Co. LETTER OF J. C. KEEN, VICE PRESIDENT AND TREASURER, OCEAN CITY LUMBER Co., DELRAY BEACH, FLA. Hon. CLAUDE PEPPER, Senate of the United States, DELRAY BEACH, FLA., February 21, 1949. United States Senate Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR: We employ 24 people in our lumber yard. Our labor earns from $1 and up per hour or from $50 to $110 per week each. siderable overtime to do this. They work con Under the Fair Labor Standards Act amendment bill, No. S. 2033, we would have to cut out all of this overtime. We would have to hire many more men and limit the time of each to 40 hours per week, as we could not pay them time and a half for the overtime and operate our yard. This would reduce the take-home pay of our entire force from 15 to 50 percent and there is not a single person working for us that would profit nor would they like it. We feel that you will find this condition existing in most, if not all, of the building material yards in the State of Florida, as well as other industries. Please use your every effort to defeat this iniquitous piece of legislation. Yours most sincerely, J. C. KEEN, Vice president and treasurer, Ocean City Lumber Co. LETTER OF RICHARD T. IMPSON AND M. G. KELLEY DAYTONA BEACH, FLA., March 9, 1949. DEAR SENATOR PEPPER: May we add our voice, in explanation of the infla tionary force which would be brought to bear by the passage of the proposed minimum wage act. Also, we are only 1 year old-being late getting started in business because of the more important business of piloting a bomber, and therefore, we still have, by far, the bulk of our equipment to pay for. As you know, we are in a service business, in direct competition with laundresses (whose wages are uncontrolled); family-operated self-service laundries (whose wages are uncontrolled); and with manufacturers of home laundry equipment; consequently, our prices are now as high as the market will stand. As a matter of fact, the consuming public is bringing terrific pressure to bear, to find cheaper laundering facilities. Now, if a 75-cent minimum wage were to supplant our present 56 cent average, we would have to increase our present 6.7 cent per piece revenue to 8.9 centsthat is, a 13 percent to 15 percent increase in our selling price. As to our dry-cleaning department, our increase in revenue per piece would have to be raised from 47 cents to 51 cents-an increase in cost to the public of 9 percent to 11 percent. But, the hidden danger in the 75 cent mininum, is in the prospective demands of our semiskilled workers, now earning 75 cents or over, who are going to consider themselves an unpredictable percentage superior to comparatively unskilled workers elevated to 75 cents. We are desperately in need of your voting against the passage of a 75-cents minimum because of the chain of sad results it would set off in our case. The impossibility of a further price increase would mean that our struggle to stay in the black, would have to be abandoned. Meaning that 35 workers would lose their livelihoods (most important). Then, the loss to us of our life savings through the confiscation and throwing back on the market of about $50,000 worth of used equipment, of which, there is a surplus now. We have been doing, may we say with pardonable pride, a creditable job for the public, too, with our invisible marking and synthetic cleaning procedures. In closing, we'd like to call your attention to the fact that in the last 8 years, laundry workers have had the greatest percentage of wage increase of all of our Nation's industries; and, that, as our personnel-selectivity activities improve and expand, the lot of the laundry worker will likewise improve; but it has to have time for normal and natural, not mandatory, development. Your otherwise stanch supporter, RICHARD T. IMPSON and M. G. Kelley. TELEGRAM OF NATHAN JACOBSON, PORT AGENT, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. San Francisco, Calif., April 28, 1949. CLAUDE PEPPER, Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. Urge that the Fair Labor Standards Act be amended in order to extend the protections of both the 40-hour week and minimum wage provisions to merchant seamen. The act to be amended to establish a statutory minimum wage of $1 per hour. NATHAN JACOBSON, Port Agent. STATEMENT OF J. P. JOHNSON, REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSEMAN, ON BEHALF OF MEMBERSHIP OF NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSES AND THE AMERICAN WAREHOUSEMEN'S ASSOCIATION, MERCHANDISE DIVISION The National Association of Regrigerated Warehouses comprises a membership of 427 refrigerated warehouses operating approximately 336,000,000 cubic feet of cold-storage space in 41 States of the United States for the protection of fruits, vegetables, sea food, poultry, eggs, meats, dairy products, and other perishable foods. The Merchandise Division of the American Warehousemen's Association comprises a membership of 420 general merchandise storage warehouses operating approximately 50,000,000 square feet of general storage space for products not requiring refrigeration, many of which are products