to the exclusion of farm labor from any of the overtime provisions of These exemptions, we feel, should be eliminated. They have not No real reason, we feel, exists for this economic discrimination toward a large segment of our working population. The industry is not poverty stricken. It has produced some huge concentrations of wealth. The fact that the work is seasonal does not make it any easier for the Worker to live, deprived as he is of the right to earn overtime in the busy season. Logic would dictate that a higher wage should be paid in the season to compensate for low earnings in the slack season. Our local union has bargained with a number of canneries in southern New Jersey for the past 8 years. We have endeavored year after year to get the employer to waive his right to take advantage of the exemptions. A number of employers have indicated that they would be glad to pay overtime after 40 hours if the exemptions were removed from the law. Each company, however, is afraid to take unilateral action, since doing so would put them in a disadvantageous position competitively. We cannot be responsible for endangering the competitive position in the industry of the companies with whom we bargain. One company, namely, Edgar F. Hurff Co. in Swedesboro, N. J., did, however, agree on a temporary basis to waive its rights for exempted periods with the understanding that if legislative action was not taken to do away with all exemptions, they would have to continue as heretofore their practice of taking advantage of the exemptions. On the other hand, various companies within the industry, have seen fit to pay overtime after 40 hours, waiving their right to take advantage of the exemptions, such as the Campbell Soup Co., Camden, N. J. In addition, all canneries on the west coast, employing some 75.000 organized workers, pay overtime after 40 hours per week throughout the year. We feel that in order to put each company on the same competitive footing regarding the payment of overtime, with productive efficiency being the principal determining factor, it seems evident that only national legislation providing the complete removal of such exemptions will suffice. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. That concludes my statement. Mr. STEED. No question. Mr. SMITH. No questions. Mr. MASON. I think it should be pointed out with reference to the canning and processing workers that the plants we have organized do have rates much higher than the 75-cent minimum that is proposed in the committee print, and that most of them receive time and a half after 40 hours, even in seasonal employment. On the west coast where we have 60,000 workers organized, their minimum rate, I believe, is $1.23% an hour, and their overtime provision applies over 40 hours. So it is just a small segment of the industry that is not paying these standards rates. We think anything below that is substandard and detrimental to the interests of the communities in which these plants are located. Mr. LESINSKI. You have another witness here, have you not? Mr. LESINSKI. Very well. Proceed. TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH A. WHITE, BUSINESS AGENT, GLOUCESTER SEAFOOD WORKERS' UNION Mr. WHITE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Joseph A. White, business agent of the Gloucester Seafood Workers' Union, with a membership of 2,000. I am also authorized to speak for the Boston local sea-food workers through their membership. At present and in the past we have been excluded from this wage and hour section of the Fair Labor Standards Act. We have a basic workweek of 44 hours. We feel that if we could be included in the act, it would eliminate inequities and also unfair competition. We have what is considered seasonal workers in fisheries, taking the run of herring, for instance, and what not. It is just for a short duration. But we in the port of Gloucester, the No. 1 fishing port of the Nation, and also in Boston, do not think it is a seasonal affair. It is pretty much of a year-around affair or industry. In Boston, the sea-food workers are fortunate enough to have, through collective bargaining, a 40-hour agreement, time and a half after 40 hours. In Gloucester I have not been that fortunate as yet. As a matter of fact we have attempted in the past over a period of years to have this 40-hour week incorporated and then time and onehalf after 40 hours. Now, being included would automatically erase the inequities and thus eliminate the unfair competition from Maine and in the vicinity of Provincetown, New Bedford, and other places. I received rather a short notice on these particular hearings, and I came without a statement of facts. But I talked with Congressman Kennedy, and it is my intention to prepare a brief on my return tomorrow, and I shall mail it to the members of the committee here. I thank you. Mr. LESINSKI. If there is no objection, we will make that part of the record. (The statement referred to is as follows:) SUPPLEMENTAL STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. WHITE As business agent of the Gloucester Seafood Workers' Union, representing some 2,000 members, I wish to acquaint the members of the committee with our reasons for requesting that we be included in the Wage and Hour Act. Presently, sea-food workers who are employed in the processing of fish are exempt from the Wage and Hour Act. The special exemptions on the seasonal period have been previously obtained by arguments that it would adversely affect the annual profits. This does not apply to cases that I refer to in this brief. This position is unfounded. We ask that we be included whereas it would automatically eliminate considerable of the unfair