AMENDMENTS TO THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938 SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1949 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, Washington, D. C. The committee reconvened, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 a. m., Hon. John Lesinski (chairman) presiding. Mr. LESINSKI. The meeting will come to order. The first witness this morning is Harold O. Smith, Jr., executive vice president of the United States Wholesale Grocers' Association. Mr. Smith. Mr. SMITH. I would like to have the privilege of having Mr. Roland Rowe, our secretary, sit with me. He has been with the Wholesale Grocers for 30 years. And also our general counsel, Mr. William Quinlan Mr. LESINSKI. That will be permissible. Mr. SMITH. For the purpose of giving you the best qualified answers on any questions that may arise. TESTIMONY OF HAROLD O. SMITH, JR., EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, ACCOMPANIED BY ROLAND ROWE, SECRETARY, UNITED STATES WHOLESALE GROCERS' ASSOCIATION, AND WILLIAM QUINLAN, COUNSEL Mr. SMITH. My name is Harold O. Smith, Jr. I am executive vice president of the United States Wholesale Grocers' Association, a national trade organization of wholesale food and grocery distributors, with headquarters in Washington, D. C. The wholesale grocer is a man of recognized importance and prestige in his community. In addition to supplying, as an estimated average, 800 to 1,000 retailer grocers and other retail outlets with their requirements, he takes an active part in the civic affairs of his city and Ŝtate. He believes in and upholds the integrity of the American workingman. He does not pay substantial wages or sweatshop rates. He does not employ as large a number of employees compared to concerns in many lines of industry. His desire is to gather around him a force of satisfied and loyal employees, who will stay with him, because of adequate pay, incentive and profit-sharing provisions, and a high degree of employment security. The Bureau of Labor Statistics on November 17, 1948 released the results of a survey of straight-time hourly earnings in July 1948 of workers in wholesale grocery establishments in 16 large cities of AMENDMENTS TO THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938 SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1949 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, Washington, D. C. The committee reconvened, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 a. m., Hon. John Lesinski (chairman) presiding. Mr. LESINSKI. The meeting will come to order. The first witness this morning is Harold O. Smith, Jr., executive vice president of the United States Wholesale Grocers' Association. Mr. Smith. Mr. SMITH. I would like to have the privilege of having Mr. Roland Rowe, our secretary, sit with me. He has been with the Wholesale Grocers for 30 years. And also our general counsel, Mr. William Quinlan Mr. LESINSKI. That will be permissible. Mr. SMITH. For the purpose of giving you the best qualified answers on any questions that may arise. TESTIMONY OF HAROLD O. SMITH, JR., EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, ACCOMPANIED BY ROLAND ROWE, SECRETARY, UNITED STATES WHOLESALE GROCERS' ASSOCIATION, AND WILLIAM QUINLAN, COUNSEL Mr. SMITH. My name is Harold O. Smith, Jr. I am executive vice president of the United States Wholesale Grocers' Association, a national trade organization of wholesale food and grocery distributors, with headquarters in Washington, D. C. The wholesale grocer is a man of recognized importance and prestige in his community. In addition to supplying, as an estimated average, 800 to 1,000 retailer grocers and other retail outlets with their requirements, he takes an active part in the civic affairs of his city and State. He believes in and upholds the integrity of the American workingman. He does not pay substantial wages or sweatshop rates. He does not employ as large a number of employees compared to concerns in many lines of industry. His desire is to gather around him a force of satisfied and loyal employees, who will stay with him, because of adequate pay, incentive and profit-sharing provisions, and a high degree of employment security. The Bureau of Labor Statistics on November 17, 1948 released the results of a survey of straight-time hourly earnings in July 1948 of workers in wholesale grocery establishments in 16 large cities of the country, namely, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Washington, D. C. Summary of this survey shows that the average hourly wage rates in the 16 cities for truck drivers ranged from $1 to $1.70; for order fillers from $1.10 to $1.46; for stockmen and helpers, from 96 cents to $1.44. These categories in nearly all the cities showed an increase over a similar survey in July 1947. The percentages of increase recorded for order fillers ranged from 3.7 to 22 percent; for stockmen, from 2.9 to 17.3 percent; for truck drivers, from 2.6 to 33.7 percent. This same survey also shows hourly wage ranges for other classes of employees, as follows: For clerk-typists, from 68 cents to $1.25; for general stenographers, from 95 cents to $1.38. Traditionally both the cost of living and wage rates are higher in large cities than in small cities and towns and higher in the densely populated industrial sections than in the less populated agricultural regions. We have within the past week by telegraphic request to secretaries of State wholesale grocers' associations obtained their best information on hourly wage rates now being paid by wholesale grocers in their States. The information so far received covers the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin. The ranges of averages in those States for the following classes of employees are for truck drivers, from 55 cents an hour to $1.40; for warehousemen, 55 cents to $1.32; for stenographers, from 55 cents to $1. The lower portion of these ranges are in the nonindustrial regions or the rural areas of the industrial regions. We submit that all the foregoing figures taken together show that the wholesale grocery trade has been entirely aware of the increased cost of living and has increased wages paid employees commensurate therewith. The highly important thing to note here is that this has been done without the compulsion of law. This is as it should be. Why undertake to establish a minimum in good times that will surely become a maximum in bad times with accompanying perils to the whole economy. Even the present 40-cent minimum could impose definite hardships on employees as well as employers, as it could cause serious unemployment in periods of severe national or local depression. The proposed increase, almost double the present minimum, would greatly multiply these hazards and dangers in times of business recession. I would like to point out, too, Mr. Chairman, right now, the reports on the lowering of the cost of living seem to indicate the necessity of having some kind of an escalator or downward, as well as upward there, which would mean that anything that might be a fair and reasonable rate, based on cost of living as of a few weeks ago, might very shortly become proportionately too high. We roughly estimate that averages, including both the industrial and nonindustrial regions, would show that the wholesale grocery trade comes close to the wage level that is the immediate objective of this bill and in the nonindustrial and the rural areas is not too far |