What a garbled version this is! The News rewrite would leave the impression that some other group outnumbered us in the engineering departments of the various plants. On this particular occasion the Times gave me a fair quotations as far as it went, but did not see fit to give us enough space to fully present our case. Here is the Times' quotation:

"William E. Dennison, of the Society of Designing Engineers, also protested announcement of the results as misleading. He said: 'The reason our organization did not poll more votes was that our members were instructed not to participate in the elections. The few ballots cast in the Cadillac plant were from members who voted before they received instructions.'

Is this habit of the daily newspapers in Detroit of misquoting news from labor sources intentional? My answer is, read the Brass Check, by Upton Sinclair.

In the meanwhile I want to ask our members to please not believe what you read when you see some silly thing in the daily papers coming from a labor

source.

Mr. DENNISON. I hope I have given the committee a clear picture of why we do not enter these elections under that board. The rules of the board are so fixed that we cannot enter into them fairly. It shows that item, 508 votes by the employees for the dummy unions that the companies tried to get the workers to vote for, to show that the workers would favor company unionism in Detroit.

Mr. WOOD. What percentage of the company membership does that 500 represent?

Mr. DENNISON. The total is 38,000 votes, and only 508 of them were company-union votes.

Mr. WOOD. There were 500 company-union votes. I assume there are more company-union members who did not vote, in the face of the fact that the employers were attempting to intimidate them to vote? Mr. LESINSKI. I think I can make that explanation. Most of the employees in the automobile plants are floaters. They will probably start in January and work during January, February, March, and April, and then they are through again. In other words, the turnover in every factory is tremendous and surprising, in opposition to all the statements the newspapers make that they have this thing organized. A large percentage of the people who voted belong nowhere. They are just ordinary people who float from one factory to another, wherever they can pick up a job. Naturally, when they are confronted with a ballot they don't know who to vote for, and the statements made in all of these press clippings that I have here will show there is not an employee in any of the factories that would know whom to vote for, because they are not organized, they are not allowed to organize for fear of being discharged.

Mr. DENNISON. That is true, and it is very difficult to arrive at what percentage of the people that the company claims are companyunion members actually record themselves as company-union members, because these company unions are promoted by the companies and practically forced upon the men. I was working at the Hudson Motor Co. when they tried to promote a company union. In the tooldesigning department we people refused to work or take any part in the election of any of these company-union men. The result was that the master mechanic sent for us to come into his office, and tried to put pressure on us to go out and vote for some company-union candidate and that is since the N. R. A. has been enacted-but they did not pay any attention to him, with a union being promoted by

coercion, and all that sort of thing. They tried to promote a company union there and they tried to coerce us into joining it. The result is that a lot of fellows around the plant will pretend to yield to the company's coercion, and they will go and either put in a blank ballot or vote for Andy Gump, or Jiggs, or some comic strip character, so that they can say they have been to the ballot box, rather than argue with the foreman and say "No; I won't vote." The union workers in Detroit resent the company union. They know it is a dummy; they know it is put up by the employer.

Mr. WOOD. The majority of the members, in other words, join under duress?

Mr. DENNISON. They do.

Mr. LESINSKI. While we are on this company-union matter, I happen to have evidence here, sent to me by Mr. Greer, the head of local no. 1, showing that one man has received this bunch of envelops, to join the company union. I happen to have the pamphlets present that they have used in their efforts to have these men join the company unions. I believe this is something that is interesting.

Mr. DENNISON. It is, indeed.

Mr. LESINSKI. That is coercion, against the law.

Mr. DENNISON. And, Mr. Lesinski, I have found that they have hired corporation lawyers to write these ballots and write up the constitution for these workers, and try to force it on them. The workers had no voice in the writing of that constitution. This was written by a corporation lawyer.

Mr. LESINSKI. This was sent to me by Mr. Greer, the head of local no. 2. I am going to present that letter in the record, as Mr. Greer's testimony.

Mr. DENNISON. That is very good.

I have just discovered, among my data, some very significant tables. I am going to leave these with the stenographer as an exhibit, but just in passing I will say that these tables demonstrate that, whereas the code set a minimum labor rate, what the company actually did was to take some money from the highest-paid worker and give the lowest-paid worker some small raise to bring him up to somewhere near the code provisions, but in the long run, it is very doubtful if any raises they have given the workers have really given us anything, as far as total pay rolls are concerned. These figures in these tables show how a number out of a certain number of employees has been shifted to the lower-paid groups. These are the lower-paid groups here, and this is the number of men that got this rate in a certain

year.

For instance, in the year 1929, of the men that answered this questionnaire, 23 got from $1.30 to $1.39. In 1932, only 7 of them were getting that much; in 1933, only 2; in 1934, only 7. That group had been shifted up, but the most numerous group in 1934 was getting from 90 to 99 cents.

Mr. WELCH. Per hour?

Mr. DENNISON. Per hour; yes, sir. I will just offer these tables for the committee's study. These tables are incorporated in the Henderson report. This is from our files, from the questionnaires submitted to our members.

(The tables referred to are as follows:)

TABLE IA.-Unemployment by number of weeks per year and distribution of employees by number of weeks unemployed

NOTE. The 1929, 1932, and 1933 reports are based on a single group of 232 employees carried through the 3 years. The 1934 distribution is based on a questionnaire covering only the first quarter. The weeks of unemployment have been adjusted to an annual basis here, but on account of possible seasonal factors are not quite comparable with the other distributions.

TABLE IIA.-Average hourly earnings and distributions of employees by average hourly earnings

1 The 1929, 1932, and 1933 reports are based on a single group of 186 employees carried through the 3 years. In 1932, 12 of the group were totally unemployed and 10 were employed in occupations other than design engineering or else submitted faulty reports. In 1933, 6 were unemployed and 21 were occupied in other occupations or submitted faulty reports. Faulty reports account for most of this latter class. The 1934 report is based on a questionnaire covering the first quarter only.

TABLE IB.-Unemployment by number of weeks per year and accumulative distributions of employees by number of weeks of unemployment

1 Number unemployed during less than the designated number of weeks.

Weeks of unemployment.—Of the employees, 25 percent unemployed less than 1, 1929; 6, 1932; 19, 1933; 4, 1934. 50 percent unemployed less than 3, 1929; 18, 1932; 28, 1933; 8, 1934. 75 percent unemployed less than 4, 1929; 28, 1932; 34, 1933; 24, 1934.

TABLE IIB.-Average hourly earnings and accumulative distributions of employees by average hourly earnings

1 Number of employees receiving less than the designated amount per hour.

Dollars per hour.-Of the employees 25 percent averaged less than $1.08, 1929; $0.84, 1932; $0.81, 1933; $0.94, 1934. 50 percent averaged less than $1.22, 1929; $0.96, 1932; $0.92, 1933; $1.03, 1934. 75 percent averaged less than $1.36, 1929; $1.11, 1932; $1.06, 1933; $1.19, 1934.

TABLE IIIA.-Average hours per week and distribution of employees by average hours per week

TABLE IIIB.-Average hours per week and accumulative distributions of employees by average hours per week

Number of employees working less than the designated number of hours per week.

Hours per week.-Of the employees 25 percent averaged less than 44, 1929; 42, 1932; 34, 1933; 37, 1934. 50 percent averaged less than 50, 1929; 47, 1932; 41, 1933; 41, 1934. 75 percent averaged less than 57, 1929; 53, 1932; 45, 1933; 44, 1934.

TABLE VIA.-Maximum hours worked in any one week and distribution of employees by maximum hours per week