competition in our industry brought about through companies in the State of Maine and along the east coast who are paying much less money per hour to their men and women sea-food workers who are employed as processors. This unfair competition, created by fish dealers whose employees are not unionized, brings about a situation that indirectly affects the sea-food workers who are members of organized labor, and it greatly handicaps us during our collective-bargaining negotiations, whereas the fish dealers with whom we have contracts remind us of the unfair competition that they encounter. If all fish processors were included under the act, it would help us to stabilize the industry through the elimination of inequities. All of the fish dealers in Boston are presently paying overtime after 8 working hours per day and after 40 hours' work in any 1 week. As a matter of fact, fish dealers in Boston are paying, and have been paying, time and one-half after 40 hours' work per week for the past few years. This creates greater inequities between Gloucester and Boston, whereas Gloucester sea-food workers have a basic workweek of 44 hours. Time and one-half is paid after 44 hours. I can readily appreciate certain exemptions being made in the seasonal industries which are doing business during seasonal periods, but not in the fish-processing plants that process fish the year round. Other than during the so-called winter slack in the fishing industry, all members are fully employed. During 6 months of the year, many of the male employees who do the fish processing work 60 to 70 hours per week, overtime being paid after 8 hours per day and 44 hours per week, and for the reason that we are not included in the act, our basic workweek is 44 hours under our present contractual agreement. The fact that overtime is paid at the time and one-half after 8 hours' work in any one day or after 44 hours' work in any one week, plus double time for Sundays and holidays, by the present fish dealers in the fishing industry in Gloucester, should be proof enough that we should be included in the Wage and Hour Act. In the seaport of Boston, overtime is paid after 8 hours' work per day and, in many cases, after 40 hours' work per week. The individuals who do the fish processing and work year round in Boston, whether or not they are covered through a collective-bargaining agreement, are paid the overtime rate of time and one-half after 8 hours' work per day and 40 hours' work per week, and have been over a period of years. This gives complete coverage to all fish processors in the industry in Boston. We have, in this Nation, fish processors working during the seasonal run of a certain species of fish such as herring. Those processors operate on a seasonal basis during the run of that particular species of fish. This is to be compared with certain seasonal fruits and vegetables that are produced during a certain number of weeks per year. But even in the majority of those cases-as in the case of fresh fruit and vegetable packing sheds who are exempt by law for 28 weeks-companies pay overtime to 100 percent of the workers who are under union contract. The cottonseed-oil industry, located almost entirely in the South, pay overtime to 85 percent of its workers who are under union contract. The small minority of plants where the full exemption is permitted are for the most part newly organized establishments where national union organizations have not as yet had time to establish union conditions and wages for the employees. As a matter of fairness and free competition to those employers who have agreed to eliminate overtime exemptions, the law should close the loophole against the chiseler and the sweatshop operator. Fishermen, as you all know, fish the year round for groundfish species, namely, cod, haddock, rosefish, hake, and flatfish. Many of these boats during the summer months, the season when the swordfish are available, shift over and do that type of fishing. Gloucester's fishing fleet includes approximately 270 vessels. I would say about one-fifth shift over to swordfishing during the season and fish out of the port of Gloucester. Others, during the mackerel season, which is a similar period to that of swordfishing, shift over to the seining of mackerel. But nevertheless, the majority of boats remain in groundfish fishing. This brings about a peak of production to the point of a glut during the months of the year that other species are available and in season, but all vessels are busily engaged at some type of fishing year round. During the glut seasons, fish dealers in Gloucester, Boston, New Bedford, and Portland, Maine, employ much additional help during the peak production seasons, which is usually from May, when the whiting fish season starts, until October. The number employed in the various freezers is greatly increased during this peak season also, and whether or not they are temporary, seasonal, or regular employees, they receive time and one-half after 8 hours per day or after 44 hours per week, as is the case in Gloucester. In Boston, time and one-half is paid after 40 hours to seasonal or regular employees. Gloucester is the No. 1 fishing port of the Nation, surpassing all previous records in the history of fish production, Gloucester alone produced 253,000,000 pounds in 1948. Gloucester became the No. 1 fishing port of the Nation during the war years, when both fishermen and fish processors went all-out in the production of fish as a fighting food necessary in the production of foods for the war effort. SOME OF THE SHORT SEASON FISHERIES The fishermen who fish out of the ports of Gloucester and Boston fish the year round. I have yet to hear of fish