Mr. McCONNELL. Give your name, address, and telephone number to the reporter and proceed.

STATEMENT OF OLIVE H. HUSTON, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, NATIONAL FEDERATION OF BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL WOMEN'S CLUBS, INC.

Miss HUSTON. My name is Olive Huston, executive secretary of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, 1819 Broadway, New York City.

The National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Inc., representing 120,000 members in 2,000 communities throughout the country, wholeheartedly supports the principle of equal pay for equal work for women.

We believe that legislation incorporating this principle, has an important bearing on employment and prosperity. The principle of equal pay for equal work is the concern not only of millions of women workers, but of men as well, since inequality in the wage structure promotes price cutting, depresses the labor market, and thereby unbalances the whole economic system.

We believe that all workers will have greater job security if the pay status can be predicated on the basis of merit without discrimination because of sex. These discriminations hinder the maximum utilization of available labor resources and plant capacity so needed if employment opportunities are to be available for all of our people, and the production necessary for our national and international obligations is to be maintained.

There has been what to us seems an alarming trend in employment since cessation of hostilities. With the release of women from jobs where they had equal pay for men, there is a tendency to a return to prewar inequities resulting in lower wages for women generally.

Lower wages for women for the same work are detrimental to standards of living of women workers who constitute one-third of our total labor force. Experience of our members bears out surveys of the Women's Bureau wherein it has been revealed that of employed women, 75 to 80 percent must earn their living and support dependents. Due to war casualties women are carrying an increasingly heavy economic burden. The removal of differences in pay as between men and women will improve the level of purchasing power for millions of women. It is important to note that while women are paid less, there is no corresponding differential in prices on consumer goods, thereby increasing the economic hardship for women who with increasing frequency carry responsibility as heads of families. These discriminations impede family security and the elevation of living standards.

Modern wage and salary administration outmodes the traditional women's scale and men's scale. In the interests of production the rate for the job is supported. When a woman performs precisely the same work as a man, without additional supervision or assistance, equal remuneration should be paid.

All reliable studies show that improvement in methods and new processes have freed men and women alike from drudgery that has in the past created differences in the tasks assigned to men and women. Wartime experience has shown that women have been able to assume successfully many skilled and unskilled labor jobs as well as super

visory, administrative, and executive positions that had in the past been assigned solely to men.

Business and professional women also feel that the establishment legally of the principle of equal pay will serve to accelerate and encourage the utilization of persons according to qualifications and ability rather than sex. Our organization has long advocated the full partnership of women and men, particularly in these troubled times, in working out the solution of today's problems. If women are to accept the responsibilities of citizenship, shoulder their economic load, participate fully in the thinking and action commensurate with today's needs, it is vital that the pseudo barriers of competition between women and men be removed. When women are used as a means of depressing wage and salary levels, and must compete on the basis of being cheaper labor, the natural psychological effect is to retard the development of peak skills, since there is no incentive to further progress or recognition.

With the removal of artifically conceived differentials in rates of pay, and the general recognition of them as workers, rather than women, one result would be to encourage women to greater economic and professional stability, and the acceptance of responsibility with increased confidence.

We believe that the administrative procedures and enforcement provisions are sound as proposed in this bill, but recognize the possibility of further improvement in phraseology at the discretion of this committee, after competent witnesses present all aspects of this subject. We respectfully urge, therefore, that your committee consider favorable action on this measure which we feel so vitally necessary to stabilize employment and the upbuilding of national income. Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. Smith.

Mr. SMITH. No questions.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. MacKinnon.

Mr. MCKINNON. How many women are there in industry employed now; do you know?

Miss HUSTON. A little below 16,000,000 at the present time. Do you mean in industry alone, or employed women?

Mr. MACKINNON. No, I just meant employed. Do you know how many in industry?

Miss HUSTON. I could not give you that figure. I am quite sure that figure is available through the Women's Bureau.

