America, or the Silk City of America. Traditionally, weaving, the occupation that employs the vast portion of the workers, is or was considered a male occupation, thousands of families being dependent upon the earnings derived therefrom by the heads of families. This same condition, I believe, prevailed in the northeastern States where the cotton and wool industry predominated prior to the southern migration of the cotton manufacturers. Wage rates for weaving, while never on a par with other skilled occupational groups, were nevertheless more or less on a par with general male wage rates in other industries. However, since the migration by manufacturers, who apparently moved their plants because of the desire for greater profits which could be secured by employing help from agricultural sections of the country, this of course resulted in an ever-increasing pace of competition at the direct expense of labor, which, in turn, resulted in strikes and ever more strikes-labor's only means of staving off an ever-decreasing wage rate.

To get away from this industrial strife, manufacturers have migrated to such an alarming degree that at the present time the once proud Silk City of Paterson, that at one time produced 90 percent of all silk, now can only boast of 16 or 17 percent of the industry. This naturally affects not only the workers involved but the entire city and State.

Now, I would like to point out some of the conditions. We listened to the workers from the southern part of the country and, particularly in the cotton branch of the industry, when they pointed out the low wages and horrible living conditions, which I am firmly convinced is absolutely true.

Now, as to the metropolitan area. The city of Paterson, N. J., is only 17 miles away from the city of New York, where rents are high. Weavers work there who have families of four or five or six or sometimes eight children, and they earn as little as $5 or $4 a week. When I say that I mean on 40 hours a week. However, I do not mean that is a general condition throughout the city of Paterson, but it is a condition which prevails throughout the entire silk industry, whether it is in the city of Paterson or in the eastern part of the country or in the State of Pennsylanvia.

I saw that weavers earn $4 or $5 or $6 or $7 a week, in many instances, while working 40 hours a week. The operation until recently was on a four-loom basis. If the weaver operated four looms during the entire 40 hours he could probably earn in Paterson under fair conditions $17 or $18 a week. However, there are many, many instances where the employer does not have sufficient orders, sometimes he does not run his plant efficiently, and the weaver operates only two or three looms during part of the week, or possibly only one loom, and he earns only $10 a week.

This bill has a provision in it which tends to establish annual wage rate conditions, which I think is very important not only for the welfare of the industry but for the country at large.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the witness if he has finished his statement.

Mr. SCHWEITZER. I would be very glad to answer any questions. Mr. SCHNEIDER. Are you familiar with the strike that took place in Cleveland in the mills of the Industrial Rayon Corporation?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. No, sir; I am not. I realize why you ask me that question. You asked me when I first got up here why I interested

myself in all the different branches of the organization, or, rather, why my branch of the organization interested itself in the rayon industry. What I meant by that was the rayon weaving. There is a separate branch interested in the manufacture of synthetic yarns. That is a synthetic yarn manufacturing plant to which you refer

now.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. And you are not familiar with that?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. No; I am not. We have a gentleman here representing just that branch of the industry.

Mr. WELCH. How many hours did the man work in order to earn $4 or $5 or $6 a week?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. Forty hours a week.

Mr. WELCH. They worked 40 hours a week, you say?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. Yes, sir; absolutely.

Mr. WELCH. And they received as low as $4 or $5 a week for 40 hours work?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. That is correct. That condition prevails today in a great many plants in the State of Pennsylavnia and in Paterson, N. J.

Mr. WELCH. Is it a piece-work proposition?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. Yes; it is a piece-work proposition. A weaver generally works on four unautomatic looms. There are weeks sometimes when he has only three of those looms, and the looms may be stopped and standing idle. There may be a serious breakdown and the weaver is operating only two or three looms instead of four. Consequently if he can only earn $15 when working the four looms, if he is only operating part of a machinery he is only earning a proportionate amount for what he is operating. Nevertheless, he has a family and supports a family, and it is vital that decent minimum wages be established.

Mr. WELCH. To what part of the country did those industries which were formerly located in Paterson migrate?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. In the early days I might say that the silk manufacturers migrated to the State of Pennsylvania coal region, realizing that perhaps there was very little other industries for women in that part of the country. Consequently, they could break in women workers who did not have any other occupation and were willing to work for those wages.

