[Thirty-Seventh Annual Report of the Secretary of Labor, Fiscal Year 1949]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

TO PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE”



THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF EAROR
“TO PROMOTE THE
GENERAE WEEFARE”
FISCAL YEAR
194 9
THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON . 1950
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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
Department of Labor,
Office of the Secretary, Washington, D. C., November 1, 1949.
To the Congress of the United States:
In accordance with section 9 of the act of Congress approved March 4, 1913, I have the honor to submit a report of the business of the Department of Labor for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1949.
Maurice J. Tobin, Secretary of Labor.
Office of the Secretary:
Maurice J. Tobin, Secretary.
Stanley C. Wollaston, Executive Assistant.
Michael J. Galvin, Under Secretary. 1
Millard Cass, Assistant to the Under Secretary.
John W. Gibson, Assistant Secretary.
Ralph Wright, Assistant Secretary. 2
Philip M. Kaiser, Assistant Secretary (International Labor Affairs). 3 William S. Tyson, Solicitor.
James E. Dodson, Chief Clerk and Budget Officer.
Harris P. Shane, Director of Personnel Administration.
Herbert Little, Director of Information.
Helen M. Steele, Librarian.
Divisions and Bureaus:
Bureau of Apprenticeship, William F. Patterson, Director.
Bureau of Employment Security,4 Robert C. Goodwin, Director.
Veterans’ Employment Service, Perry Faulkner, Chief.
Bureau of Labor Standards, William L. Connolly, Director.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ewan Clague, Commissioner.
Bureau of Veterans’ Reemployment Rights, Robert K. Salyers, Director.
Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions, Wm. R. McComb, Administrator.
Women’s Bureau, Frieda S. Miller, Director.
1 Sworn in on March 14, 1949, succeeding David A. Morse.
2 Sworn in November 1, 1948, succeeding John T. Kmetz.
3 Sworn in August 23, 1949.
4 Transferred from the Federal Security Agency to the Department of Labor on August 20, 1949, as provided by Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1949.
II
CONTENTS
Report of the Secretary of Labor:	page
Legislation.................................................... 4
International Activities....................................... 14
Budget and Management.......................................... 24
Public Information............................................. 27
Library........................................................ 27
Personnel Administration...................................... 29
Office of the Solicitor........................................ 30
Condensed Reports of Bureaus:
Bureau of Apprenticeship....................................... 49
Bureau of Labor Standards...................................... 60
NEPH Week Committee.......................................... 68
Bureau of Labor Statistics..................................... 69
Bureau of Veterans’ Reemployment Rights........................ 79
Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions................... 86
Women’s Bureau................................................. 97
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THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR
With the end o£ the postwar boom, industrial employment and production declined markedly for the first time since the reconversion period in the months immediately following the war, but sustaining forces in the economy reversed the trend by midsummer 1949.
Total incomes, current consumption, and private investment expenditures were well maintained during the period of adjustment, centering largely in the manufacturing industries, which resulted in large part from reductions in inventories generally and the slackening in demand in many commodity lines from abnormally high postwar peaks.
Reduced output was accompanied by a fall in the number of production workers in manufacturing from 12,559,000 in June 1948 to 11,337,000 in June 1949, a decline of 1,222,000 or 10 percent. Total employment declined by 1,677,000.
The average hours of factory workers fell from 40.2 to 38.8 in the 12-month period.
Unemployment rose from 2,184,000 in June 1948 to 3,778,000 in June 1949, an increase of 1,594,000 over the year.
Every industrial State in the country felt the rise in unemployment, with the New England States the hardest hit. In mid-1949, 20 percent of the workers in Rhode Island covered by unemployment insurance were drawing unemployment benefits, as against 8 percent a year earlier. Unemployment ranged between 10 and 12 percent in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, representing in most cases a doubling of the previous year’s volume.
Unemployment was particularly heavy also in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Illinois, and California. In some States in the industrial Midwest, the volume of unemployment remained relatively low, although it had risen from previous levels.
