simply do not feel that a woman should be penalized any more than a man is for falling below that norm.

Mr. McCONNELL. All right; thank you very much.

Is the representative of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union of America, CIO, here?

Mr. GRAHAM. I have a letter here, Mr. Chairman, stating that Mrs. Sasuly, the Washington representative, was unable to be in Washington to present this statement in person, and would appreciate the consideration of the committee to include the statement in the record.

Mr. McCONNELL. Is the representative of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, CIO, present?

(No response.)

Mr. McCONNELL. I understand, for the record, Mrs. Peterson who was to appear here has been injured and a statement will be submitted.

The committee will recess until 2 p. m., at which time a representative of the Communications Workers of America will appear before the committee.

(Whereupon, at 12:10 p. m., a recess was taken until 2 p. m. of the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

(The subcommittee reconvened at 2 p. m., pursuant to the taking of the recess.)

Mr. SMITH. The committee will come to order. Mr. McConnell will be here shortly.

Mr. Beirne.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. BEIRNE, PRESIDENT, COMMUNICATIONS WORKERS OF AMERICA

Mr. SMITH. Will you please state your name, telephone number, and place of business for the record?

Mr. BEIRNE. J. A. Beirne, Executive 2778, 917 G Place, Washington 1, D. C.

Mr. SMITH. You may proceed to make any statement you care to in regard to the matter before the committee.

Mr. BEIRNE. I represent the Communications Workers of America, which is a successor to the National Federation of Telephone Workers and is the dominant labor union in the communications or telephonic field. Our union is made up of 33 divisions which operate in every State in the United States.

We have in excess of 173,000 members and hold collective-bargaining contracts for more than 233,000 telephone workers.

The jobs on which our members work are many and varied. Our members not only work for the large telephone companies that are associated with the A. T. & T., but also small independent telephone companies; such small independent telephone companies share in, as you may know, only 10 percent of the total telephone business in the United States.

Approximately 70 percent of our membership and 65 percent of the people we represent are women. I will explain the difference by point

ing out that while in actual membership we have 173,000 workers we actually represent, under the law, 233,000; 70 percent of the 173,000 are women and 65 percent of the 233,000 in the whole industry are

women.

These women hold a variety of occupations, some of which are operators, stenographers, typists, clerks of all kinds, and janitresses. A small minority of the total women employed in the industry hold positions in management but, as I will explain later, the opportunity for advancement of women in this industry is very restricted.

Our organization has not become recently interested in the bill which is before this committee, because as early as 1943 when we were operating as the National Federation of Telephone Workers the conventions of that organization adopted resolutions in support of the principle of paying women an equal wage to that paid to men for like jobs.

In our first annual convention last June the Communications Workers of America reiterated its position in respect to this principle in this matter by adopting a resolution, which I will read:

Whereas a survey of the collective-bargaining contracts in the communications industry reveals that the contracts of several of the divisions of Communications Workers contain separate lists for male and female job classifications and rates of pay pertaining thereto; and

Whereas there exists in some companies in the communications industry a practice of hiring women to work for less pay than the established rate heretofore paid men on the same job; and

Whereas a sound and equitable wage policy demands that rates of pay be based on job content without regard to the sex of the worker: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Communications Workers of America and the divisions thereof do hereby commit themselves to the preservation of the principle of equal pay for equal work and to the establishment of this principle in practice throughout the entire communications industry.

We are sincere in our belief and are strongly of the opinion that the position taken by our convention on this matter is sound. We are wedded to the idea that an employer should pay a rate of pay for a particular job based upon its content-that is, the job contentrather than on whether or not that job is held by a female or by a male.

The principles underlying the issuance of General Order No. 16 of the National War Labor Board during World War II are basic so far as this union is concerned. We believe it should become the law of the land through the enactment of this statute.

General Order No. 16 states:

Adjustments which equalize the wage or salary rates paid to females with the rate paid to males for comparable quality and quantity of work on the same or similar operations and adjustments in accordance with this policy which recognize or are based on differences in quality or quantity of work performed may be made without approval of the National War Labor Board.

That was General Order No. 16, which in reduced language says nothing more than the establishment of Board policy on the theory of equal pay for equal work.

The United States Government has seen fit through the adoption of the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution to make the women of our country "politically" equal. It seems unsound, unjust, and discriminatory in the minds of our people not to make them "economically" equal through failure to pass this proposed legislation.

A matter which worked satisfactorily in wartime, the principle of equality in political matters which was adopted by the Nation as its policy, seems to be compelling evidence for this Congress to look at in passing the bill which is before it.

I

The entrance of women into industry was resented by men. apologize for the sex I am of, for this reason: This attitude was a mistake and had the effect of depressing the wages of women when they first began their influx into industry.

Industry took advantage of the shortsightedness of the men themselves and of the situation created by establishing different rates of pay for men and women, even though both of them-that is the man and the woman-would be working on identical jobs.

This fact can be susbstantiated in some respects by a review of the wage policies of the telephone industry. As late as 1940 and 1941 we find the telephone industry had two types of wage schedules, one applicable to men and the other applicable to women. In fact, there are still some isolated instances where this condition exists.

I might point out that one place where it does exist of which I have immediate knowledge is in Lincoln, Nebr., the Lincoln Telephone & Telegraph Co.

The telephone industry itself in its earlier days employed very few women. Men were used on all jobs, even that of telephone operator. Experience proved that women were better fitted for the job of being an operator, because they were dexterous and because they had the proper type of temperament which is so necessary when meeting the public through the medium of the telephone.

Yet, when men were replaced by women, even though the women were doing and had performed a better job, they were given a lesser rate of pay than the men who were their predecessors.

