Mr. Chairman, I would like to request that the brief which is being submitted on behalf of the UAW-CIO, be included in the record. Mr. McCONNELL. Without objection, so ordered.

(The document referred to is as follows:)

STATEMENT ON EQUAL PAY BILL OF 1947, H. R. 4408, BY WILLIAM H. OLIVER, CODIRECTOR, UAW-CIO FAIR PRACTICES DEPARTMENT, DOROTHY_SCOTT, LOCAL 154, UAW-CIO, AND HELEN MOORE, LOCAL 602, UAW-CIO, ON BEHALF OF UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT, AND AGRICULTURAL WORKERS OF AMERICA, CIO

Personal injustices suffered by millions of individual women become, in the aggregate, a tremendous public loss. In the area of employment, these injustices done to women merely because they are women represent a serious drain on the productive and purchasing power of our economy. They put women against men in a competitive struggle that bids down wage rates; they constitute one of the more significant obstacles to a full, wise use of human resources.

By their performance during the past generation, particularly in the course of the two World Wars, women have justified their claim to full citizenship and equal participation in the community's life. Yet the old prejudices and discriminatory practices linger, keeping them from full use of their energies and talents.

American women have slammed the door on the old order that bound them to secondary citizenship. Their efforts to achieve the material basis for lives of dignity and worth have merged with the universal struggle to break the bonds of scarcity and lay the economic ground work for a society of abundance.

The UAW-CIO, which has enlisted for the duration in this people's offensive, views the aspiration of women for true equality and independence as a vital aspect of the struggle. We regard the current drive for equal pay as a focal point in the larger campaign.

The members of the UAW-CIO believe this Nation is within technical range of a full-production, full-employment economy. We advocate action on every front to release the great productive potential pent up in the American workers and his machines, for we know that American mass production is the free world's great hope and need in this hour. Therefore, we favor passage of H. R. 4408, which would implement the principle of equal pay for equal work by means of Federal inspection and sanctions.

There is ample precedent in Federal policy and practice for enactment of an equal-pay bill. In both World Wars, Government departments and administrative agencies adhered to the principle of fixing job rates on the basis of job content rather than the sex of the worker. National Industrial Recovery Administration codes of the 1930's established the principle of equality in minimum rates; the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 contained similar provisions. It was the policy of the National War Labor Board to allow upward adjustment of women's rates when they were not equal to those of men doing comparable work. A series of WLB rulings strengthened the position of the UAW-CIO and other unions endeavoring to transform the rate-for-the-job principle into standard practice in their industries.

The UAW-CIO considers recognition of the equal-pay principle an important part of its whole effort to take labor out of competition. We have a firm record of support for equal-pay clauses in all contracts, and for State and Federal legislation to give government the continuing responsibility and authority to maintain the equal-pay principle. The UAW national women's conference of December 1944 unequivocally stated the UAW position in a resolution subsequently adopted by the international executive board:

"By equal pay, we mean only one thing that wage rates should be based on job content rather than on sex. Jobs should be evaluated not as to whether they are to be performed by men or women, but on the skill and effort required. Only in this way will the question of proper wage rates for all employees be equitably handled. A very practical part of the equal-pay problem is that of giving women equal opportunity for promotion and advancement along with their fellow male workers. In some plants having merit systems of job increases, frequently women are not permitted to reach the top classiffcation of any specific job. If women are performing the same or comparable work and have comparable periods of service, this conference believes that they are entitled to the same wage advance as male workers. A second practical aspect of the equal-pay principle is that beginning rates for new workers be set without discrimination to women."

That policy was reaffirmed by the tenth convention of the UAW-CIO in March 1946 and it was resolved "that the international union in cooperation with the national CIO press vigorously for the enactment of equal-pay legislation in those States which do not have such laws and for the strengthening of existing legislation where such legislation fails to meet good enforcement standards." Federal legislation toward the same end was also endorsed.

As an industrial union open without restriction to all workers within its jurisdiction, the UAW has naturally been in the forefront of the equal-pay-for-equalwork fight, for the solidarity of its membership could not survive artificial distinctions setting group against group. There is no inherent logic or economic sense in rate differentials based on sex. The UAW has consistently opposed them, and has won several significant victories on the equal-pay front. result of these victories, women have been accepted as a permanent and normal part of the working force throughout most of our industry.

