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act now to make this principle stick. It is intolerable that women in the year 1948 should be treated in the labor market as a commodity. Women represent such a large percentage of American labor that to continue to allow wage differentials based on sex is to invite a general reduction of wage levels. As long as employers are permitted to pay women lower wages employers will be encouraged to use women as wage cutters. Men are thus faced with the choice of being displaced by women or taking a wage cut. Wage differentials based on sex drag down not only the wages of women, but of men as well and thus constitute a continuous threat to our standard of living. Wage differentials based on sex create difficulties for industry. It penalizes the fair employer, instead of protecting him from the unfair competition of those who resort to using women to undercut men's wages. If a woman will do the same job for less, the man who needs that job will take less. The pared-down pay roll gives that employer the extra margin of profit which makes it possible for him to undercut the price of finished goods in the open market. Under the competitive conditions of our distribution system, the difference in the selling price may spell ruin to the employer who has tried to play square with his employees. To meet this competition, he may have to cut his rate of pay or go into bankruptcy.

The unfair advantage the employer obtains who scales down the standards of living of his workers is short-lived, because as their living scale goes down, as competition forces similar industries to cut wages, the buying power of the people is reduced. They cannot buy back the things they make. Depression and unemployment, with all the attendant tragedy, is inevitable.

The need for such a floor under wage competition has been well described to your committee by J. Spencer Love, president of the Burlington Mills, Greensboro, N. C., a large employer, who said:

If we review what happened in the 15 years after the ending of the last war, we note that once the pent-up war demands had been filled and competition had become more intense, it was common practice to cut wages in order to procure specific orders at narrowing margins. This was frequently offered to labor as an alternative to idleness and finally wound up in a deflationary spiral which brought the average wage in the country to such a low level that the entire economy almost became stalled-want and misery were everywhere. No thinking business man would like to risk such a spiral as a prospect for the 1950 decade. The surest way to avoid a recurrence of such tragic happenings would be a revision upward of minimum-wage levels to bear some reasonable relationship to labor's present-day living costs. Unbridled wage cutting is a practice which should be forever removed from the arena of legitimate competitive activities.

The question may well be raised as to why the Federal Government should step into the picture of equal rates. Why not let the individual States pass such laws as are necessary? Nine States already have equal-pay statutes on the books: Michigan, Montana, Washington, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.

The answer to this question is simple. Unless there is a Federal law for all States, individual States cannot support this principle. Unless there is a national law applicable to all employers alike, the States with equal-pay laws will be at a competitive disadvantage with States that allow employers to pay women less.

Naturally, this places the progressive State at a distinct competitive disadvantage, for how can the employers in that State compete with

firms that can afford to charge lower prices because they exploit their women workers?

The only solution is Federal action to support those fair-minded States and employers who have, or who would like to move ahead out of the Stone Age period of unfair labor practices.

It is essential that a Federal equal-pay bill be passed.

(1) For women, this bill will grant the fundamental economic equality which is their due. It would, could the bill become a law soon, relieve many, in this time of inflationary prices, of the added burden of wage discrimination.

(2) For men, this bill will help to sustain wage rates because it will discourage employers from hiring women as wage cutters.

(3) It will help safeguard family living standards and sustain consumer buying power.

In conclusion, I would like to quote from a poem of Mr. Tennyson: The woman's cause is man's;

They rise or sink together,
Dwarfed or God-like,
Bond or free.

* * *

If she be small, slight-natured, miserable
How shall men grow?

Mr. McCONNELL. Mrs. Douglas, as I understand it, you are supporting H. R. 4408, as well as your own bill? They are identical bills?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. Of course, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. McCONNELL. Some of the members may wish to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind.

Mrs. DOUGLAS. I shall be very happy to answer.

Mr. McConnell. Mr. Smith.

Mr. SMITH. I haven't read your bill. Is there any difference?
Mrs. DOUGLAS. It is identical.

Mr. SMITH. What is your thought on the enforcement of this provision? Who is going to do that?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. Well, as you know, the bill says it is up to the Secretary of Labor to work out rules and regulations for enforcement. He is to appoint an administrator. This administrator will hold hearings.

