2 collective bargaining, if any, and by posting notice in a place accessible to all employees in the mill, And so forth. That is every intended change in work assignment. It is not quite clear in my mind just what the bill means by "work assignment", whether it means the number of machines assigned to be operated or the amount of work to be done, or both. But it is obviously impossible to give 15 days' notice of every change, regardless of the nature of the change. Mr. KELLER. What would you suggest in place of that, Mr. West? Mr. WEST. I would suggest the elimination of the section, sir. Mr. KELLER. You suggest the elimination of section 25? Mr. WEST. It might be helpful at this time to go into this matter of work assignment. Mr. KELLER. That means what is called the stretch-out? Mr. WEST. That is the stretch-out. Mr. KELLER. I wish you would talk to us about that, and I wish you would bring out this point, if you will, Mr. West, for my special benefit, if not for others: The testimony that has been presented before this committee has shown this, that a man may be working at a certain rate on four machines, for instance, and then he is put in charge of four other machines. That is part of what we call the stretch-out, as I understand. Mr. WEST. Yes, sir. Mr. KELLER. The truth of the matter is, he is put in charge of eight machines instead of four, with no added wages. In that case his wages really have been cut in two, have they not? Mr. WEST. No; his wages remain the same. Mr. KELLER. Yes. Mr. WEST. His unit price, at which he is paid, has been cut in two under those conditions. Mr. KELLER. That is what I am talking about. Mr. WEST. Yes. Mr. KELLER. Then some man who would have worked the other four machines goes out as a result. You pay half the money for the same work, in other words? Mr. WEST. Half the unit price for the same work. Mr. KELLER. Yes. Mr. WEST. And possibly somebody else goes out. Mr. WEST. Of course, this stretch-out comes about in a great many ways. The operations of the various types of machinery in a cotton mill vary a great deal in the industry. The weaving operation, for instance, varies. In some mills the weaver's job is to attend to all of the functions of that particular process, the watching of the threads, the picking out of bad places, filling the battery, the doffing the cloth off the loom when the cut is finished-the whole category of the operations incidental to the movement of the loom as it produces the cloth. In other mills the work is specialized. That is, one man's job will be to take the cloth off the looms; another man's job will be to put the warps in; another man's job will be to clean the looms; and somebody else's job will be to fill the batteries. There is a great variety of methods of handling the operation. That is well known to all mill managers and mill operatives, and it varies in the same mill. For instance, in our mill we have weaving jobs where the weaver does the whole operation, takes care of the whole thing. We have other jobs where the weaver does not fill the battery. We have what we call a battery hand help him out. The whole thing is complicated. The main thing about this is a question of overloading the worker, giving him too much to do so that he cannot do his work properly, or it is an unduly burdensome task. The other problem connected with the stretch-out is the displacement of workers. I admit the seriousness of the problem. There is no question but what in a great many attempts to produce a more economical operation in cotton mills there have been overburdensome assignments put on workers. I do not doubt but what we have done it in our own mills on occasion, and there have been workers displaced as the result of this. In my opinion this stretch-out business revolves about three things: One is the preparation of the work, one is taking the time to get the employees to understand what the situation is, and the other is the provision for the displaced workers. That matter can be handled by cotton mills and their employees as the individual situations arise, and it has been handled in thousands of cases with a great deal of satisfaction. The trouble with putting the administration of that particular element of a job in the hands of a Federal commission in Washington is this, the commission of necessity has to have different rules and regulations that are universally applicable, and rules and regulations about this particular technical operation of a mill are not universal. They cannot be made universal because the conditions vary so. The abilities of the workers in individual mills will be circumscribed by rigid rules and regulations that are made about this particular thing. Mr. KELLER. Will you particularize on that somewhat, please, Mr. West? Show some particular thing that will let us understand just exactly what would happen in case we should try this. Mr. WEST. Suppose the commission should say that