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The most significant of these gains in our industry came through UAW initiative in processing cases to the National War Labor Board. The General Motors case, decided September, 26, 1942, served to create the equal-pay-for-comparablework precedent in wartime industry. The Board in that case held:

"This is not a new principle. It was enunciated by the War Labor Board set up in 1917 to deal with industrial problems arising during the First World War. * * * The Board has directed the parties to include in their new agreement a provision that wage rates for women shall be the same as for men where they do work of comparable quantity and quality in comparable occupations. The wording of this paragraph in the directive order indicates the impropriety of using slight or inconsequential changes in a job as a reason for setting up a wage differential against women employees. Wage-setting on such a basis is not compatible with the principle of equal pay for equal work."

The GM pattern was followed in the Board decision in the UAW-Chrysler case, and on November 13, 1942, the union and corporation entered into an agreement which stated "that all female classifications included in Chrysler Corp.'s hourly rate classifications will be eliminated." That agreement survived the war

period and today affects about 6,500 women employees.

Another War Labor Board case involving the UAW-CIO, that of the Bendix Aviation Corp., demonstrated the difficulties into which unions can fall in efforts to protect the rate structure from undercutting by women workers in the fact of employer resistance to the equal-pay principle and in the absence of adequate legislation to uphold that principle. Unable to eliminate differentials through collective bargaining, the UAW resorted, in this instance, to an agreement which limited the employment of women and restricted them to certain jobs and departments. With the coming of the war, the union resisted employer attempts to hire more women in the absence of an equalization of pay rates. The employer refused to equalize rates, and the case went to the WLB. The Board, in rendering its opinion, pointed to the curious consequences of the restrictive agreement. Many relatively simple tasks normally performed by women at lower rates were being performed by men at higher rates; many jobs in women's classifications had become much more difficult than other jobs in other departments performed by men, but were being performed at a lower rate, in some instances 25 cents per hour lower. Board member Dr. George W. Taylor defined the problem in this fashion:

"What is obviously needed in this situation is a reevaluation of job classifications on the basis of job content. The job classifications should not be divided on the basis of male and female classifications. They should be evaluated on the basis of skill, effort, and job content and classified into various grades of work with appropriate rates for each classfication. The rates for each type of job should be made available to every employee on the job whether male or female. other words, the female classifications for all departments should be eliminated as such."

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Taylor's opinion and the Board's findings in the Bendix case underscored the shortsightedness of attempts by unions to meet the threat of wage-cutting implicit in the entry of any new group into the labor market by a purely negative defense. As a result of its efforts to protect the rate structure of male members through the device of freezing women workers in an inferior status, the union had involved the whole work force in unjust and intolerable contradictions. But the Bendix case also pointed to the need for legislation in the equal-pay sphere, as a supplement and, when necessary, a corrective to the collective-bargaining process.

Another significant wartime case was that involving the UAW and the Buick Division of General Motors. In this instance, the union pressed the claim of

1,000 women workers in the Melrose Park plant of the corporation, winning for them through Board action, elimination of separate rates for female and male and back-pay awards amounting to $600,000.

In the 1946 settlement between the UAW and General Motors, following the GM strike, women workers in cut-and-sew departments in GM's Fisher Body and parts plants won an equalizing wage increase of 15 cents an hour in addition to the 182 cents general raise. Local unions involved had had to prolong the strike until management consented to the adjustment.

With the war's end, management sought in a great number of instances to reestablish old patterns of discrimination against women and other minority groups; many women felt that in certain local unions, they were not being given the support they deserved in terms of union readiness to protect their seniority status. Frequently these charges of women members were well founded. But the over-all picture was one of substantial success in holding wartime gains. The UAW has not relaxed its official policy of championing equal pay, and local unions for the most part have aggressively implemented this policy. The picture is not one of complete success. Women workers in the industry are by no means completely accepted or completely free from discriminatory rates and practices. In the Delco-Remy plant in Anderson, Ind., for example, a 16 cents differential exists between male and female rates for the same or comparable work. This differential victimized men as well as women, for management hired more women after VJ-day while at the same time refusing to hire males, a large percentage of whom were veterans. The local union attempted to negotiate equal pay provisions for all workers, but was forced to enter a compromise agreement when management persisted in its refusal to eliminate the differential. Women were placed on the day-shift and new male hires were put on the afternoon shift. While nobody is really satisfied with the arrangement, it can be seen in perspective as the inevitable result of the stubbornness of old habits free to reassert themselves in an atmosphere of "normalcy," with the War Labor Board no longer operative and in the absence of State and Federal legislation.

The atmosphere in which parties to an agreement seek to bargain on the equalpay issue is crucial. The back of the problem in our industry was broken during the war by a combination of union insistence on equal rates and War Labor Board decisions establishing and sustaining them. However, while the matter of winning and keeping equal rates for women is not of crisis proportions in our jurisdiction, it is nevertheless a serious and continuing one. We have negotiated clauses in the Ford, Briggs, Chrysler, General Motors, Bendix, and other major agreements, calling for rates based on job content rather than sex.

