hour, or $6 a week. However, this reduction in wages was not general in all departments of the mill. Now, we come to the Cannon Manufacturing Co., another chain of mills, which is the biggest, and, I suppose, the wealthiest group of cotton textile mills that we have. Mr. Cannon, as you know, was a member of the policy committee, and possibly chairman-I do not know; I could not be exact about that-but on different occasions Mr. Cannon was supposed to have called different mills to see that they reinstated different workers, workers that had been discharged for union activities during the national strike and after the national strike. At the time he was a member of this policy committee complaints were being filed every day against Mr. Cannon's mills, and in July of 1935 a group of employees of the Cannon plant with myself and one of the conciliators of the Labor Department were in his office for the purpose of trying to settle the affairs of his plants. At this time Mr. Cannon promised us that if business picked up he would be glad to reinstate these employees and admitted to us that they were the most skillful employees that he had in the mill. Business did pick up, he began to start up looms and spinning frames and spindles throughout the mill, but these particular employees were never reinstated and today they are still walking the streets. However, some of them are working at other mills. We went back to see Mr. Cannon, and when we went back he said that he had no knowledge whatsoever, as to the way his overseers and his superintendents were discriminating against the employees in the various mills of that chain. We went to one of the superintendents of the mill, the man who is the superintendent of all the weaving departments, on one particular case, and he told us himself, he told the complainant, that he had instructions not to work him because he was seen on the street where a group of pickets was during the national strike. He went to his former superintendent and asked him if it was true, and the superintendent told him yes. I might say that we went back and tried to contact Mr. Cannon again and he said, "I do not know anything about their affairs." To shorten the report on the Cannon Mills, I might say here that out of seven mills we have complaints against six of them. Before I forget it or let it slip from my mind, I want to make this statement here: If I am not mistaken, Mr. Taylor, in his testimony a short while ago said there were only 21 cases that had not been settled as far as wages and hours were concerned. I want to say right here that in the western part of North Carolina I have more than 21 complaints out of mills there myself that have never been settled one way or the other, or if they have been settled the employees know nothing about it whatsoever. Now, Mr. Chairman, here is a very particular case in the Cascade Mill, at Mooresville, N. C., which is one of the mills of the Burlington chain, of which Mr. Spencer Love is president, if I am not mistaken. The same condition that exists in this mill is also existing in several other mills in this chain. Weavers that were running 7 or 8 looms and being paid 80 cents per hundred thousand pick, 2 weeks before Christmas, or, in other words, in the middle of December of 1935, had the loom load increased from 7 and 8 looms to 14 looms, and today they are making 40 cents per hundred thousand pick, and in addition to that Mr. WOOD. That would be about a 200 percent decrease in wages, would it not? Mr. LISK. Just about. In addition to that, they were only working 40 hours a week, five 8-hour shifts, and at the present time they are working six 8-hour shifts. They only have one shift that misses on Sunday. One shift comes off at midnight Saturday night and another goes on at midnight Sunday night, and every other week that shift works 48 hours. In addition to this, in the warper departments and spool rooms in the mills wages have been decreased with the weavers. Mr. Chairman, I realize that the time is getting short, but I have something here that I would like to say about the Mooresville Mills. Mr. KELLER. Shoot away. Mr. LISK. The Mooresville Cotton Mills, prior to the time the N. R. A. was declared unconstitutional, was not the mill for the employees to work in. In other words, they did not have the conditions that the employees deserved and that they endeavored to set up in that mill, but they were far better than they were after the N. R. A. was declared unconstitutional. From the time the N. R. A. was declared unconstitutional, Mr. Matheson, who is president of the Mooresville Cotton Mills, refused to meet the shop committees to discuss any grievances whatsoever that were relative to his own mill. In addition to that, he began to fire-in fact, he started before the N. R. A. was declared unconstitutional, but he started rapidly at the time of the annulment of the N. R. A., to discharge every union member and officer that he possibly could. First, the president of the local union was discharged. However, he was discharged in March, I believe, the 18th of March I think was when he was discharged. After that he started with the officers. He got the chairman of the legislation committee. He got the people that collected the dues in the mill. He got the chairman of the shop committee, and