no weaver should run over 20 looms. That would be a perfectly impossible provision to make in the cotton textile industry. Mr. KELLER. Why should it be, if it applied to all mills? Mr. WEST. Mr. Chairman, the variety of work in mills is tremendous. There are fabrics of very fine yarn where the warp lasts a long time in the loom, where the yarns are made of specially good cotton, and where the ends rarely break in the loom. There are certain types of textile work where it is almost essential to have yarns in there that will not break. If the loom stops as the result of a breakage, it is almost sure to produce bad cloth. So manufacturers take the trouble to buy such material as will make yarns that will break just as rarely as possible, in order to produce this cloth. On the other hand, there are fabrics woven from very coarse yarn out of very low stocks of cotton, where the yarn runs off very fast from the bobbin, and they have to be replenished very frequently. The weaver on that kind of a job cannot handle anywhere near as many looms as can a weaver on the other type that I described. Mr. KELLER. Do you think that a commission could not stipulate— to answer the very question you put here, yourself-that on certain types of yarn and a certain number of looms, certain conditions would prevail that you gentlemen yourselves could name? Could we not do that? Mr. WEST. It happens that I do not have to express an opinion on that, Mr. Keller, because as the result of the proposal of the Winant Board Mr. KELLER. I know that very well Mr. WEST. A committee was appointed composed of a representative of the workers, a representative of management, and an impartial chairman, to make a study to see how this problem could be handled in a special way on the basis of a national commission. Mr. WOOD. You say this committee was composed of workers and the management and who else? Mr. WEST. There were three members on the cotton committee. One of the members was appointed by the workers. Mr. WOOD. How was he appointed by the workers? Mr. WEST. I believe the United Textile Workers' Union recommended him. He was appointed by the President. Then a member was recommended by the Manufacturers' Association, and he was appointed by the President. Mr. WOOD. And one by the Department of Labor. Mr. WEST. And I believe the impartial chairman was appointed by the Department of Labor. If I remember correctly, there were three committees, one for cotton textiles, one for wool, and one for silk. They had the same impartial chairman. Mr. WOOD. How many looms are usually operated by one person? Mr. WEST. That varies a great deal. Mr. WOOD. What is the maximum number of looms? Mr. WEST. The maximum number that I happen to know of is 120. Mr. WOOD. In your mill? Mr. WEST. In my mill at the present time, 48. We have run as high as 72 looms. But that illustrates just the situation. Mr. WOOD. What was the maximum number 10 years ago. That was 1926. I was not connected with the company then, sir, and I cannot answer accurately enough for this committee. Mr. WOOD. Did the loom 10 years ago produce as much as the modern loom does now, per hour? Mr. WEST. No, sir. Mr. KELLER. If you pay the same wages now that you paid then, the management produces much more for the money than it did 10 years ago? Mr. WEST. Oh, yes. Mr. KELLER. Have you an idea what proportion that is? I think the Labor Department can give it to us. Mr. WEST. Yes; you can get that. The productivity of labor in cotton textiles has increased measurably. Mr. KELLER. Has not the efficiency of labor increased vastly more than the increase in wages? Mr. WEST. You mean the outturn of labor as distinguished from the efficiency? That is, the total amount, more than the wages? Mr. KELLER. Yes; that is what I mean. Mr. WEST. Of course, the comparison there is complicated by various wage reductions and wage advances. The only way probably you could get at that would be the unit of outturn per man-hour. Mr. KELLER. That has been worked out in the Labor Department. Mr. WEST. Oh, yes. Mr. KELLER. I am quite sure I am giving you the correct statement on that; that the men are receiving much less in proportion to what they did at that time. Mr. WEST. Wages as a whole have gone down since 1926. Mr. KELLER. Yes, I know; since that time, since 1929, especially. But I am referring to the general practice in all industry; that where an increase in wages has really taken place, the increase in wages has not equaled the increase in production of the man who received the pay. Mr. WEST. They are not parallel. For instance, it is the habit in the textile industry that when wage advances are made, or wage reductions are made, it is general through the mill. It has no great bearing on change in productivity. Mr. KELLER. The report to which you have been referring here is what we generally call the Winant report, is it not? Mr. WEST. The one I am quoting from