Then industry committees may be set up which are made up of management, labor, and the public. Again, this is a type of machinery we are very well acquainted with.

Mr. SMITH. Do you think the minimum-wage law would be interpreted the same as this law in all its phases, particularly in regard to whether or not the employer was engaged in interstate commerce?

In other words, the Wage-Hour Administrator makes his interpretations of whether or not this laundry out here is engaged in interstate commerce. Would that interpretation also apply to your enforcing provisions? In other words, he would have two laws he would have to enforce. He can't enforce any law in the way of minimum wages and hours until it comes under interstate commerce. Will the same thing apply to women as it does to men?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. I would think that it would. The testimony which was given when this bill was brought up in the Senate last year, and the House, by the Women's Bureau, was so clear and illuminating, I

am sure when the Women's Bureau comes up here they will discuss fully, as they did in those hearings, the administration of such a bill, so I would rather not go into the administration and details this morning.

I would like to point out that the enforcement of such a principle is not new. We had it in World War I. We had it in World War II. Machinery has already been used that will be used in this bill. Mr. SMITH. What industry is the most serious offender of not paying the same wages? Where did most of the differentials come between men and women?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. According to the surveys that have been made, certain important facts were discovered. The Women's Bureau made some surveys at the request of industry, at the request of labor unions, and sometimes at the request of Government; that is, the National War Labor Board. It was discovered in the war industries, whether it was steel, shipyards, or miscellaneous machinery, that women were paid less than men for the same work, as well as for comparable work. On a Bureau of Labor Statistics study that was made last year in miscellaneous machinery, the testimony showed that wage differentials on a national scale ranged from 4 to 26 cents an hour for the same work. That was on 27 different kinds of work in miscellaneous machinery. Where men and women did generally the same work, there was a pay differential based solely on sex.

The graphs that were shown in the hearings last time I am sure will be shown in the hearings this time. They show that women generally were paid less than men in the machinery industry. They showed that 50 percent of the men earned more than a dollar an hour, while 85 percent of the women earned less than a dollar an hour. There isn't any question about that.

I do not have those charts before me because I know the Labor Department will appear before you tomorrow and will be exhaustive on this matter.

I am convinced, after studying those charts, that there is evidence of wage discrimination on the basis of sex and that the Government, industry and labor have found this is a very unhealthy condition when we meet a crisis in the country where you must turn out production.

Mr. SMITH. That is all.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Fisher.

Mr. FISHER. Mrs. Douglas, you mentioned the fact there are nine States that now have laws of this nature.

Mrs. DOUGLAS. That is right.

Mr. FISHER. Would Federal legislation on this same subject serve any useful purpose in those industrial States, that is, those you mentioned, which already provide for equal pay for women by State law?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. Well, that was very interesting. Secretary Schwellenbach, in 1945, in his testimony pointed out that if one State has this law on its books and another State does not, it is impossible of administration in the State where the law exists, because they compete with the other States in production.

He said that certain industries moved from one State to another with a lower wage differential. When they moved into a State where they operated at a lower wage than was the existing wage in the prior State, the businessmen did not want them to come in because it just caused friction and chaos.

A man in a competitive business cannot compete under those circumstances. He is trying to do what is right; he is trying to pay a woman what he pays the man. If he is manufacturing the same product, he is at disadvantage. The manufacturer who uses women to cut wages and pays them less can sell his product for less; the other employer is going to be thrown out of business.

Unless it applies everywhere, it just won't work.

Now we know there are certain industries where the entire employment is made up of women; that they are paid less than in industries which are made up almost entirely of men. In other words, the textile industry pays very much lower than the taxi business. We know that, but that is not what we are talking about.

What we are talking about is the miscellaneous machinery industry. where the Bureau of Labor Statistics made a very exhaustive study. They found, where men and women were working at the same job in factory after factory the woman was getting less per hour than the man, although she was doing similar work. That is what we are talking about.