For the first 6 months of 1949, the unemployment rate for the country as a whole averaged 52 per thousand as against 37 per thousand in the comparable period of 1948. A peak of 4.1 million was reached in July 1949, from which volume unemployment nationally dropped to 3-4 million by
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September as a strong fall revival in business activity began to get under way.
Despite the decline in employment and hours of work, total wages and salaries were about 1 percent higher in June of 1949 than a year earlier. Total personal income for the economy as a whole was down by less than 1 percent with increases in transfer payments (including unemployment compensation) and in dividends and interest payments, as well as labor income, offsetting a decline in incomes of farmers and other proprietors. Undistributed profits of corporations also declined in the period.
Most of the gains in wage rates, which were less than earlier postwar years, were made during the first half of the fiscal year under review. In addition to moderate wage-rate gains, numerous supplementary benefits were obtained, mainly in pensions and insurance plans.
In the major segments of manufacturing, the hourly earnings of factory workers rose from $1.34 in June to $1.40 in December 1948. During the next 6 months, hourly earnings fluctuated in a narrow range and averaged $1.41 in June 1949.
Average weekly earnings were affected by reductions in hours of work. The June 1949 average was $54-55, a net increase over the year of about 1 percent, but a decline of 3 percent from the December peak of $56.14. Workers in many of the nonmanufacturing employments obtained somewhat larger gains in wages and salaries.
Wages were affected to a smaller extent by price changes than in any earlier postwar year. The Consumers’ Price Index continued to rise until the fall of 1948 but in October began an almost continuous but gradual decline to mid-1949. The index in June 1949 showed a net decline for the year of 1.2 percent. The index of wholesale prices, more variable than consumers’ prices, dropped by 7-2 percent over the year.
Real wages of factory workers, which had remained little changed since 1946 because price increases offset wage increases, rose from $31-19 in terms of 1939 dollars to $31-97 between mid-1948 and mid-1949- The increases in real wages in other industries, such as retail trade and building construction, were somewhat larger than in manufacturing.
Although the economic position of wage earners was jeopardized by industrial decline and readjustment, a strong basis of optimism as to the economic position of wage earners and of the national economy as a whole is to be found in the improvement in the economy and in national policy in the past two decades. This becomes apparent from a brief comparison of the current situation with that of 1929, preceding the depression of the thirties.
Since 1929, the country has developed such broad national policies as those relating to unemployment compensation; a Nation-wide employment service; old-age and survivors insurance; minimum-wage legislation;
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guaranties of bank deposits and mortgages; credit facilities; a program designed to maintain farm income and demand for farm products; and various related measures, some of which extend to our international relations.
People throughout the country are conscious of vast needs. These include more and better schools and all kinds of community facilities; housing; roads; projects for the conservation of resources; and improvements in the facilities of production to maintain the upward trend of productivity and real income.
These needs are paralleled by means for meeting them. We have high levels of income, extensive savings, and favorable credit facilities. Wage rates and real earnings are at record levels, are supported by high productivity of American industry, and are protected by strong unions, collective bargaining, and minimum wage and hour legislation.
Nevertheless, as the 1949 fiscal year ended, it became apparent that there were no grounds for complacency in our efforts to promote the general welfare of the people. The laws relating to unemployment compensation needed revisions looking toward broadened coverage as well as increased benefits related to needs and the high cost of living. The wage and hour law called for amendment to increase the statutory minimum wage to a more realistic level, to broaden coverage, and to make certain administrative changes that 11 years of the law proved were needed. The old-age and survivors insurance system had to be overhauled so as to make it more comprehensive and to make its benefits more adequately in line with present-day individual and family budgetary requirements. And the considerable increase in unemployment by the end of the year emphasized the importance of special measures not only to increase employment opportunities but also to plan in advance for future projects and public works. As the following reports show, the Department of Labor was encouraging and supporting the initiation of measures to meet these vital needs.