spoiling due to refusal on the part of employees to work overtime or on Sundays or holidays. With advanced quick-freezing methods, fish, if processed within a reasonable time, will not spoil. One, of course, is the spring runs of shad, which hit the rivers and bays all the way from Florida to Maine at one time or another. The season in any one body of water lasts only a few weeks. Similarly, alewives enter streams in their spawning run, which also lasts only a few weeks. These runs are successively later as they reach more northerly streams, so that in Maine the season is 2 or 3 months later than that of the Chesapeake area. Alewives are canned as river herring in the Chesapeake Bay area and are also salted in considerable quantity. While spawning run of smelt is also of brief duration. Smelt run in many different areas, the run in some of the west coast rivers, such as the Columbia and the Cowlitz and that in the Green Bay territory of Michigan and Wisconsin. have been much publicized. In the Green Bay territory, a part of Lake Michigan. the season lasts only 2 or 3 weeks. Although smelt are caught by various means, including fishing with gill nets through the ice, the big production is during the spring run when they can be dipped from the small streams by anyone standing on the bank and from the larger stream by other systems, without much greater difficulty. The shrimp season in the northern part of their range, as in North Carolina. is relatively short. A number of the Florida fisheries, such as those for mullet and pompano, are highly seasonal as regards the State as a whole, and more so in specific localities. The southerly mackerel fishery in New Jersey, for example, also represents a highly seasonal operation. Of course, the extremely short season in many of the salmon canning operations in Alaska is well known. I feel that I would be remiss if I didn't at this time point out the fact that members of the seafood workers' unions in Boston, Gloucester, New Bedford. Portland, and New York are employed by companies who are definitely engaged in interstate commerce. For this reason, we are subject to the provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act. It is my sincere hope that fish processors in all phases of the industry be included in the Wage and Hour Act for the reasons I have mentioned above. Mr. LESINSKI. Do you have anything, gentlemen? Mr. Smith? Mr. SMITH. No questions. Mr. LESINSKI. Have you an explanation, Mr. Mason? Mr. MASON. I would like to point out further that the Campbell Soup Co., which is one of the largest in this country, and I believe produces about 95 percent of all the canned soups on the world market, has a minimum now of 80 cents an hour, 'and overtime after 40 hours, on seasonal employment. With this understanding, I cannot see where it would cause any serious effect to the industry as a whole. Mr. LESINSKI. I believe the Campbell Soup Co. is financially well set, as I understand it. Mr. MASON. I understand that they are. Mr. WHITE. May I mention a word about our contractual wage rates? Women are receiving 75 cents per hour as against the women in Boston, 30 miles away, receiving $1.05. Utility and general help are receiving $1.05 as against $1.12 in Boston, and the cutters are receiving $1.25 as against $1.17, but I feel the inequity so far as the wage rates are concerned will be ironed out this coming April. Our contract expires as of then. Mr. LESINSKI. What kind of competition would it eliminate between your section of the country and Maine, that the gentleman spoke about? Mr. WHITE. In Maine, and the further up the coast you go, the cheaper labor is, and naturally, down in Rockland, Maine, they have gone to that extreme, or are going that far, and in Eastport, labor is cheap, much cheaper than the rate paid through the exchanges in Gloucester or Boston. And the dealers while negotiating stress that point very much. So if they were covered under this Fair Labor Standards Act, if they were included, it would necessarily eliminate the inequities there. Mr. LESINSKI. What is the difference between Maine and that section of Newfoundland that was established there several years ago as being run by a community? At one time it used to be nothing but a bleak stone edge of the territory, and since then they have rebuilt a good many parts of it by cooperating and pooling all of their resources and building an ice house and refrigeration. Mr. WHITE. Are you referring to Canada or Newfoundland, sir? Mr. LESINSKI. It is somewhere around there. Mr. WHITE. It is Canada. We are bothered very much. As a matter of fact. I appeared before a committee yesterday in regard to the imports. That is one thing that is bothering us. It appears that the foreign governments are positively expending moneys to further expand their fisheries, and we are going along fighting our own battles. We have individuals interested right here in America who have opened up, subsidized by the Canadian Government, and that brings about most of the unfair competition, too. What we need and what I requested, and also the dealers who have not these other interests in those foreign countries-they have requested a quota on imports, and if we do not get it, we will be in the same plight as the Waltham watch workers who testified yesterday. It is becoming more and more inviting. O'Hara in Boston, along with General Foods, and Gordon-Pew have just negotiated in the case of Gordon-Pew, a $750,000 freezing plant, and in addition to that a $250,000 processing plant, right in Lewisburg, Nova Scotia, about 12 hours away from the fishing ground, when it necessitates these vessels to travel in the vicinity of 40 to 70 hours to reach the |