on down and down and down until he had every officer in that mill fired. After he fired the last one, who was the secretary-treasurer of the union, we endeavored to get a conference with him to discuss these grievances, at which time he said he had nothing to talk to us about whatsoever and that he was running his mill and that we could not do anything about it, that he was not going to give us a chance, in other words, to do anything about it, and he said he did not care. what we did or what was said about it. For 2 days we endeavored to get a conference through the investigators of the Textile Labor Relations Board. We failed. On Thursday, September 19, I believe it was, or the 20th, these local employees in this mill voted to come out on strike on Monday morning, September 23, unless he met the committee and endeavored to make some adjustments with regard to the discharge of the union members. He refused to meet the committee, and on September 23 the employees in this particular mill struck. Mr. Matheson, from the time the strike occurred, up until the present time, has refused to meet the committee. He did meet the investigators and conciliators to discuss this on two different occasions. After that he refused absolutely to meet anybody and told the conciliators he was not going to meet anybody else and he was not going to do anything about the conditions of his mill. Now, Mr. Chairman, I might make one observation here that I failed to state. On Saturday morning after he had refused to meet this committee he went out and talked to the secretary-treasurer of the local union, the last man he had fired, at which time he told the gentleman that he had been told that the people of Mooresville, N. C., were criticizing him for refusing to meet this committee. He said "I would it is not a house, that a man is living in today, and he is working in the Mooresville Cotton Mill, a picture that I want every member of this committee, if possible, to look at [handing]. I might say that this is another picture of a family that was evicted from their home [handing]. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the gentleman yesterday in his testimony stated that the living conditions and the cost of living was so much higher in the North that they could not afford to pay the wages in the South that were being paid in the North, due to that fact. I would like to inform the committee that I very seldom get a chance to come north as far as the District of Columbia, but all the time that I am below the Mason and Dixon line I try to save enough money so that I can buy me some clothes when I come north because I can buy a suit of clothes in New York City, the same suit of clothes, made by the same company, and I have a suit here for proof, $7.50, and in some stores $12.50, cheaper than I can buy the same suit in Charlotte, N. C. But the employers cannot afford to pay employees wages in the South as they can in the North. I might say here that it costs just as much to buy coal in Charlotte, N. C., as it does in Washington, D. C. In Salisbury, N. C., 4 weeks ago today it was 5 below zero, and, according to the papers in Washington it has not been 5 below zero in Washington yet this year. But those people down there, they don't have to eat, they don't have to wear clothes, they don't have to do anything according to the testimony of a majority of the employers. This is going to sound comical, I know, but nevertheless it is true. I know one particular textile employer in Concord, N. C., who has got a sign in his office, and when you go into talk about labor troubles or grievances of any kind, he will ask you to read that sign, and that sign reads something like this: "Work like hell and be happy." In other words, they want to leave the impression with the employees, you might say, "Work till Jesus comes. Mr. WOOD. I would like to ask the gentleman about this picture. How tall are the people down there? How tall do they grow? Mr. LISK. I might answer that question in this manner, that the man who lives in the South does not stand up when he goes in the house. Mr. WOOD. I just surmised from looking at the picture of this hut that he was either a very short man or he had to stoop when he went in the door. There is a little addition, I do not know just which is the residence and which is the chicken house, but it looks like a chicken house in there. Is that the happy family they have there? They have the chickens and the folks all connected together. Then there is a hog pen in the corner, and there must be a nice garden down there. Mr. LISK. I imagine so; if there is any nice garden there it is in that house. I would like to make this statement relative to that picture- Mr. LISK. No; that is not a company house, but that is where this man was evicted out of a house and driven into this place to live. I might say this, that there are some company houses down there that are no better than that place there. In fact, the lumber is not so good in some, because that lumber was torn out of a cowshed, and the man built the house and lived there. Some of the houses, as Brother Peel said, you could throw a baseball through. I think if a man got where he could own a pig or a cow he could throw it through it. Mr. Wood. This resembles some of the miners' shacks I have seen in