Mr. WOOD. Massachusetts has a 48-hour law and New Hampshire has a 54-hour law. Isn't that right?

Mr. JENNINGS. Yes, sir. They have a 54-hour law in New Hampshire.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that we feel that it is the only way to do this; that is, that Federal legislation will have to do it. And on behalf of the employees in the industry I wish to say that we seek the passage of this bill. We know that it is the only means of saving the industry from the deplorable conditions such as existed before the enactment of N. R. A.

That is all I have to say, Mr. Chairman. If there are any questions, I will be glad to try to answer them.

Mr. KELLER. We will next call Mr. Anthony Valente, secretarytreasurer, Woolen and Worsted Federation of America.

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY VALENTE, SECRETARY-TREASURER, WOOLEN AND WORSTED FEDERATION OF AMERICA

Mr. KELLER. Will you please state your name and your occupation? Mr. VALENTE. My name is Anthony Valente. I am secretarytreasurer of the Woolen and Worsted Federation of America.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I represent the Federation of Woolen and Worsted Workers of America, an affiliate of the Textile Workers of America, an organization composed of 127,000 workers.

According to the textile report which was set up on the findings of the Winant report after the general strike of 1934, gives us the geographic location of our industry, as follows:

Northern New England, 11.4 percent; southern New England, 53.2 percent; Middle Atlantic and Middle Western States, 21.3 percent; and the southern States, 3 percent.

Fortunately for us we have no southern problems as the cotton textile industry. This does not allow our own employers to cry southern competition. Although the wages in our industry are not as low as in the cotton textile industry, we find that the wage structure in the woolen and worsted industry is very uneven. What I mean by that is that you will find some cases where two mills within an area of a very few miles, manufacturing the same kind of cloth, have a difference of 8 and 10 dollars per week for the same operation. We have tried repeatedly to adjust these conditions, which are not only detrimental to the workers but to the manufacturers as well, but without results.

These conditions were the chief bones of contention when we went out on strike in the month of September 1934. Our industry came out on strike to stabilize the woolen and worsted industry, but were forced to go back to work upon the promise of the President that we would be taken care of and something would be done. We were taken care of by a survey that did not amount to anything.

Gentlemen, we have more than 11 million people in this country who are still without employment, and we all know that a good proportion of these people are textile workers.

The manufacturers claim that they will absorb those people and this extra help if they are left alone. In my estimation the only way that they will absorb that extra help is by giving those who are working today a little extra work load of a few more hours each week.

My colleagues from the South have shown the miserable wages that are being paid in the South. I did not believe that such conditions existed in the East until last Saturday. On my way down to Washington last Saturday I stopped in Passaic, N. J., to address a group of workers from the Gera Mill. After talking with these workers I came to the conclusion that the conditions in this mill are as bad as, if not worse than, the conditions in some of the southern mills. One girl in particular showed me a pay envelope with the grand sum of $8, for which she had worked 7 days of 9 to 12 hours per day. And, by the way, this girl was laid off because she dared to join a labor union. How long will the present standards of living of the woolen and worsted workers continue? It will be as long as we allow these kinds of chiselers to operate.

In my conversations with different employers they all agree that it would be a wonderful idea if the industry could be stabilized and every manufacturer placed on the same footing. But when we propose anything that is constructive they will give us no cooperation whatsoever.

Another evil in our industry, which was remedied during the N. R. A., is the third-shift system in the productive department. With the Supreme Court declaring the N. R. A. unconstitutional, some of the big leaders in our industry have returned to this system. One of the very first manufacturers to adopt this third-shift system was very prominent in the writing of the codes and was also a member of the work assignment board which came out of the general strike. At a public hearing last summer this same man testified that one shift of 40 hours in our industry can produce more than enough to supply the demands of the consumers. But in the same breath he informed us that he must run three shifts because that was the principle of his company.

The manufacturers in our industry have boasted that 92 percent of the industry is living up to the provisions of the N. R. A.; and they have also boasted that they are willing to cooperate with the union in collective bargaining, but at the same time are doing everything within their power to destroy our unions, either by direct attack or by using the industrial spy system which is springing up in every industrial center.

I know what I am talking about in this matter because I have been approached myself. I am one of the workers who was approached by the Industrial Defense League, which works for the manufacturers in New England. One of their representatives approached me in my home and made me the offer of $42 a week and expenses provided I give them the information regarding our union.

