We will now go to one part of Georgia, and I shall refer to Augusta, Ga. May I say the Enterprise Manufacturing Co. and the Sibley, Manufacturing Co. are owned by the McCampbell brothers. And I think there were some more mills moved down South. At least, the ownership is in the North. About 2 days after the Supreme Court's decision on the N. R. A. the president of the Sibley and the Enterprise Manufacturing Co. issued a statement to the newspapers that they would continue the same wages and hours as under the N. R. A. cotton code. But a day and a half after that time notices were posted in each mill, or in one mill first and then in the other mill of a 25 percent flat reduction in wages. At first in the newspapers they were trying to carry out the code wages, just as they tried to tell Congress that they were keeping to the N. R. A. standards and keeping the wages and hours as of N. R. A. But the workers in the industry know the story. And this is done in order that the public and Government officials may have the idea that they are not going back. In speaking of these two mills, the wages of many of the skilled workers, such as card grinders, are about $11.50 per week. However, the average wage for a skilled worker is about $10 and $11 a week. Mr. WOOD. Has there been any change in the hours? Mr. JOHNSON. As a whole the hours have not been changed. Sometimes they just work one worker perhaps 9 or 10 hours. But so far as changing all the men in the mill is concerned, they have not. The main thing is that they have reduced wages 25 percent. Mr. Chairman, I have some data here, although I do not think it is necessary to take up the time of the committee to read all of this. But this shows the wages and the classification of workers, giving the average wage for 40 hours. I will just put it into the record and will show the average wage for the workers in these two mills. (The document referred to is as follows:) WAGE AND MACHINE LOAD DATA WAGE MANUFacturing Co., Augusta, Ga., Wages for 40 Hours CARDING DEPARTMENT Picker tender, per week, $10; operates 2 new improved pickers and doffs laps of cotton; runs more cotton with improved picker than 10 men used to with old picker; in other words, this worker does 10 times the work that was formerly done by 1 worker, putting the other 9 tenders out of a job. Picker-room fixer, per week, $14.08; fixes on 4 improved pickers and acts as second hand. Slubber tenders, per week, $12.50; operates 2 farmes. Speeder tenders, per week, $12.50; operates 31⁄2 to 4 frames. Frame fixers, per week, $14.08; fixes draw frames, speeders, slubbers, intermediates; total to job, 44 frames. Card grinders, $14.08; 32 cards. Draw-frame tenders, $9.90 per week, 4 frames, and has to doff cans on 11 cards. Card tenders, per week, $9.90; has to operate 32 cards, clean them also. Roving boys, per week, $9.90; 34 frames. Oiler, per week, $12.50; 88 frames. Intermediate tenders, per week WEAVING DEPARTMENT Loom fixers, $16.50 per week; 96 and 104 looms, 3 harness jeans. Weavers, average per week for a first-class weaver, $14.50; 48 and 52 looms; warp, 19 to 23; fillings, 23 to 27; speed, 160 picks per minute; 3 harness jeans, plain and stripped (filling stripe). Battery fillers, per week, $9.60; 72 looms; filling as above. Trucker, per week, $9.60. Smash hands, per week, $11.50; 96 and 104 looms; also help weavers. SIBLEY MANUfacturing Co., Augusta, Ga., Wages for 40 Hours CARDING DEPARTMENT Slubber tenders, per week, $10.50; 2 frames. Roving hauler, per week, $9; 18 frames. SPINNING DEPARTMENT Spinners, per week, $9; 10 sides, 208 spindles to frame. No. of yarns-12, 9, 17, 19, 20, 14, 15. Section men, per week, $12.90; 36 frames, filling. Section men, per week, $12.90; 48 frames, warp. Sweeper, per week, $8.50; 60 frames. Roving boys, per week, $9; 48 and 52 frames. Doffers, per week, $10.50; 10 and 12 frames, warp (number of spindles as above stated). Doffers, per week, $10.50; 5 frames, filling. Spooler tenders, per week, $9; 1 side, automatic. Yarn dumper, per week, $9. Slasher tenders, per week, $10.50; 1 slasher. Slasher helper, per week, $9.60; 2 slashers. WEAVING DEPARTMENT Weavers, per week, $13; 32 looms; ticking; 64 picks per inch; filling, 16; warps, 18. Fixers, per week, $15.50; 64 looms; ticking. Weavers, per week, $12.98; 24 looms; tweed; fillings, 12; warps, 16. Fixers, per week, $14.50; 44 looms; tweed. Battery fillers, per week, $9; 26 looms. Cleaners, sweepers, etc., per week, $9. Mr. JOHNSON. At these two mills at the close of the general strike they held out 300 workers for discrimination. These 300 workers had been employed there from 2 years to 25 and 30 years by that one company. And they worked all of the time and their work was perfectly satisfactory until they joined the union and tried to stand for principles which were for their own benefit. The Textile Labor Relations Board sent three or four investigators in there and tried to get the situation straightened out. Finally it came to a hearing before the Board. The Textile Labor Relations Board gave a 100 percent decision after a 3 weeks' hearing on the matter, requiring the management to reemploy or reinstate