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takes to get there, you will note that a man has to work 14 years to get a $10,000 salary in architecture. We think this is a little low for a professional individual.

Mr. DENT. I didn't realize there was a problem in that area of employment.

Mr. MAWSON. This is an area that has not been publicized because the AIA doesn't like to talk about it. But employees talk about it because they have to live with it.

Mr. DENT. Is it a great number or majority of this type of employees are they college students?

Mr. MAWSON. 95 percent of the people in architecture today are college graduates.

Mr. DENT. College graduates and working for that kind of money under those conditions?

Mr. MAWSON. Yes, under those conditions. In fact, most licensing laws in most States today require a college education in order for an individual to take the examination for licensing in that State. We don't have the advantage that lawyers have to be able to pore over the books on the kitchen tables and then take the bar, the laws in all of the States I know of, especially in Western States require a college education.

Mr. DENT. That is shocking.

I had never gone into that particular phase of it and that problem may become more acute. A greater percentage of high school graduates go on to college and after 4 years with a BA degree, they find they have to go to some other school in order to earn a decent living.

Mr. MAWSON. That is right. The best thing they could do is get into an apprenticeship program in some union because they will make $20,000 after a couple of years.

Mr. DENT. There is a story about a plumber who went to the home of a doctor to repair a sink. He finished the work in 30 minutes. The doctor's wife asked how much the repairs cost, and the plumber said, "$35." She said, "$35 for less than 30 minutes' work? My husband doesn't earn that much for 30 minutes." The plumber replied, "That's why I quit being a doctor."

Mr. MAWSON. I know and incredibly it is true.

As an architect I don't have a story like that but as an architect my particular job now is supervising construction of a $40 million job in Buffalo, N.Y., it is going to be the largest building in Buffalo, it is a 40-story building for a bank and until I went to work on this job my salary was less than common laborer on that job.

A common laborer in construction today, and I don't mean to berate the construction industry because they have their own problems, but the common laborer in the construction industry including benefits makes better than $5 an hour and quite a number of architects don't make that, architects in the employ of other architects, that is.

We don't have the benefit of a union to back us up.

Mr. DENT. There might be other professionals in the same predicament.

Mr. MAWSON. I am sure there are.

Mr. DENT. My staff tells me that we have information on engineers who are in a similar position.

Mr. MAWSON. That is true. Since we established our organization about 2 years ago, we have since affiliated with a similar group of engineers in San Francisco and we have come to find that engineers are in exactly the same kind of predicament as architects, although engineers tend to earn a slightly higher salary than we do. We have even found, since we entered our activities that lawyers are becoming unionized, especially in San Francisco, because they find that through the banding together within a union structure their positions and their ideals and motivations can be protected, where, if they stick by the cloak of professionality, it would be beneath them to do certain things and unions are becoming, and lawyers and all other kinds of professionals are unionizing and doctors and doctor technicians are becoming organized and this is simply because, well they are not protected or they are exempted in this case from certain provisions of the law because they are supposed to be professionals and be able to fend for themselves. But that is not the case.

Mr. DENT. I appreciate your taking the time at this late hour to give us your testimony. You have pointed out a new siuation that I hardly had anticipated. I am grateful to you for having opened up the subject matter for us.

Mr. MAWSON. Thank you.

Mr. DENT. The last hearings on the minimum wage legislation will be next Thursday, April 29, in room 2175. At that time we hope to have the Secretary of Labor. The committee stands adjourned. (Whereupon, at 4:05 p.m., the committee recessed to reconvene Thursday, April 29, 1971.)

TO AMEND THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938

THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1971

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

GENERAL SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR OF

THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to call, in room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John H. Dent (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Dent, Mazzoli, Burton, Biaggi, Green, Badillo, Erlenborn, Quie, Landgrebe and Hansen.

Staff members present: Robert E. Vagley, subcommittee director; Michael J. Bernstein, minority counsel for labor.

Chairman DENT. The committee will come to order for the purpose of hearing testimony on H.R. 7130 and related bills to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act.

At this time I must make an announcement that Secretary of Labor Hodgson will not be with us this morning. He called me sometime after 8:30 last night and told me he had intended to come, but encountered some difficulty and would not be able to appear this morning. Apparently, there is one certain feature of the proposed amendments yet to be agreed upon by the administration before the Secretary can make his presentation.

Mr. BURTON. I would like to note that the administration now has been in office for just about 211⁄2 years. This issue is not all that complicated. For the life of me I can not understand why they can not come up with a decision on whether or not the lowest paid workers in the country are entitled to a decent minimum wage.

The administration has talked and talked about workfare rather than welfare. It is so simple and self-explanatory to see that those that in fact do work should take home enough earnings so that they can feed their families with some minimal measure of decency.