We have many fair manufacturers. I am not one to condemn all of the manufacturers, because we have manufacturers in the silk industry who are sincere in trying to bring about better conditions. But because you have a selfish, greedy type of manufacturers the other manufacturer is forced to fall in line with the policies as established by the greedy type of manufacturer.

Mr. WELCH. In other words, the manufacturer who desires to be fair cannot stand up under the cutthroat competition of a certain number of other manufacturers?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. That is absolutely right. I might cite this as an instance. We had a very big silk strike just prior to the enactment of the silk code. As a matter of fact, our people went out on strike at that time in protest against the acceptance of the code on a similar basis as the cotton code, $13 a week. When that strike was settled eventually, in many many instances the workers gained very little. But in the city of Paterson, for instance, where workers have been

organized for years and years back, we managed to get a contract with the manufacturers covering the entire industry. There are approximately 480 manufacturing plants in the city of Paterson. We had a union contract covering the entire city, and covering the entire situation. I might say that the contract was ideal. I think it was commented upon a number by college professors and by other people interested in such matters as being an ideal situation of contractual relations as between management and the workers. It established an industrial relations committee that heard all complaints on several days a week; it established a definite wage rate for every occupational group.

However, as the wage rates in the state of Pennsylvania particularly, and in the southern part of the country went down, the contract was eventually broken, the manufacturers claiming and I feel that they were justified in doing so that they could not continue on with the contract in connection with the wage rates established therein unless their competitors, particularly in Pennsylvania, raised their wages or ceased lowering wages.

As I stated before, I do not think any silk manufacturer will testify at this hearing contrary to what I am saying that the situation in the silk is absolutely deplorable and something must be done to secure stabilization. They may not agree as to the enactment of this bill, but all of them will agree that some regulation must be established in the industry in order to save the industry from itself.

Mr. WELCH. What is the minimum wage that the men are receiving in the silk industry at the present time?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. You ask what is the minimum wage they are receiving?

Mr. WELCH. Yes; what is the minimum wage?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. That is rather difficult to determine. The minimum wage during the era of the code was $13. That was for the unskilled worker. However, we do have a fairly decent clause in there to take care of the skilled workers. But because of the cotton code, which likewise manufactured rayon-and the silk likewise manufactured rayon-it was impossible for the manufacturers to manufacture rayon. And I am inclined to think that they are right in what they claim. That is perhaps 40 or 60 percent of their product, and they claimed that they could not continue to operate under the code provisions of the silk code as against the provisions in the cotton code, which did not take care of the wage rates for the skilled workman.

You ask what is the minimum wage today. Mr. Henrichs is here and I think he can give you a good explanation through statistical figures, showing that it varies. And I find through personal contact that that is so. And I do considerable traveling through the silk centers of our industry. I find that there are manufacturers who have hardly touched the wage rate. As I said, the wage rate has dropped as much as 40 percent. You know women who were not skilled must have of necessity received $13 during the code era, but at the present time they are working for $6 or $7 a week. The weaver's wage rate at the present time, I would say, is perhaps $13 generally. But there are these exceptions where they earn $6 and $7 a week. On the other hand, there are exceptions where workers in a few instances,and in a few mills are earning $20 and $22.

Mr. WELCH. Is $6 and $7 the minimum at the present time? Mr. SCHWEITZER. I would say that, Mr. Chairman; yes, sir. Mr. WELCH. During what period was it that tne men referred worked 40 hours a week in every city for $4 or $5 or $6?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. That was not an average, Mr. Chairman. I would not say that that was an average.

Mr. WELCH. Well, when they earned $4 or $5 or $6 a week, then. Mr. SCHWEITZER. That condition existed during any period you might mention, even during the time of the code, although the code provided the minimum wage should be $13 a week. But the manufacturers got around it in this particular way; the worker might be working on only one loom at a time, and they claimed they were losing money. And there is no question about that.

So in order for the weaver to get as much as he could possibly get, he continued to work one loom. If he refused to do it he would probably lose his job. So he had to do it.

