Mr. MADDEN. No. If they have resisted to the point of putting us to a hearing they have so far not complied with our direction in any such case. Mr. Wood. And if they do not comply with your final decision, what move do they make? Do they enjoin the Board or do they just ignore the order? Our Mr. MADDEN. They just ignore the order and it is our move. move, of course, is to go into the circuit court of appeals and get the court to repeat our order. But then, if it is disobeyed, that is contempt of court, and there is plenty of power to enforce that. Mr. HARTLEY. Have you gone to the courts? Mr. MADDEN. No; not in any textile case. Mr. HARTLEY. Why is that? Mr. MADDEN. One reason is that we do not have enough lawyers to do the litigating which we would be obliged to do in order to enforce our law. We have at the present time 22 injunction suits brought against us in district courts all over the country, and our small staff of lawyers is very, very busy. Mr. WOOD. You cannot utilize the lawyers in the Department of Justice, can you? Mr. MADDEN. Yes; we can. Mr. WOOD. You can, in original cases? Mr. MADDEN. Yes. The statute simply says that our own lawyers may represent us in court. The idea there was that this is a rather specialized sort of law; that you need to know not only the law but a good deal about industrial and labor relations in order intelligently to apply this law, and if we went running to the Department of Justice for legal help, the lawyer there would have to educate himself in labor relations before he could do much with our cases. Mr. WOOD. I agree with you there. I think it is impracticable to run to the Department of Justice in these cases and ask the services of attorneys of the Department of Justice who know nothing about the particulars in the case; who know nothing about the human relations, the labor relations. Mr. MADDEN. That is what the Congress had in mind. Mr. WOOD. Any lawyer, in order ably to represent his client, must know something about the intimate relations between employer and employee, in these labor cases, do you not think so? Mr. MADDEN. That is true. Mr. WOOD. Then you need more attorneys? Mr. MADDEN. We do during this period of rather wholesale resistance. Take, for instance, these 22 injunction suits that I speak about. If the constitutionality of our law were recognized, we would not have had any of those suits; no one of those would have. bothered us and yet each one of them is a very important lawsuit which has to be taken care of unless the Government is willing to take it lying down. Mr. WOOD. In other words, you have the wagon loaded, but you have not the horsepower to pull it. Mr. HARTLEY. Could you not have utilized the services of some of these attorneys that are alleged to be doing nothing but drawing pay from the N. R. A? Mr. MADDEN. We have borrowed two or three very good attorneys on that basis. I know nothing whatever about your other sugges Mr. HARTLEY. I do not, either, but it is alleged that there are hundreds of them that are just doing nothing but drawing pay, and I wonder why you could not have taken over some of them. Mr. KELLER. Where are they? Mr. WOOD. How can you ask the gentleman why they do not take lawyers from the N. R. A., when that is only an allegation and is not a proven fact? Mr. HARTLEY. I have never heard it denied. Mr. KELLER. I deny it. Mr. WOOD. Al Smith has alleged that the Democratic Party has torn up the platform; but I do not think that is true. Mr. HARTLEY. I do not think that needs much comment. Mr. KELLER. I can assure you that there are not several hundred lawyers in the N. R. A. at the present time. Mr. HARTLEY. Maybe not at the moment, but they did have them there, did they not? Mr. KELLER. They had quite a large number. But that is aside from the question here. Are there any further questions by members of the committee? If not, we thank you very much, Mr. Madden, for your appearance here this morning. The next witness is the president of the American Federation of Hosiery Workers, Mr. Rieve. STATEMENT OF EMIL RIEVE, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF HOSIERY WORKERS, PHILADELPHIA, PA. Mr. RIEVE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: Before I present my formal statement, I wish to make one observation. One of the witnesses testifying here the other day made it appear that it is physically impossible to lay down graduated minimas for the various operations of an industry. I want to state that the hosiery industry, during the code era, had a series of graduated minimas, and it required no more than half a day for the committee representing the employers and the committee representing the workers in their industry to reach conclusions on those minimas. I want to submit this part of the hosiery code dealing with the classification of minimas for various operations of our industry as exhibit A, for the committee's consideration. (The statement referred to is as follows:) 1. FULL-FASHIONED MANUFACTURE Class 5: Learners (including machine helpers), for the first 3 months of their training. Class 3: Toppers, loopers, seamers, skein winders, menders, pairers, finished inspectors, helpers on knitting (over 6 months' training), paírer, folders.... Class 4: Stampers, boxers, gray examiners, folders, cone-winders, other productive workers, learners (including machine helpers), for the second 3 months of their training. Class 1: Machine fixers. Class 2: Knitters (above 240-needle), loopers (above 240 needle,) boarders. Class 4: Learners (first 3 months' training). The American Federation of Hosiery Workers urges the passage of the Ellenbogen bill because governmental regulation of the textile industry is a practical necessity. We realize that the Supreme Court has recently declared that the Federal Government is one of limited powers and has again demonstrated its inability to face facts by declaring that production is a local matter. This theory of constitutional law is not based upon an understanding of modern conditions. To say that the production of hosiery, for example, is a local matter, is absurd. The workers whose working conditions are determined by national forces and the manufacturers whose markets for the finished products are spread over the country know that the Supreme Court is dealing in theories and not with facts when it makes a decision of this kind. Modern industry is an integrated whole in which each unit conforms to the pattern of the whole. This is so apparent to those engaged in the industry that declarations to the contrary seem to us merely confessions of ignorance or prejudice. The textile industry employs the largest number of persons engaged in any single industry in the United States. The industry itself is basic. It supplies elementary needs. Since it is so vast and fundamental, its well-being is critically important to the general welfare of the United States. If the demoralization in this industry is due to factors of national significance, then remedies can only be applied by a national government. The national power must be invoked because local government, be it State, city or county, are incapable of remedial legislation. The Federal Government has the right, and is duty bound to exert its power to safeguard the welfare of the people. No single State can solve the problem. Its efforts are frustrated by others seeking advantages. The unions are able to do their part of the job in modern industrial society which is to create an effective agency for the education of workers and collective dealings