now? Mr. KELLER. Yes. Mr. WEST. No, sir. The report that I am quoting from now is Report and Recommendations of the Cotton Textile Work Assignment Board to President Franklin D. Roosevelt for a Permanent Plan for Regulation of Work Assignments in the Cotton Textile Industry. Mr. KELLER. It is signed by whom? Mr. WEST. Signed by Messrs. W. A. Mitchell, Geoffrey C. Brown, and Earle R. Stall. Mr. KELLER. Oh, I see. I have the Winant report here. Mr. WEST. Yes. The work of this committee, you will recall, was as a result of the recommendations of this committee. It came as a result of this report [referring to the Winant report]. Mr. KELLER. This was the basis of it. Mr. WEST. All right; thank you. This Board was directed to make a study of this troublesome question of work assignments and work load or stretch-out, and they did. They were competent men. They went into the matter very exhaustively and over quite a period of time. They visited a great many mills. They interviewed a great many people. They had the benefit of a great deal of advice and data that were given them. In fact, it was a Government committee entrusted with this particular task. Their findings were as follows [reading]: The Board is convinced that the great majority of employers in the cotton textile industry have not set up machine assignments that create excessive work loads for the employees. The Board is convinced that, through ignorance or otherwise, there are some few employers in the cotton textile industry who have set up machine assignments that may create excessive work loads on some jobs. The Board is convinced that, while there are some existing excessive machine assignments and work loads, there are also some existing deficient machine assignments and work loads. The Board is convinced that it would be unwise and impracticable to attempt to set up standards of machine assignments in the cotton textile industry, expressed in the number of machines to be tended. That, of course, is to set up a limitation based on any specified machine assignment through the industry. Mr. KELLER. Yes; but does that cover the question that I put to you, that is, whether that rule may not be extended in such a way as to provide what each machine shall do, that is, the amount of thread, the kind of thread, and so on, so that it would result in the very same thing I am asking you for? Mr. WEST. The next sentence will, I think, clarify your mind on that, sir. Mr. KELLER. All right. Mr. WEST (reading): In each manufacturing process of a textile mill there are many factors which affect the way a machine runs and the time and attention required to look after it. In a well-run plant-using good raw materials, with proper operating conditions and good running work-an operative may tend, with much less effort, substantially more machines than is practicable in another mill on the same class of products but where conditions are less favorable. Mr. WOOD. That is nothing new at all. Let us get down to the bill now. Most anyone knows that, that you can operate an efficient machine and produce more than you can with an inefficient machine. I do not see any reason for telling this committee something that is already known generally or what any board testified to. We have had thousands of boards set up in the N. R. A. and most of them were dominated by the employers. The workers had no voice in any of these code authorities except 31 out of 600 code authorities. Why should this committee listen to 500 or 600 boards dominated by the employers in the code authorities? What I want to get at is the essence of this bill. Mr. WEST. May I be permitted to say that this particular committee was not set up by any code authority. The only participation the code authority had in it was that it was called upon for suggestions as to the member of the board to represent the industry. Mr. WOOD. I do not know why the Government would spend money to appoint a board which would make a report like that, that anyone knows, that one can operate efficient machines more productively than he can machines in bad order. Mr. WEST. It was part of their problem to ascertain a way that this problem of work assignments might be handled. Mr. WOOD. You do not think the Government ought to regulate or anyone ought to regulate how many looms an employee should manage or work? Mr. WEST. Oh, no; no, sir. Mr. WOOD. That ought to be entirely with the employer? Mr. WEST. With the employer? Yes; with the employer and his contract with the employees, a mutual arrangement that they can work out. Mr. WOOD. What do you mean by a mutual arrangement, collective bargaining? Mr. WEST. Not necessarily. Mr. WOOD. Do you think it should be done by collective bargaining? Mr. WEST. Not necessarily. Mr. WOOD. What do you think about collective bargaining? Do you think the employees ought to have any right to confer? Mr. WEST. Why, certainly, certainly. Mr. Wood. And do collective bargaining? |