The agreement between the Briggs Manufacturing Co. and the UAW-CIO contains the following clause:

"Wage rates for women shall be set in accordance with the principles of equal pay for comparable quantity and quality of work on comparable operations. The agreement with the Bendix Aviation Corp. states:

"The company recognizes and agrees to abide by the principle of equal pay for equal work.'

Provision in the agreement with the American Forging and Socket Co., and the UAW-CIO is made for qual pay as follows:

"The company and the bargaining committee shall designate jobs as suitable for female or male employees. There shall be no discrimination in any way in the payment of wages as between sexes or pay any female engaged in the manufacture or production of any article of like value, workmanship, and production a less wage by time or piecework, than is being paid to males similarly employed in such manufacture, production or in any employment formerly performed by males. No female shall be given any task, disproportionate to her strength nor shall she be employed in any place detrimental to her morals, her health or her potential capacity for motherhood."

In the National Ford Motor Car Co. provision against discriminatory treatment of women is contained in the following clause:

"The provisions of this contract shall apply to all employees covered by this agreement without discrimination on account of race, color, national origin, sex or creed." The General Motors national agreement provides:

"Wage rates for women shall be set in accordance with the principle of equal pay for comparable quantity and quality of work on comparable operations. Any dispute arising as to the question of quality, quantity or comparability, as herein defined shall be settled within the procedural framework of the grievance provision in the agreement."

But as the War Labor Board stated in the 1942 General Motors case, "This matter cannot be entirely disposed of by any clause, no matter how carefully it

may be worded." Not only must the parties to a contract containing an equalrate clause pay it more than lip service and cooperate with the best of will to implement it in specific circumstances; government, both State and Federal, must create a favorable atmosphere for recognition of women's rights, as it did in the war period through the WLB and as it can do through adequate peacetime legislation. The UAW's jurisdiction extends into many States where no equal-pay law is on the books. Even in States where, like Michigan, there is a law, it is often a weak one. Federal legislation is needed to provide pattern as well as atmosphere. A Federal law framed to meet the problem and containing, as H. R. 4408 does, provision for industry committees empowered to make investigation of abuses and recommendations for their reform, would offer standard for similar State legislation aimed at industries not touched by the Federal statute. Obviously, the problem is not as acute in the auto industry, where a strong union aggressively supports the equal-pay principle throughout its jurisdiction, as it is in unorganized fields where women must bargain individually with employers. Prior to management's recognition of the UAW in the Lansing, Mich., plant of Oldsmobile, a number of women workers sued for back pay under provisions of the Equal Pay Act of Michigan. They were discharged, but succeeded in collecting part of their back wages through a civil action. In 1943, the wartime manpower shortage forced Oldsmobile management to hire women again, despite the company's earlier statement that they would not be employed. The UAW-CIO was now a factor to be reckoned within the plant. The women were hired at the same rates as men, and received the same progression rates. After VJ-day, a large percentage of these women workers were retained according to their seniority; they have been accepted as a permanent part of the working force by Oldsmobile management. The wartime emergency, together with the presence of a powerful 'union, spelled progress for these women in the equal-pay fight.

UAW President Walter P. Reuther, in his remarks on an equal-pay resolution offered at the tenth convention of the union, described the fight for equalization of women's rates that prolonged the GM strike in some plants, and in doing so he stated well the case for aggressive union action in behalf of equal pay:

"In the Fisher-Pontiac plant we had a wage differential for women which was not wiped out during the war in the cut-and-sew department because the cut-andsew department did not operate during the war. When the plant opened up the people went back to the old rates which were 15 cents out of line based upon equal pay for equal work. We said to the company, 'We are not going back to work until the people get the 15 cents in the cut-and-sew department,' and the company said, 'What do you want, 15 cents and 181⁄2 cents?' We said, 'Yes,' and they said, 'You aren't going to get it.' We said, 'We won't go back to work until we do get it.'

"They then offered us 181⁄2 cents plus 6 cents, and we said, 'We are not interested.' They said, '181⁄2 cents plus 11 cents,' and 4 days ago the Fisher-Pontiac management said, 'O. K., 15 cents plus 182 cents'-or 331⁄2 cents for the women workers at Fisher-Pontiac.

"That not only applies to Fisher-Pontiac, it applies to Fisher-Flint, the Fisher 45, Cleveland, to Fisher-Ionia, and to every other Fisher Body plant where they have a cut-and-sew department.