the workers. Instead of reinstating those 300 workers they evicted them from the company houses. And many of them were evicted by Negroes who carried out their furniture. These 300 workers had never gotten employment. Some of them are on relief rolls and are getting along as best they can. After some of them worked in the mill for 30 or 35 years and gave the best part of their lives to the mill, to build up profits and dividends of the mill, they were then thrown out of employment entirely. The Globe Manufacturing Co., of Augusta, who recently received a loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, had 24 workers that the Textile Labor Relations Board ordered to be reinstated. But up until this date they had never reinstated them. In the mills I mentioned a moment ago at Bath the overseers had told the workers from time to time that they did not care what President Roosevelt said or anybody else said, that it was their mill and they were going to run it, and President Roosevelt had nothing to do with it. The superintendent of the Globe Manufacturing Co. himself on the stand in a sworn statement at the hearing of the Textile Labor Relations Board stated Mr. Roosevelt was in Washington and his mill was in Augusta, Ga., and Mr. Roosevelt did not know anything about it, and that he was going to operate it himself. And they tell their workers that they are going to do their business as they please and they are not going to be regulated under any such condition as the N. R. A. nor the President and the remainder of the President's group. Mr. WOOD. That same company got a loan from the R. F. C.? Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, sir; the Globe Co. did. And let me say that when they first asked for the loan it was about 2 weeks after the Board rendered its decision. And I know the board notified the R. F. C., according to a letter that I saw in the office of Mr. McClurg, I think it was. And he told me he notified the R. F. C. what this mill had done. And they said they would consider it. But they got the loan anyway. But they did not get the loan right then; they just recently got it when these other mills mentioned here today got their loans. Those 24 workers have never been reinstated. The King Mill, in Augusta, employs about 1,200 people, and they have laid off since N. R. A. several hundred, probably. Their minimum wage is $10 a week. That is their minimum and practically their maximum for skilled workers. With respect to the efficiency of the southern worker, which was mentioned here Monday by Mr. Gilbert, representing the manufacturers, we say that there are just as efficient workers in the South as in any other place. The workers put out just as much production as any other worker anywhere else. The object of the management of the industry down there is just like it is elsewhere. An overseer told a worker this: A second overseer had received a complaint from a worker that he was not getting enough pay and that he wanted as much pay as the rest of the workers doing the same kind of work were receiving, and he approached the superintendent. The superintendent told him, "Just go ahead and lay off that worker, because he has too much sense. We want strong backs but weak minds to do our work." In other words, they want people to take just what they give them and not say anything about it. So far as the gardens are concerned, I do not see how a man can bring into the fact of wages paid by a corporation a matter of having a garden that prevents paying higher wages or that makes it unnecessary to pay higher wages, because that doesn't have anything to do with the labor that the man puts out in the mill; and no matter how many gardens the worker has, he should have a fair return for the labor that he sells. And it seems to me that it is just as reasonable for the worker to have a fair return for his labor and for the work that he does as it is for the employers and the stockholders to have a return on their investment. I am not going to go into any more detail on this matter. This is just a part of the violations. The Bibb Manufacturing Co., of Macon, Ga., of which Mr. Anderson is president, was mentioned here yesterday. To show you the tactics that they use, during the birth of the N. R. A. cotton code Mr. Anderson agreed in Washington along with the other employers as to what he would do, and he went back down there and in the weaving department-for instance there are two weavers weaving side by side in the mill, and both of them would not be on the pay roll. Just one of their names would be on the pay roll as getting $12 a week. But when that worker got his envelope he would take $6 of it and give it to the other worker. That was in order to get by paying the code minimum to show on the pay roll that the worker received $12, although he had to divide it. Mr. WOOD. In what mill was that? Mr. JOHNSON. That was in the Bibb Mill. Mr. RAMSPECK. The Bibb Manufacturing Co. of Macon? Mr. JOHNSON. I don't know how many instances there were when that happened, but I think the Textile Labor Relations Board came in on that. I don't mean the Textile Labor Relations Board but the Breer Board. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, these reductions in wages and longer hours are certainly making it hard for the workers down South as well as in the North and are making it hard for everybody. It keeps us workers from buying the necessary things of life and, therefore, keeps down the purchasing power. And unless something is done it seems to me that before next spring and summer there will be a wave of strikes in the South such as there has never been before, because from my observation in part of Georgia and South Carolina, where I contact mostly, those workers are going to rebel. My friends, I believe it is the duty of Congress certainly to try to prevent those things, because strikes and lock-outs, and so on, have their effect upon the business of the country and an effect upon the industry. And the workers in South Carolina believe that this Textile Act will prevent those things. I say that because the workers just cannot take everything. They can go on to a certain extent, but finally those people will become unruly and unreasonable and there will be a tremendous wave of strikes in the South, and perhaps worse than there have ever been before. If all of you gentlemen could just go into those communities and live in them like I do and like the rest of us do, you could express the same idea, because day after day the workers are coming to you and telling you that they cannot live, and telling you how terrible it is to try to get bread, and the hours are being increased and the work load increased and the wages decreased. It is having a bad effect and it will break down the morale of the people. Those people are American citizens, but it is going to break down the morale, and it will break down their confidence. If we can keep the confidence in the Government we will certainly go along better than if we had people who resort to anything in order to try to get the necessary things of life. You can understand it yourselves. Let us say that I am a worker in a mill and I cannot make enough money with which to buy bread and clothes and shoes for my children. And many of those workers have large families. Sometimes there is only one to work, and when he makes only nine or ten or eleven or twelve or thirteen dollars you can see that it does not go very far. Finally those pelple will become unruly. When a man is hungry and his children are hungry and they do not have sufficient clothes to wear to school in order to get an education, something is bound to happen, because when the children go hungry it will put into the mind of that man. That is what we attempt to prevent. We want to prevent those things, if possible. In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the National Textile Act is supported by the majority of the workers. It is supported by many businessmen, because those businessmen understand that their business depends upon the worker. In South Carolina I am satisfied to say that there are about 55,000 to 60,000 textile workers urging that this bill be enacted into law in order to prevent a large wave of strikes and to prevent the suffering and the destitution of these workers. And in regulating the hours of labor and regulating the wages it will assist in regulating the entire industry and put the manufacturers themselves on their feet. I think that is all I have to say. We urge that this bill be enacted into law in order to prevent strikes. We believe that with this law and with the National Labor Relations Act-of course, this law carries some of the same features as the Wagner bill in the National Labor Relations Act. But we believe that these two together will prevent at least 90 or 95 percent of the strikes in the South. Mr. WOOD. I was interested in your testimony about the company and the company activities, and that some mills down there had company stores, company churches, company doctors, and even company undertakers. Is that in your home town? Mr. JOHNSON. Well, not exactly. In my home town I don't think they have the company undertaker. Mr. WOOD. How about the company churches? Isn't it a policy in some places for the company to urge the employees to attend church and their bible classes? Is there a condition such as that, as I have been told, that some of those mills have their company churches and stores and that the employees do not dare stay away from the bible class? Mr. JOHNSON. That is right. And one of those is in Macon, Ga., the Bibb Manufacturing Co. Mr. Wood. For fear it would cause the displeasure of the employer and by so doing might lose his particular job? Mr. JOHNSON. That is right. In several towns it is the rule that if you don't go to church on Sunday you don't go to work on Monday. Mr. SCHNEIDER. That is just the opposite of what they have in Russia. Here they make you go to church whether you want to or not but in Russia they won't let you. Mr. WOOD. I don't know which one is the worse. Mr. RAMSPECK. I am asking with reference to this church situation, do they make you go to any particular church, no matter what denomination you belong to? Mr. JOHNSON. In many of these mill communities there is only one church. |