between employer and employees. But we cannot overcome interference by local government officials. We demand that local units cease to compete by exploiting labor and thus disrupting national markets by forcing the downward trend of prices and wages. It is bad economics and poor humanity to permit a lawbreaking governor in one State to use State militia to depress standards. Let us assume that each industrial unit has the right to pay any wage it pleases in its effort to compete for higher profits; that communities have the constitutional right to suck industries from other communities upon promises and sealed agreements to give free plant, tax exemptions, protection against strike, the use of militia and con centration camps and what not. and what not. I say, let us join the Supreme Court in its mockery; but it does not follow that the products of the sweatshops and slave pens should have entry into other States and communities to compete with the products of mills paying fair minimum wages. Why should we permit the products of a few mills to spread financial ruin and social decay over a whole industry. The power of the Federal Government over interstate commerce is sufficient to bar such goods from other States. In the absence of a Federal power to protect one State and its people from uneconomic, unsocial, and unfair competition, each State would have the right to deny entry to products of child labor, low wages and long hours. However, each State gave up this right to the Federal Government and vested in the National Government complete authority over the flow of goods through the States. Consequently the National Government has the power and must use it when sound economic policy and social necessity demands such action. Despite the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Child Labor Cases, we believe the Federal power does and must extend over textiles. That decision is a gross mockery to worker and manufacturer alike. Under its theory the Federal Government cannot act because that would interfere with the power reserved to the States. Yet if a State sought to exert that power ascribed to it, the Court quickly adds that to do so interferes with the power of Congress over interstate commerce. We are forced to the conclusion that the Supreme Court evidently wants industry to engage in economic warfare. In spite of the fact that unrestrained economic warfare has resulted in a national catastrophe known as "the depression." We urge that Congress make such a careful examination of the actual facts in the case of the textile industry before it passes this bill that it will be impossible for the Supreme Court to throw out the legislation unless it wishes to say flatly that it is only concerned with theoretical questions and is quite willing to see industrial slavery and economic ruin overtake the nearly five million people whose livelihood is dependent on the fortunes of textile manufacturing. The commerce power which Congress wields has been used to protect States from adulterated foods, from white-slave traffic, from flow of stolen automobiles, from lotteries, from criminality. Why is it impotent to protect us from child labor, from low wages, from long hours, from inhumane competition, from uneconomic redistribution of industry, from shifting of population to low-income areas? As a matter of fact, Congress does not seek to regulate production in this bill. It merely says to every textile manufacturer-you may do in your mill as you please, but we will not permit you to injure people and industry in other States by competing unfairly. When you conform to the regulations in this bill you may enter the stream of commerce, but until you do so we must deny you that privilege, for otherwise you will pollute the stream and injure the whole national economy. The Supreme Court has erected State boundaries to prevent wholesome regulation of production. We ask that the National Government place its policy at these boundaries to prevent a polluted stream of commerce. We ask the National Government to deny use of its mails as a means to destroy business in other States. We ask Government agencies to refrain from making loans to local industries which do not comply with the reasonable terms. We ask the Government to deny use of stock exchanges (which are no doubt under Government control now) to such industrialists. They may act as they please, but they have no right to the use of Government agencies and means to continue unfair practices. We ask that the arteries of commerce be closed to such products coming from substandard mills. If they insist they are local, let them remain local and dispose of their products in their own "free" communities. The American Federation of Hosiery Workers does not urge governmental regulation of the hosiery industry on theoretical grounds. Neither do we urge regulation because the union is ineffective and incapable. We are for governmental regulations simply because it has been demonstrated in our industry beyond any question that voluntary efforts to achieve stabilization in the industry are utterly futile no matter how sincere or well intentioned. We urge governmental action to uphold labor standards not because we relinquish the right or the obligation as trade unionists to fight for these ends, but because we are convinced that society as a whole in its own interests must enforce certain basic conditions upon business and industry. Completely unregulated competition creates a situation where industry becomes a parasite on the body politic. In the seamless section of the hosiery industry before the codes went into effect wages of from $3 to $4 per week were common in the mills making the cheaper types of hosiery. Hours were long in these plants and working conditions were such as to be harmful to the health of the workers. These employees could not actually live on the low wages they earned in the hosiery mills. No matter how poor their standards of living were they had to find some supplementary source of income. Therefore the hosiery mills that paid wages of $3 and $4 were parasites and a burden on the community. The employees in these plants were supported in part either by farming or from contributions made by relatives or members of their family employed in some other line of employment where wage levels were slightly higher. When these workers became sick, disabled, or unemployed how were they supported? Not out of their savings. The community as a whole was obliged to foot the bill either through charitable contributions or out of public funds in some form or another. Society as a whole therefore must protect itself and, in fairness to those industries which are paying their way, must step in and set up regulations in substandard situations which will remedy these conditions. Unrestricted competition creates a condition which is harmful to everyone. The average employer does not wish to pay sweatshop wages, but he is forced to do so by the inevitable workings of the competitive situation. Manufacturers shriek like parrots against governmental regimentation, but they are in fact forced to do more things they do not like when there is no Government supervision over business than where there is regulation. The freedom which cutthroat competition allows the employer is merely the freedom to commit suicide. It is not even possible to survive by killing off your competitor. That used to be the theory of competition but we found that it did not work out in practice. We found that the strongest 56725-36-15 |