Mr. McCONNELL. Do you want it, Mr. MacKinnon?

Mr. MACKINNON. Yes; but we can get it later.

Is it the position of your group generally that you favor increasing this or decreasing it?

Miss HUSTON. The number of women employed?

Mr. MACKINNON. Yes. In other words, do you favor women working?

Miss HUSTON. Yes; we do, sir.

Mr. MACKINNON. Married women also?

Miss HUSTON. Indeed we do.

Mr. MACKINNON. Do you endorse this bill as written?

Miss HUSTON. At the present time we endorse this bill as written, but we are always open to changes that are in accordance with our thinking. We are only supporting the principle. We know that you folks are the lawmakers and see the legal end of it much more clearly than we do.

The interesting thing about our organization is that it represents employers and employees as well. Among our group, over a period of years, we have consistently supported this bill, even with about 25 percent of our membership being employers.

Mr. MACKINNON. Has there been any material change in the form of the bill through the years?

Miss HUSTON. There have been changes made, minor changes from time to time.

Mr. MACKINNON. The principle is substantially the same?
Miss HUSTON. The principle has remained the same.

Mr. MACKINNON. Thank you.

Mr. McCONNELL. You say there have been changes in the bill, would one of those changes be this phrase, "transactions and operations affecting commerce"?

Miss HUSTON. I have not been close enough to it over a period of time to give you that answer.

Mr. MACKINNON. I can say this, Mr. Chairman: Nobody thought of using the standard, "affecting commerce," until a few years ago.

Mr. McCONNELL. Do you have any statistics on the number of women who have been discriminated against, as to the quality and quantity of their work, and so on?

Miss HUSTON. Of course, it has increased since the war. We know that. We know it was relaxed during the war. We are beginning in our offices to receive notification of discrimination. The amount is increasing, that is, where the women are being paid a lower amount for doing comparable work.

Mr. McCONNELL. In what type of industry do those discriminations occur?

Miss HUSTON. They occur in many types of industry. Of course, I agree with you gentlemen in your implication that as a whole it referred more to the factory worker and industry where the yardstick is much easier to use. But my organization stands firmly on the point that women should not be discriminated against in any type of work merely by the fact that they are women. We believe the measuring rod should be qualification rather than sex.

Mr. McCONNELL. You believe we should pass a law that women should not be discriminated against in any way?

It is

Miss HUSTON. Yes. I think we should for this reason: That it is the greatest discrimination there is today, against women. traditional that women shall not be paid as much as men. It is a long-established policy that has always been. That is why I think there should be a law.

Mr. McCONNELL. You feel a national law would accomplish that purpose.

Miss HUSTON. I think it would establish a national policy which, with a certain amount of teeth in it, would help to remedy the situation.

Mr. McCONNELL. Education and the general training of employers would not change that? It would not get any better?

Miss HUSTON. I don't believe it would get any better.

Mr. McCONNELL. Leaving out the war episode where they did go after it as a national policy, has there been general improvement through the years? I asked that of Mrs. Douglas this morning and I did not think she was familiar with the facts in connection with it. Miss HUSTON. In what type of work do you mean, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. McCONNELL. In industry. Has there been less discrimination against women receiving the same amount of money as the men? Has there been less of that in recent years, or has it remained just about the same?

Miss HUSTON. I think it has remained about static in that bracket. I would say in the higher skilled and salaried brackets there has been a greater acceptance of women on an equality basis with men. in industry and that type of work, I do not think there has been.

But

Mr. McCONNELL. I had been under the impression that a lot of that was breaking down and there was more of a tendency to pay the women the same as men if they did the same type of work and turned out approximately the same quantity of production.

Miss HUSTON. You are eliminating the war period, Mr. Chairman? Mr. McCONNELL. Yes.

Miss HUSTON. I would say there has not been.

Mr. McCONNELL. Do you have statistics to prove that?

Miss HUSTON. I do not have that.

Mr. McCONNELL. In other words, it is just your general impression?