As the previous speaker has stated, the majority of the mills in our industry are living up to the N. R. A. That is because we have 80 percent of our industry organized. But the remaining 20 percent if allowed to continue with their cutthroat competition and lowering the standards of living and cutting wages and adding work loads will cause such a condition that it will not be very long before they will have even our organized mills doing the same thing.

In my opinion we have two ways in which to settle this whole matter. They are two ways to stabilize the industry, and one is by Federal legislation, and the other is by drastic action.

I might say at this time that the organization I represent has just gone through a convention, and they have gone on record for a drive. in the spring to stabilize our industry. They have also gone on record to back the Ellenbogen bill and try to settle the whole thing peacefully. And I was instructed to come down here and talk in favor of the bill and to ask you gentlemen of the committee to report favorably on the bill.

Mr. HARTLEY. You mentioned a case that was called to your attention in Passaic, N. J. I do not happen to represent that particular section of New Jersey, but I was interested in the statement which you made. Did I understand you to say that a girl who was employed in one of these plants had been working 9 to 12 hours a day?

Mr. VALENTE. That is correct.

Mr. HARTLEY. And she had a pay envelope of $8 for the week? Mr. VALENTE. Yes; that is correct.

Mr. HARTLEY. What was the name of the company?

Mr. VALENTE. It was the Gera Woolen Mills. And I might add that in New Jersey they have a State law which prohibits women from working after 10 o'clock at night.

Mr. HARTLEY. I have that in mind.

Mr. VALENTE. I know for a positive fact that 15 or 20 workers have called to my attention the fact that there is a shift of women that goes on at 11 o'clock and works until 7 o'clock in the morning.

Mr. HARTLEY. Why are not such things called to the attention of the State Labor Department of New Jersey?

Mr. VALENTE. It has been done. But they state that the law has no teeth in it and they cannot enforce it; they have no provisions by which to enforce it.

Mr. HARTLEY. Do you think the provisions in the Ellenbogen bill will eliminate the possibility of strikes and labor disputes?

Mr. VALENTE. Yes; I really believe it will, provided the manufacturers live up to the standards of the Ellenbogen bill.

Mr. WOOD. Is there any provision in the New Jersey law which prohibits their starting women to work at 12:01 a. m., and working them until noon of that day?

Mr. VALENTE. Yes, sir; there is. The State law is that no woman shall work after 10 p. m. at night.

Mr. WOOD. But 12:01 a. m. is in the morning. That is just after midnight.

Mr. VALENTE. Well, they can only work between 6 a. m. and 10 o'clock at night.

Mr. GORMAN. The Hosiery Workers' delegation is here now, Mr. Chairman. They were supposed to testify before these other gentlement. Will you hear them now?

Mr. KELLER. We will hear the hosiery delegation.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH BURGE, APPEARING ON BEHALF OF THE HOSIERY WORKERS OF PHILADELPHIA

Mr. BURGE. We hosiery workers of Philadelplia, the largest fullfashioned producing center in the world, strongly favor the proposed national act. We are convinced that this bill embodies a practical and comprehensive plan for the stabilization of our section of the textile industry. We feel that unless this bill is enacted we workers will

lose all the benefits we gained during the N. R. A.; that a series of liquidations will sweep the industry, and that widespread unemployment, enormous suffering, and desperate industrial conflicts will be inevitable.

We have not come here today in the mood of one willing to embark on a dubious experiment. Rather, we have come here to declare that this bill represents the much-hoped for glorious resurrection of the late hosiery code, purged of its most glaring weaknesses, and equipped with a brand-new set of strong, chiseler-scaring teeth. It will, we fell sure, consolidate the material gains which the industry made under the N. R. A.; it will minimize cyclical shocks, and wash the stains of gross exploitation out of our industrial fabric.

The experience of the Philadelphia hosiery workers in the dark years before the code was indelibly bitter. Almost all of us who were knitting in 1928 were buying our homes. At that time our wages were above the average in the textile industry, and we were all dreaming middle-class dreams of a decent home, a car, and an education for our children. We were called "the aristocrats of the textile workers" in those days. Our industry was expanding at a terrific rate, and many workers were able to start mills of their own. A few mills still in operation in our district are controlled by graduated knitters, and many others have since failed and have been taken over by larger

concerns.