In my own opinion, I think the Republican administration is taking a duck on this. I appreciate the gentle explanation of our subcommittee chairman but after all this time it is a little difficult for me to believe that they do not know just about what they are willing or unwilling to do.

Chairman DENT. Thank you, Mr. Burton.

I, of course, have only the information that is given me and I have no reason to question the Secretary's position. However, I did advise him last night that the time was passing and we could no longer delay action on the legislation. The full committee or the subcommittee will meet sometime next week to discuss some kind of a time limit on future action on this legislation.

I am sorry that the Secretary could not come here because I think it might have cleared up some of the areas that are still undetermined as to where we will head for or the direction we want to take. At this time, however, we are privileged to have with us

Mr. ERLENBORN. Could I make a short statement. Let me point out that the bill that is under consideration was introduced on the first of April this year, not a long time ago. It is a fairly comprehensive bill including relief for injury to domestic industry occasioned by imports. It is not just a simple question of minimum wage. Mr. BURTON. Would the gentleman yield?

Chairman DENT. Each gentleman has expressed himself and we will let the weight of their words carry whatever meaning there is. At this time, I am happy to have with us Mr. Matt Triggs, assistant legislative director of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Matt, I understand that you have an urgent affair to take care of later and I asked Mr. Packard from the Hotel and Motel Association to stand aside for the moment.

Mr. Triggs?

STATEMENT OF MATT TRIGGS, ASSISTANT LEGISLATIVE

DIRECTOR, AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION

Mr. TRIGGS. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I am accompanied by Dale Sherwin of our staff who specializes in trade matters on behalf of our organization. The Farm Bureau is a general farm organization, wholly supported by dues voluntarily paid by members consisting of 1,943,181 families in 2,817 county farm bureaus in 49 States and Puerto Rico.

BROAD PRINCIPLES

We believe that the proposals in H.R. 7130 are counterproductive, that they would not contribute to the desired objectives but would tend to defeat such objectives.

Members of the Congress and the public are vitally concerned about persistent inflationary trends. An increase in minimum wages pushes up the whole wage structure and contributes to higher costs and prices.

Members of the Congress and the public are vitally concerned about the level of unemployment. An increase in the minimum wage increases the number of people who are unemployable at the minimum wage level and at other higher fixed wage levels resulting from the upward push of minimum wages on the wage structure.

Members of the Congress and the public are concerned about the depopulation of many rural areas and the desirability of reversing this trend. Minimum wages have a greater impact in rural areas (because the price-wage structure in rural areas reflects differences in living costs between rural and urban areas as well as substantial noncash supplements). An increase in minimum wages will tend to defeat the objective of encouraging rural development by reducing job opportunities.

Members of the Congress and the public are concerned about the

competitive position of U.S. products in export markets and in our own markets. At the end of 1970 total foreign claims on the United States hit a new high record of $43.3 billion, and U.S. gold and other reserves hit a new low record of $14.5 billion. The upward push of minimum wage increases reduces the competitive position of U.S. products in foreign and domestic markets.

Virtually everyone is concerned with respect to the inadequate number of jobs available for teenagers, particularly during the summer months. President Nixon has asked Congress for $231.5 million in Federal funds to help employ some 250,000 disadvantaged youths in summer jobs.

An inevitable consequence of an increase in the minimum wage level would be a reduction in jobs for teenagers. Actually the 1966 bill recognized this adverse effect by providing in section 14(b) (of the act) for approval of applications for reduced minimum wages when necessary to avoid a reduction in employment of specified groups of persons. But few employers know of, or avail themselves of this provision.

It is our view that the major impact on farmers of the enactment of H.R. 7130 is to increase the cost of all the goods and services farmers buy, from tractors to restaurant meals. One of the goods and services farmers purchase is hired labor. Farm labor costs are about 11 percent of the total costs to farmers. The increase in farm labor costs would adversely affect farmers, but it is the total cost increase that is of primary concern. For these reasons we do not believe the proposed increases in minimum wages would be in the public interest.

THE IMPACT OF H.R. 7130 ON HIRED FARM LABOR EMPLOYMENT WOULD BE ADVERSE TO THE INTERESTS OF THOSE INTENDED TO BE BENEFITED

It is not always understood that the cause of the relatively low economic status of the group we commonly call farmworkers or migratory workers really misnomers is that they are unemployed most of the time. This is illustrated in the following data from table 7 of the "Hired Farm Working Force of 1970"-Agricultural Economic Report, No. 201, USDA.

I ask that the table be incorporated in the record. (The table referred to follows:)

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Mr. TRIGGS. Let me summarize what the table discloses. Thus the average number of days worked in agriculture of all farmworkers was 80 days per year. If we eliminate the full-time.

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