What we are saying only is: One State cannot have it while the other does, because industries compete across State lines. The industries in those States cannot compete with the industries in the other States where they are working for lower wages unless they, too, cut wages. Cutting wages means cutting purchasing power, curtailed production, and unemployment. It will be the same situation as it was in the early thirties.

Mr. FISHER. You mean in the textile industry, the women doing the same work that men are doing, at the same bench, are being paid less?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. In the textile industry, women are used almost exclusively. When you go into a restaurant you usually have a woman serve you. In those instances, the wage rate is lower than in those kinds of work where men are used almost exclusively, such as taxi drivers, for instance. We are not talking about that in this bill. Do you see? This bill will not empower anybody or the Federal Government, to go to an employer and say, "Mamie Jones' wage for pressing pants must be 95 cents an hour." What it will do is say this: "Mamie Jones is sitting at a bench with a man sitting beside her. They are doing exactly the same work. The man is getting 95 cents an hour and she is getting 75 cents an hour. She is turning out as much work and of the same quality as he is. Exactly the same work." Then this board would go in, be free to examine the records of the business and would bring before a committee-depending on what kind of a committee the Secretary sets up-that business and say they were not paying the woman what they were paying the man for the same job. Then the case would be heard.

Mr. FISHER. In just what industries is that taking place? I am exploring this for information. Where are the men being paid 95 cents and the women 75 cents per hour for the same work? Just where does that occur?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. I use that just as an illustration.

Mr. FISHER. I understand.

Mrs. DOUGLAS. As I say, I do not have a list. I did not think you would want to go into that because you will go into it tomorrow with the Labor Department. They will have the surveys and charts from which I drew the conclusion.

The miscellaneous-machinery industry which was covered-and I will just quote here from the testimony of Miss Frieda Miller in 1945. Miss Frieda Miller is the Director of the Women's Bureau, United States Department of Labor.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics made a study of miscellaneous machinery. Looking at the earnings of men and women classified in the same jobs, we find that in all but one of the 27 important classifications studied, in which both men and women were employed, men still had higher average straight-time hourly earnings, the differentials ranging on a national basis from 4 to 26 cents.

Mr. McCONNELL. Have you quoted from the source?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. Yes, sir.

Mr. FISHER. What is that source?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. This is testimony given by Miss Frieda Miller. This was a survey made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that Miss Miller of the Women's Bureau used in her testimony.

Mr. FISHER. She is connected with that organization?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. She is Director. I believe she will appear before you tomorrow. [Continuing:]

In 11 occupations, the differences are 10 cents or more an hour. Incentive earnings account for some of the difference, but the influence of this and other factors, such as possible differences in seniority cannot entirely explain the persistent one-directional differences in earnings.

Mr. FISHER. Getting back to my original question about the States being able to handle it, is it your view that if all the 48 States had laws similar to the one you referred to there would be no need for Federal legislation on this subject?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. Yes, I think if all 48 States had a State law and those State laws complemented one another, that you would have the same thing as a Federal law. But we have been waiting for a long time for bills to be passed in other fields by the States, and we are still waiting.

I think it is high time this year that women are paid what men are paid for doing the same work. I don't know why we should wait around for another 50 years for a bill to be passed to see that they are.

Mr. FISHER. Suppose in an industry there are several women stenographers in an office, and a few men stenographers. It is your view that the women should be paid exactly the same amount per hour as the men; is that correct? Do you believe that we should enforce that by law?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. I personally think a woman stenographer who is as good as a man ought to be paid what the man is paid. There is no question about that.

This bill has to do with interstate commerce. Miss Anderson is here. Miss Anderson is the former Director of the Women's Bureau. Mr. McCONNELL. Is Miss Anderson going to testify at any future time?

Mrs. DOUGLAS. Are you going to testify at any future time?
Miss ANDERSON. No.

Mrs. DOUGLAS. Miss Anderson has fought for this for years in the Women's Bureau; that is, for equal pay. I would like to ask her a question.

Mr. McCONNELL. All right, but I do not want to get her testimony mixed in with your testimony. If you want to ask her a question, go right ahead.

Mrs. DOUGLAS. Thank you, sir.

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