The accumulated effects of overexpansion began to be felt in the spring of 1929, even before the general depression of the entire Nation had set in. And from the spring of 1929 to the summer of 1933 we were pushed steadily downward. During that dark period at least 18 knitting companies in our section were liquidated, and the machinery was either junked or scattered all over the country. We accepted five wage reductions, the last one being a cut of 30 to 45 percent, in the vain hope of establishing parity between the union and nonunion sections of the industry in the matter of labor costs. Every time we accepted a cut, the unorganized workers took an even steeper one. We lost our homes, our cars, our dreams, and we stalked the streets in droves. Most of the factories were closed 9 months of the year. The great textile district of Northeast Philadelphia vs dotted with the hollow remains of abandoned mills. Our local of the American Federation of Hosiery Workers more closely resembled an unemployed council than a trade-union. Yet we carried on somehow, and supported the industry on our bare backs while 85 percent of the manufacturers were hacking away at us, stupidly believing that if only they could destroy us, all would be well.

And then came the N. R. A. Our by now thoroughly proletarianized hosiery workers were naturally impressed by the extravagant N. R. A. ballyhoo. We liked the central idea of the code arrangement, even though we were sure the minima were too low, the sectional differentials unwarranted, and the workweek too long if full-time reemployment of all hosiery workers was to be achieved. The code. assumed part of the burden we have been carrying for years, though the industry as a whole still looked upon us as the enforcement agency of the labor provisions.

In the meantime, in the pre-N. R. A. era, the millowners were frantically trying to adapt themselves to the deepening depression. The downward plunge was made more rapid and irresistible on account

of the huge weight of overcapitalization. The glare of the crisis brought out such running sores as inefficient management, improvident commitments, frozen reserves, and a lack of steady outlets. Many nationally known companies, producing famous brands for years, suspended, and those which managed to scrape through were deeply scarred. All of the employers in the Philadelphia area melted down their capital structure and instituted all manner of economies. Many of them discontinued their finishing departments and sold their goods semifinished to marketing syndicates or larger companies. The tendency toward monopoly was accelerated by virture of certain interests being so organized that they were able to exploit the chaotic instability of the industry.

The wholesale scrapping of finishing departments in Philadelphia led to the creation of a gypsy hosiery finishing and dyeing subindustry, which has reduced the hosiery boarders, pairers, and folders to incredible depths. One of the greatest faults of the N. R. A. was that it dignified this subindustry with a separate code, instead of bringing it under the jurisdiction of the hosiery_code. This leads us to our main criticism of the N. R. A. set-up: It did not allow equal representation on the various code authorities to the representatives of labor. Specifically, the approximately 145,000 hosiery workers had only two representatives on the Code Authority out of a total of seven. There is no doubt that had labor had adequate representation on the various code authorities, many of the provisions of this bill pertaining to 1 week's vacation with pay per year and the dismissal wage clauses would have been incorporated into the various codes. It seems to us, that in view of the increase in popular demand for social and unemployment insurance, fixed annual wages and lucrative old-age pensions, that industry itself should be made to bear some of the responsibility of its temporary idle employees. It is commonly known that since unemployment relief is not immediately forthcoming when one loses his job, workers endure great hardship and distress between the last pay check and the first relief check.

But to return to our story. The millowners welcomed the code as hopefully as we did. And their hopes were not unjustified. For the industry that had been sick unto death commenced to convalesce, though it was still running considerable of a temperature. It began to replenish its badly worn capital tissue. The unprecendented feeling of confidence which the code had fostered led to a rebirth of confidence, and among the workers this feeling was reflected in a rapid increase in the membership of the American Federation of Hosiery Workers.

As a result of the extension of our influence, we were able to negotiate two small, but badly needed, increases in the organized mills, and to push up the rates in the open shops to our level-which meant an increase of 100 percent in some cases. Our wage scale, which had been observed by barely 20 percent of the employers before the N. R. A., became the standard in 85 percent of the industry. The two-machine system, which is the full-fashioned hosiery industry's form of the stretch-out, tended to disappear because of the code's restrictions against it. The 12-hour day, which had been endemic in 80 percent of the industry, gave way to the 8-hour day, and Saturday work was forbidden. Many manufacturers herded their employees into company unions. Almost all the strikes conducted by our or