Missouri, the mine workers not being thoroughly organized out there, and I thought this was a company house. Mr. LISK. No. The CHAIRMAN. Any other questions? Mr. KELLER. Any other questions? Mr. WOOD. No; I have none. Mr. LISK. I have one more mill I would like to mention, which is the Cramerton mill, at Cramerton, N. C. If you will remember, Mr. Cramer was one of the employers in Washington from the Tar Heel State at the time the textile code was drawn up, and if I am not mistaken he was the one that offered the solution that the wages in the South, the minimum wages in the textile industry, should be $12 instead of $10. Mr. Cramer owns one of the most valuable mansions, I suppose, that there is to live in in that part of the State, and on several occasions he has told his employees and made boast, that he was responsible for the southern workers getting $12 a week, but here in his own mill spinners that were making $12 a week 2 weeks ago have had their wages decreased, averaging, about 9 to 11.5 percent. In addition to that, spinners were given two more frames, four more sides, to handle with a reduction in wages. Mr. Chairman, there is no doubt Mr. WOOD. How many frames did they operate before the reduction? Mr. LISK. Spinners that were running 10 sides are now running 14 sides. Mr. Chairman, here is something that I forgot to mention in regard to the Mooresville situation. Brother Peel was speaking about people being blacklisted and that he could not prove it. Well, I cannot prove that the overseer in this Cornelius Mill made the statement, but I do have a statement here that was written by a former employee of the Mooresville Cotton Mill, who went to work in the Cornelius Mill, Miss Florence Brown. She worked 2 days and 5 hours and the overseer came around and told her, "We have a list out at the office that was given to us by Mr. Will Summers." He is superintendent of the Mooresville Cotton Mill where the strike has been in progress since 56725-36-14 September 23. The overseer said that he advised them not to work anybody that came out on strike and therefore he had to fire her. This is her own statement that she wrote and asked that we bring it up here as evidence. Mr. WOOD. Let us put it in the record. Mr. LISK. All right, sir [handing]. (The letter referred to is as follows:) I went to work in Cornelius, N. C., on January 8, 1936, worked 2 days and 5 hours. My boss man came to me, said he would have to lay me off. I asked him why, did he have anything against me? He told me he did not have anything against me or my work. He liked my work. He said, "Miss Brown, I am not the man for you to fault." I said, "Who is it then?" He said, "Will Summers is the man for you to fault." My boss man said we have a list of names in the office and he said my name was on the list for them not to work, so he would have to lay me off. My boss man's name in Cornelius was Mr. Bill Goodrum. Very truly, Miss FLORENCE BROWN. Mr. LISK. Mr. Chairman, there is no doubt as to the benefits of the N. R. A. in the textile industry. In the State of North Carolina, which is a very big textile industrial State, and I might say that I happen to be right in the heart of the Piedmont section which is one of the biggest textile sections in the whole State, and when the N. R. A. first came in conditions improved wonderfully compared to what the conditions were before that time. The workers felt that the N. R. A. was something, you might say, that God had sent to them, something that they relied upon because it had reduced the hours-most of them were working 55 and 60 hours a week, but it was reduced to 40 hours a week. I can say this, and I say it with knowledge because I can call the names and prove this statement: Workers that were working for $4 a week in textile mills, men who had families, on more than one occasion I have seen the children of these fathers and mothers go to school in the dead of winter barefooted and without coats on their backs. It happened in the winter, in February 1933, before the N. R. A. was enacted, that a very good friend of mine who was in the mercantile business was stricken sick and he asked me to manage his store until he recovered, which I did. I have seen fathers and mothers come in that store day after day and week after week with their children around them and they would tell us that they had not had anything to eat in their homes for 3 and 4 days, and they had not had any coal, and were forced to go from one house to another where their friends were in order that they could warm their children. When N. R. A. came in, the majority of these people were given jobs because of the fact that the hours had been reduced and more people were put to work, and the ones put to work were making better wages. Since the N. R. A. has been declared unconstitutional these conditions are going back to the same state they were in before the enactment of the N. R. A. This bill which is being presented here before this committee I am not endeavoring to say that this bill is going to correct all of the evils in the textile industry, but I wish that a bill would be introduced that would correct them all-but I do say that this bill is going to correct a vast majority of the deplorable conditions that are existing today and that are getting worse and worse and worse. |