There are hundreds of thousands of women in the United States who are the principal supporters of their family and should be paid on the basis of the quality and quantity of their work. In fighting for equal pay for equal work the women of the country are not attempting to achieve some vague or lofty ideal. Rather, they are pressing for the adoption of a simple principle of fundamental justice.

The workman should be paid what his or her job is worth. There is no place or should be no place in this country for a rule which would graduate wages in accordance with sex, marital condition, or the number of dependents a worker may have, or any other similar kind of

norm.

In connection with marital condition, it is no fairer to reduce the wages of a husband whose wife works than it is to offer a lesser wage to a working wife.

Industry in general, and the telephone companies in particular, are prone to take a naive view with regard to the women they employ. In cases that were presented to the National War Labor Board and in appearances before committees of legislative bodies, spokesmen for the industry have repeatedly defended a low-wage structure in the telephone industry on the basis that the majority of the women they employ are not the breadwinners of the families, but rather they are living at home with their parents.

This exploitation of workers through calling upon their mothers and fathers to subsidize the telephone industry-or for that matter

any other industry-is a disgrace to the economy of the Nation in our opinion and should not be tolerated.

The passage of this legislation and, I might add, a decent minimum wage, would do much to eliminate this condition.

In those States where legislation exists involving the principle of equal pay for equal work, experience has proven that these statutes are not unworkable. Miss Jane Todd, who was with the Department of Commerce of New York State at the time she testified before a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor in October 1945, stated:

After the first flurry of readjustment, the whole economic structure usually prospers from a just and progressive step like this.

The just and progressive step is the equal-pay statute which is on the books of New York.

At the time Miss Todd testified, the State of New York had on its statute books an equal-pay-for-equal-work statute.

While speaking of the operation of this New York statute, I would like to call to your attention action taken by the New York Telephone Co. after the statute had been enacted. I mention this because in the past industry has come out foursquare against this type of legislation.

I understand they may be doing so with the law that is before this Congress.

As the result of the passage of this statute, the company in New York, in an effort to circumvent the act, changed the titles and duties of its clerks in some details, and established different classifications for men and women. Under the jobs, as changed, female employees doing the job of a service representative, which is a person who meets the public and sells telephone service and takes care of complaints, the women on those kind of jobs were no longer permitted to make outside calls to customers or go to the customer's home to take care of whatever complaint might be before the company.

The male employees who were given this job and that was the only difference between the two-were paid the higher wage.

The National Telephone Commission, an agency of the National War Labor Board, was presented with this problem and made an effort to adjust the differences between the union which represented the employees in New York, and the company, over these alleged charges. The ruling of the Telephone Commission resulted in a number of women receiving an increase, although not all of them did so.

The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor will undoubtedly present the committee with studies which will indicate the rising number of women entering industry and the impact of this on our economy unless the equal-pay principle is adopted. At least I hope the Women's Bureau will do that. It can be done.

The Bell System, in spite of its public pronouncements stating its desire to expand its facilities to the point wherein all those desiring telephone service may obtain it, is at present laying off workers. Thousands of workers employed by the Western Electric Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bell System, are being laid off. The Western Electric Co., as you may know, is the manufacturing arm of the Bell System.

It logically follows in our minds that if these workers are laid off less material will be furnished to the operating companies and we will be seeing lay-offs in the operating companies also.

Retrenchments such as this in industry have always resulted in lower wages for women because in the intense competition for jobs women workers, unfortumately, offer themselves to work at lower wages than their male coworkers. Industry uses such a recession to drive the wages of women to lower levels. It is the responsibility of this Congress in our opinion to do all within its power to prevent such action, and the passage of the bill which is before the committee would be a forward step in the direction of alleviating the economic problem we have resulting from lay-offs.

As mentioned earlier the telephone industry offers little opportunity to women to advance in the industry. True, they do make them chief operators, which is the first-level management in the operating department. They offer them also first-level management jobs in some of the clerical departments, but very few women advance beyond the lower management levels.

The instance is rare when a chief operator is advanced beyond that particular post in the traffic department. In the clerical departments women are restricted to the first level of management jobs which are just beyond the bargaining unit. Although we do not and cannot represent these workers, we think this is a deplorable condition and should be rectified.

However, we recognize that probably this cannot be legislated. We make this point only to prove that industry, regardless of its gracious attitudes, does not afford equal opportunity to women that are afforded to men. Not only is this true in wage levels, but it is also true in the opportunities for advancement.

In the telephone industry we have a system of paying wages whereby a worker is hired at a given rate for a job and then progresses in wages over the course of many years, 8 or 10, to his maximum rate. The progress from the starting rate to the maximum rate is made by following what we term "a progression schedule." These schedules provide the starting rates, the time intervals when successive automatic increases will be given, stating the amounts of such automatic increases until the maximum rate is attained.

A comparison of these progression schedules definitely proves to us that women are not accorded equal treatment. The length of progression schedules for operators, typists, stenographers, and clerks, jobs held almost entirely by women, are generally 8 years. These jobs do not compare in job content to that of the highly skilled plant craftsman. He is the man who installs and maintains the complex machinery of the dial system.

Yet we find that the women workers, in jobs requiring considerably less skill, and in jobs in which maximum job efficiency is reached long before an 8-year period, must wait as long as the highest skilled male worker to receive her maximum job rate.

As a result, not only are her starting and maximum rates lower than those of male telephone workers, but she is unable to receive her maximum rate until her male coworkers receive theirs, despite the fact that her maximum utility, her productivity on the job is reached in a shorter period of time.

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