Miss HUSTON. That is right.

Mr. McCONNELL. You have seen no figures to justify that judg

ment?

Miss HUSTON. I do not have figures.

Mr. McCONNELL. Have you ever seen figures to justify that judgment?

Miss HUSTON. I am sure the Women's Bureau would have such figures.

Mr. McCONNELL. If you could find such figures, would you supply them to the committee, please?

Miss HUSTON. Yes, I shall.

Mr. MACKINNON. What do you think about the permanency argument, that from the nature of the situation a woman's employment might, in some circumstances, be less permanent?

Miss HUSTON. Mine has been very permanent.

Mr. MACKINNON. I refer to the average situation.

Miss HUSTON. I was interested in your remark on that subject. As a woman who deals with an organization of employed women I don't see how you are going to know the permanency of either a man or woman when you employ them. I will go back to your example of a man stenographer. Very few men are content to remain a man stenographer for the rest of their lives. Are they going to be any more permanent than the girl who comes in and you discriminate against her because she is a woman? There is a possibility she might marry, but many of them return to work.

I don't see how in the beginning you can ever establish a measuring rod of permanency between a man and woman on that basis.

Mr. MACKINNON. Don't you think that has been one of the factors that they may have actually weighed in many instances in arriving at a decision to pay some women less?

Miss HUSTON. Indeed, I think you are quite right.

Mr. MACKINNON. It has been the lack of permanency?

Miss HUSTON. It has been the idea that there would be lack of permanency, and it has been continually built up as a barrier against

women.

Mr. MACKINNON. I don't think that is the full causal factor. I recognize that is only one of the factors that may have caused women to be discriminated against as to wages. I believe one of the other factors is they do not think they have to pay them as much. It did occur to me that as a group in some types of employment at least they were less permanent and that they consequently were less valuable because you are constantly faced with the problem of training replacements.

To that extent it occurred to me that the discrimination recognized a physical fact that cannot be ignored.

Miss HUSTON. That has been the argument, there is no doubt about that. But when you look back at the stability of men and women on the job, the woman has just as good a record, if not better, as the man.

Mr. MACKINNON. You mean while they are working?

Miss HUSTON. Yes.

Mr. MACKINNON. I am not arguing about that, and I am not arguing against the proposition in general. I am just inquiring for the sake of information whether this is a valid ground for distinction. I realize it should not result in the total discrimination that presently exists, but it occurs to me it is a substantial distinction that in some instances not all-it might be a proper ground for different treatment; not to the extent that we have it, but for different treatment. Do you think that is a valid ground?

Miss HUSTON. Oh, I do not.

Mr. MACKINNON. You don't think permanency is of any consequence? Miss HUSTON. I don't see how you have permanency based on sex. We could go into a long dissertation on that. We could go into an entirely different angle that does not come directly into this.

Mr. MACKINNON. Take an industry that has been in existence for 50 years. They have employed women. They have determined that the women they have employed there stay with them an average of 4 years. They have also employed men in interchangeable positions, primarily office work, and things of that character. They have determined that the average male employee stays with them an average of 11 years. That is the actual experience in their business. I am speaking of a particular case that I know of. Now, do you think that might justify some different treatment in the wage scales to the two groups?

Miss HUSTON. I don't think you can lay down that hard and fast rule that the male will stay with you longer.

Mr. MACKINNON. No; I don't think so, either, but here you have a business that has that experience over a 50-year period.

Miss HUSTON. And I don't see any reason to gamble on the salary by paying the male more, because he is a male, because he might stay with you longer. That is what you are doing. You are gambling that much money on the male because it is traditional that he is more permanent there; that the woman will marry and go home-"To what home" was something that was said by someone this morning, but that is often the angle that is taken. You are just gambling that much money with the hope that he will stay with you, never taking into consideration that the male is naturally ambitious; that he is going to want to move on; that he is going to move on to higher things if he can.