Mr. WELCH. What was the purpose of limiting the employee to one loom?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. It was not the purpose; it was the necessity. It would mean the employer did not have orders. Let us say we start off with four warps, and one warp will run out 2 weeks prior to the last one. So at times he is working on two looms, and sometimes on one. You also have the condition where he may be running three warps, and the other one is stopped because of a serious break-down of machinery or because that one warp has run out, and he does not have the harness or the warp. And that is the evil of the industry. Mr. WELCH. We will next hear from Miss Elizabeth Nord.

STATEMENT OF MISS ELIZABETH NORD, APPEARING FOR UNITED TEXTILE WORKERS

Mr. WELCH. Will you please state your name and who you represent?

Miss NORD. My name is Elizabeth Nord. I am an organizer for the United Textile Workers.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the Ellenbogen bill is designed to create stability in the textile industry to the benefit of the men and women employed therein. While the skilled men and women in the trade are saying, and rightly so, that "It is time we had our inning", nevertheless it is the women in the industry, unskilled, semiskilled, and skilled alike who stand most in need of protection against the effects of present conditions in the industry.

The textile industry has always been a traditional feminine calling. Women and girls are particularly desirable because most processes require light, dextrous movements of the hands. Nearly one-half of the million workers employed in the industry are women. It is the manufacturing groups which employs the largest number of women wage earners. They are employed for the most part in unskilled and semiskilled jobs, many of which require constant standing and under present conditions of rationalization and efficiency, constant attention. While indispensable to the industry, they have been traditionally and continue to be an exploited group. Long hours, low wages, and unsanitary conditions of work have been their lot, particularly in cotton. The married woman in industry who is forced to work because

of economic necessity brought about by her husband's death, incapacity, or inability to earn an adequate wage for himself and his family must take whatever job she can get without too much question of wages or hours.

It has been pointed out that low-wage groups and areas are a constant menace to organized workers and shops where better wages prevail. The vast number of low-paid women workers further menace and complicate this situation. Establishing a shorter workweek and minimum wages as provided for in this bill would correct this situation. In 1928, according to United States Government figures, wages in cotton averaged less than $7 per week in one southern State. Women in the plants, being a lower wage group, would average less than this amount.

In a study made by the Children's Bureau in manufacturing towns in the East, the mortality rate among infants whose mothers were employed away from their homes was 40 percent higher than that among infants whose mothers were not so employed. Insufficiency of family income was found to be another contributing cause of unusually high infant mortality.

That the wages of decent living may be insured to textile workers the commission created to administer the law is authorized to establish and protect minimum wages for classified skills above the unskilled minimum.

Excessive physical and nervous strain make girls and women susceptible to nervous diseases.

In seeking to correct another abuse of the textile industry the bill also provides for the regulation of work assignment. We have too often experienced increased work loads or speed-up without consideration of the human element involved. If the speed-up and stretch-out constitute a hazard against which we seek protection for men, what of the women in the industry with their more delicate physical make-upmost of whom perform the double duty of breadwinner and housewife? The work load in most textile plants is too heavy and requires constant physical effort to keep up with it-noise and vibration contribute further to fatigue. A prominent physician has said that fatigue has a larger share in the promotion or transmission of disease than any other single condition you can name.

I can perhaps best give you the general effect of the stretch-out system on women from my own experience as a silk weaver. Weavers were running four nonautomatic looms, the usual number in broadsilk mills, when the plant where I was working closed for an "indefinite" period. When the workers went for their wages a notice was posted on the door to the effect that the plant would reopen soon and workers desiring a job must reapply to the employment manager. On reapplying the workers learned that they would be required to run six looms and the most efficient were chosen. There was much talk against this and much harsh criticism, but the system was being introduced into other shops and the workers thought it useless to make a formal protest. Gradually the shop resumed a three-shift schedule with 1,000 looms running with a reduced labor force.

The first few days under this system I remember very clearly. One day I had mastered those six looms and I stood for a moment watching them run. All in good order-all running smoothly. At a moment such as this there is a rhythm to the clattering thunder of a thousand