"In the Ternstedt plant of General Motors we had 11 cents differential and the company said, 'No dice, 182 cents plus the equalization price in General Motors is all you are going to get.' We said, 'We don't go back until we get the 11 cents.' And the Ternstedt people 2 or 3 days ago, covering 50 percent of the employees in the plant that one time employed seven or eight thousand people, got 11 cents plus 182 cents.

"I say if you are willing to struggle you can get equal pay through collective bargaining just like the GM workers."

But it is important to remember that Mr. Reuther, while he did not consider Government action a panacea or a substitute for union action, was nevertheless speaking in favor of the resolution, which called for enactment of a Federal equal-pay law.

The UAW views the adjustment of sex differentials as an integral part of the wider problem of adjusting all inequities, whether within or between plants, and regardless of the geographical location of the plant and the product manufactured. The auto industry is continually faced with the threat to wage rates in organized areas presented by the runaway shop. Our position is that competition must not be based on exploitation of the worker. Elimination of inequitable rates fixed by sex rather than job content is, therefore, essential to the UAW program to protect its entire membership, both male and female. Passage of H. R. 4408

would blanket the economy with Federal sanctions, protecting the organized worker and the fair employer against unfair employers operating in States which do not yet have equal pay laws for the protection of women workers.

The UAW-CIO is in favor of equal pay, therefore, for substantial reasons of a group interest nature. But these special interests are inseparable from the general interest in a full and orderly use of our productive and human resources. Passage of H. R. 4408 would be in that general interest. While it is true that a powerful union with the will to act can often render adequate protection to its minorities, it is also true that in the absence of adequate State and Federal laws the union, faced with employer resistance, must either surrender, compromise, or undertake strike action. A Federal law, firmly and clearly setting forth Government policy and providing the machinery of enforcement would strengthen the hand of both union and management in the application of the principle of the "rate for the job.” In doing so, such legislation would minimize industrial conflict.

Moreover, there are compelling arguments having to do with the whole future of our economy which can be adduced in support of H. R. 4408. In the depression of the early 1930's, 3,000,000 or more women were forced from their homes into the labor market. Whenever there is a decline in general employment, that decline is accelerated by increased competition for jobs and a further loss of purchasing power as wages are bid down. Unions alone cannot withstand this downward pressure on wages as millions of newcomers to the job market, seeking in desperation to bolster family earnings, under-cut job rates established after years of effort. Passage of H. R. 4408, along with improved minimum-wage legislation, would represent a partial bulwark against such a tragic eventuality.

But there is a more positive argument. Equalizing rates for women and men in the same classification and between classifications will not, of itself or coupled with a minimum-wage law, solve the most fundamental problem: attainment of an adequate income for all workers. Yet an equal-pay law is a necessary part of any thoroughgoing Government program to achieve full employment and full production. There can be no stable full employment economy without fair employment. H. R. 4408 will underwrite the policy of fair employment for women, and bring relief to wide sectors of the national working force in those industries where discriminatory rates for women constitute just one more drag on the health of an economy overburdened with scarcity habits.

sex.

Women are entering the working force in increasingly large proportions. They have come to stay. Most of them work because they must. They work to support themselves, to support families, to add their income to the inadequate income of husband or father or brother. New thousands of them are war widows, or wives of disabled veterans of the last conflict. H. R. 4408 represents no panacea for them; it is limited to the matter of wage-rate differentials based on It does not meet the further problem of broadening women's occupational opportunities; it does not address itself to the problem (which no law can solve) of encouraging more active participation of women in their unions. Nor is it aimed at the question of winning levels of income for women workers high enough to assure a decent standard of living. It does provide an adequate approach to the economic injustice of rate discrimination. Through the industry committees established under the bill, Government machinery and sanctions would be brought to bear on this specific problem.

It is difficult to understand why Congress has not already passed on equal-pay law. In hearings on the Women's Equal Pay Act of 1945, no evidence or testimony in opposition to the measure was presented. Passage of the current bill would represent the logical culmination of a long history of Government endorsement of the equal-pay principle.

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Discrimination against women workers is a pattern of prejudice carried over from the past into a time when it represents only a dangerous blindness to the economic facts of life. There is not much time left to move against the depression that threatens to overwhelm us when the present precarious boom ends. government which hesitates to pass a law which, like H. R. 4408, is a modest but necessary contribution to economic sanity and justice, will never find the will to undertake the much more ambitious legislative program which is essential if we are to avoid economic disaster and press forward on the road to abundance and security under freedom.

Mr. OLIVER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce at this time Miss Dorothy Scott, who is from the Hudson plant in Detroit, Mich. Mr. McCONNELL. I want to ask you a few questions. Shall I ask them now or defer them until later?