of the farm. I represent both of these groups in the presentation of their views on the provisions of the bills under consideration as it affects both industries. EXEMPTION The refrigerated warehouses of this country handle and store perishable products of the farm, orchard, grove, range, sea, dairy, etc., both fresh and frozen, and in order to properly protect the perishable produce entrusted to their care must operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, throughout the year. They must at all times provide close maintenance of proper humidity and temperature and must be prepared to receive, store, and deliver perishables, which, for reasons beyond their control, cannot be handled in normal working hours-hours normal to manufacturing or production industries. Without this round-the-clock operation, deterioration and loss of essential food would be involved. They must also be prepared to handle and store produce during the periods when canners, first processors, and others, considered performing work of a seasonal nature, are granted exemption from the provisions of the Wage-Hour Act; yet under the law, because they perform some other type of work or handle some other commodity, the refrigerated warehousemen are not so considered and receive no such exemption. For example, one of our members, the Security Warehouse & Cold Storage Co. of San Hose, Calif., located in the heart of a producing area, has several canners and processors of fruits and vegetables within its own buildings who are granted exemption under the act where it provides for a 14-week exemption for seasonal industries handling fresh fruits and vegetables, during which 56 hours per week may be worked without paying overtime. The warehouse handles the commodity processed and unprocessed. The Administrator has ruled that if the warehouse handled fruits and vegetables only, it would be entitled to the same exemption, but because it occasionally handles some cheese, eggs, or other commodity during a given week, it is not entitled to exemption under the act even though more than 90 percent of the employees' time is given to the handling and care of fresh fruits and vegetables. Similar exemption is refused for watchmen, janitors, foremen, clerks, and others, because it is claimed a small part of their activities must be attributed to work performed in the plant on other than fresh fruits and vegetables. We submit that this is unfair and inequitable and request that warehouses, particularly refrigerated warehouses, be granted the same exemption as others performing work of a seasonal nature, without regard to other work performed during such periods or the particular commodities handled. It is obviously impossible to segregate those employees who must work the longer hours. Time and necessity dictate that. The warehouse operator has no desire to hold employees for a longer period than is absolutely necessary, but he should not be penalized because, in order to properly protect the commodities brought to storage and serve the processors and others, he must maintain his force on duty for longer hours than normal and be compelled to pay them excessive overtime when he receives no extra payment whatsoever for these additional services. Exemption equal to the processors, canners, and others served would protect him (the warehouse operator) from this extra financial burden; would not increase the workweek beyond that absolutely necessary and performed by the workers processing the products being brought to storage; nor reduce the income of said workers any more than workers on the same identical commodities. have the anomalous case of two groups of employees, working for two separate employers, under the same roof, working in a different way with the same identical commodity in continuity, one exempted and the other not exempted. The warehousemen should certainly be entitled to equal provisions and privileges with respect to exemptions as are accorded farmers, growers, first processors, canners, and packers of agricultural and horticultural commodities. We To that end, in section 7 (3) of S. 653, where exemption is granted to industries engaged in the handling, packing, storing, preparing, first processing, or canning of agricultural or horticultural commodities in their raw or natural state, we submit that the exemption should also apply to the products in a frozen state and it should likewise apply to the precooling and freezing of the same commodities. The farmers, growers, processors, packers, and warehousemen in producing areas of this country are also entitled to somewhat the same exemption in S. 653 as is now provided by section 13 (10) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. We, therefore, respectfully submit the following additional provision for inclusion in S. 653: "The provisions of sections 6 and 7 shall not apply with respect to any individual employed within the area of production (as defined by the Secretary of Agriculture) engaged in handling, packing, precooling, freezing, storing in fresh or frozen form, ginning, compressing, pasteurizing, drying, preparing in their |