I would like to add my statement to that of Miss Miller as to my experience in attempting to regulate industrial home work. It is impossible to do that, both from the point of view of the enforcing agency and the point of view of the employer.

If the work is done in the factory under the supervision of the employer or his agent, there is machinery for maintaining labor standards. But if you farm it out to a dozen or 25 or in some cases as many as a thousand families on one contract, you have your work so distributed and so decentralized that it is absolutely impossible to maintain standards.

Mr. HEALEY. Do you know from your own knowledge of any instance where Government contract work was let out to home workers? Miss MCCONNELL. I cannot at this time give you specific instances of it. But I do know of cases where factories which were licensed to distribute home work had Government contracts.

I also might say, that in my experience in the State labor department we had complaints very often from the workers when the employer had a Government contract that their rates were being cut, and in some cases that their hours were lengthened.

We also had complaints from employers who said that it was impossible to compete with the employers who got Government contracts, because the latter were willing to lengthen hours and cut wages below the standard which they as decent employers were not willing to do. Therefore, they felt that it was very unfair competition.

Mr. SUMNERS. May I ask one question here, please?

Mr. HEALEY. Yes.

Mr. SUMNERS. This may not be a question which you care to answer, but I would like to ask if there is any class of Government contracts where the successful contractors have a rule that for that class of contract they do not maintain the high standard of working conditions and wages which their competitors do. Has that ever been called to your attention?

Miss McCONNELL. If I might confine my answers to the State of Pennsylvania, where I know the situation, I am perfectly willing to answer that question by saying, that while I have no complete figures to cover the situation, frequently we did find that the Government contracts were obtained by firms with whom the Labor Department had previously had difficulty in the way of violations of the women's law and the child labor law and other conditions which had been set by State law.

In other words, the factories from which we got complaints as to the cutting of wages and the raising of hours during the time that the Government contract was enforced, were frequently the factories which had also been past violators of the State labor law.

So that if Government contracts could set labor standards, it would uphold the arm of the State labor law enforcing agencies to maintain the standards which are set up by their own State labor laws.

Mr. DUFFY of New York. Do you know of any State that has prohibited home labor?

Miss MCCONNELL. Connecticut has recently, under a law which was passed in their legislature last year, practically prohibited it. There

the department of labor has the power of prohibiting it if it can prove that an oppressive wage is being paid in a given industry. In most States we have only attempted to regulate.

Mr. DUFFY of New York. Are the States beginning to realize that it should be prohibited?

Miss McCONNELL. I think they are.

As a matter of fact, within the last 2 or 3 years many States have become aware of the problem and bills have been introduced in several State legislatures which would make possible the practical prohibition of industrial home work.

In some industries so large a proportion of the work done in the industry is done by industrial home workers that there would have to be a certain period in which this reorganization could take place. Mr. DUFFY of New York. This bill could not be effective in any way in directing that. It would have no effect on the State laws. Each State would have to set its own standards.

Miss McCONNELL. Yes.

Mr. CITRON. Are there any States which have no prohibition against child labor?

Miss McCONNELL. There is no State of the Union that does not have a child-labor law. But the standards of those child-labor laws vary considerably; and in some States only certain industries are covered.

The most common minimum age for employment is 14 years. But at the present time we have six States that have enacted State laws setting a minimum age of 16 years for employment.

Mr. HEALEY. Do you consider that as the age? Do you think that 16 years should constitute the legal limit for the employment of children?

Miss McCONNELL. I think they should be permitted to work with proper safeguards at that age. I think there are certain occupations that should not be permitted to 16- and 17-year-old children. But I think that the minimum age for employment should be 16.

Mr. HEALEY. Are there any further questions? If not, we thank you very much. That was a very fine statement.

The committee will now adjourn until Wednesday at 10:30. (Whereupon, at 4:15 p. m., an adjournment was taken until Wednesday, Mar. 18, 1936, at 10:30 a. m.)

58539-ser. 12, pt. 2-36

CONDITIONS OF GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 1936

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
Washington, D. C.

The committee met at 10:30 a. m., Hon. Arthur D. Healey presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. Will the committee please come to order? We will resume the hearings at this time on H. R. 11554.

The first witness the committee will call this morning is Mr. Frey, who is now present.

STATEMENT OF JOHN P. FREY, PRESIDENT, METAL TRADES DEPARTMENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR

Mr. FREY. Mr. Chairman, I have a statement to make in eonnection with H. R. 11554.

Mr. HEALEY. Will you please state your name for the recor} ?

Mr. FREY. My name is John P. Frey. I am president, metal trades department, American Federation of Labor. The department includes all of the national and international unions of metal workers affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, with one exception. I appear for the department and for these national and international unions to recommend to the committee that they enact this bill, H. R. 11554.

The department has had much experience in connection with contracts let by the Government for the supplies that it purchases. We have found from experience that the employers whom we designate as fair in their general attitude toward their employees and toward their associates are frequently denied the opportunity of securing a contract because they are not the lowest bidder. We find from experience that the lowest bidder is frequently that type of employer who not only pays the lowest wages and works the longest hours and is the least considerate of his employees' welfare, but who, in addition, carries on business methods that are-well, at least, reprehensible. And the so-called fair employer is unable to secure a contract because his very fairness prevents him from submitting the lowest bid.

We find in many instances that the contracts are given to men who are not manufacturers, who have a curbstone business, an whose sole purpose is, first of all, to be certain that they present the lowest bid; and if they secure the contract, they then farm it out to somebody else.

We find that all that is necessary to secure a contract is to be the lowest bidder and to be a responsible one, and that the only criterion of responsibility is the filing of a sufficient bond. So in many instances men who have failed to supply adequate material in the past and who have had trouble with the Departments after having secured contracts have no difficulty in again securing a contract. It seems to us as wage earners that this administration and previous administrations have endeavored to build up fair conditions for labor, to have some regard for minimum wage rates, hours of labor, and other terms of employment. We believe that is one of the proper functions of any Government, to protect the mass of the people, those who earn the wages and who are the main consumers. Yet we find in actual practice and experience that the Government, with its policy to improve conditions of labor, carries out a policy or practice which works in just the opposite direction, for many of the contracts let by the Government and its various agencies go to those employers who have always maintained the lowest standards of labor in their community.

It is for that reason, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that the international unions of the metal trades department are of the opinion that this bill is a most essential one, if for no other purpose than to remove that inconsistency of the Government's endeavoring to improve labor conditions and protect labor from unfair conditions of employment, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, using its enormous purchasing power to work the very opposite result.

We feel that there are one or two amendments which should be made to the bill. First, that section 2 be amended so that the principal contractor will be held jointly responsible with the subcontractor for compliance with wage and hour provisions contained in the contract. Unless that is done there will always be "passing the buck" between the principal contractor and the subcontractor. We learned that through experience which compliance had with the codes while the National Recovery Administration was in existence. We also feel that there should be an amendment which would provide that none of the work done under the contract can be done at home. That is, an amendment to the bill which would prohibit home work.

Mr. HEALY. We should specify that in the bill?

Mr. FREY. Home work should be specified in the bill because one way of avoiding any labor provision is to permit home work. When home work is permitted there is absolutely no way by which the Government can satisfactorily discover whether the law is being violated.

Then, Mr. Chairman, to us it seems that section 8, which gives authority to grant exemptions, should be amended so as to make it more stringent. Experience of organized labor and experience of other labor under the National Recovery Administration was that exemptions whittled away the labor provisions of codes.

Mr. HESS. But you do believe there should be some provision for an exemption?

Mr. FREY. I do believe there should be provisions for an exemption; but I believe those provisions should be defined so definitely