Fair Employment Practices
On July 26,1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9980 providing “Regulations Governing Fair Employment Practices Within the Federal Establishment.” This called upon each Federal Department to carry out this Executive order, subject to the supervision of the head of the department and in accordance with regulations and policies issued by the Fair Employment Board of the Civil Service Commission.
The Department of Labor was the first agency to issue a general order to its employees under the President’s Executive order. The Department’s general order had a number of interesting features, some of which were incorporated in the general orders issued by other departments and agencies. The order was unique in that it covered not only personnel practices but
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also the administration of the Department’s various broad programs as they related to the public.
Under the order, a fair-employment officer was designated and each bureau was required to assign an official to work with him. During fiscal 1949, seven complaints alleging discrimination were received by these officials. Six out of these seven complaints were disposed of on an informal basis. The exceptional complaint was carefully investigated and a panel was appointed to hold a formal hearing. Before the hearing was held, the employee involved resigned from the Department. Since the complaint was consequently not pressed, the case was closed without a hearing.
LEGISLATION
The first session of the Eighty-first Congress considered a number of legislative measures which were of vital concern to the wage earners of the United States. The Department of Labor was asked for its advice in connection with many of these measures. Of particular concern to the Department of Labor during the first session of the Eighty-first Congress were those sections of the President’s message on the State of the Union, dated January 5, 1949, which recommended legislative programs in the labor and related fields.
The legislative program outlined by the President in his State of the Union message on January 5, 1949, included recommendations for (1) repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act and reenactment of the Wagner Act with certain improvements; (2) the rebuilding and strengthening of the Department of Labor; (3) an increase in the minimum wage fixed by law to at least 75 cents per hour; (4) the expansion of our social-security program, both as to size of benefits and extent of coverage, against the economic hazards due to unemployment, old age, sickness, and disability; (5) a system of prepaid medical insurance which would enable every American to afford good medical care; (6) Federal financial aid to education; (7) low-rent public housing, slum clearance, farm housing, and housing research; and (8) civil rights proposals which included legislation to eliminate discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin.
In addition to legislation designed to carry out the President’s broad program, the Department of Labor also supported legislation to provide Federal aid for labor education through a labor extension service in the Department of Labor; to end wage discrimination against women workers and write into law the principle of equal pay for equal work for women in interstate industries; to provide Federal aid to the States to promote industrial safety; to establish a fair policy for admitting displaced persons; to provide for rehabilitation, job counseling, and placement for handicapped
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workers; to create a commission to investigate the legal status of women and to recommend means of wiping out unfair laws and practices operating against them; to promote in the United States the labor standards set by the International Labor Organization; to regulate private employment agencies and labor contractors operating in interstate commerce; and to protect American workers employed on Government contracts outside the country.
Labor Relations
The second year of operations under the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 served to confirm the conclusions previously reached that this act constituted an undesirable reversal of the national labor policy of promoting collective bargaining first declared in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935- The act deals with collective bargaining as if it were inimical to the public interest instead of the foundation of our national labor policy. It has brought confusion to the field of labor relations, has limited the scope of collective bargaining, has unnecessarily injected the Government into labor disputes, and has abridged the rights of our working men and women.
Bills embodying the recommendations made by the President in his State of the Union message were introduced in both Houses of Congress early in the first session of the Eighty-first Congress. These bills (S. 249 and H. R. 2032) would have (1) repealed the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, (2) reenacted the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, (3) amended that act to retain the present National Labor Relations Board membership and panel structure, (4) enabled the Board to deal with jurisdictional disputes and unjustifiable secondary boycotts, (5) reestablished the Conciliation Service in the Department of Labor, (6) provided means for the settlement of disputes arising out of the interpretation of existing contracts, and (7) provided means for meeting national emergencies in vital industries which affect the public interest.
The Secretary of Labor testified in support of S. 249 before the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare and submitted a statement to the House Committee on Education and Labor in support of H. R. 2032. Both of these bills were reported favorably by the committees of the Senate and House respectively. In the House, H. R. 2032 was amended so as to retain the greater part of the Taft-Hartley Act and was subsequently recommitted to the Committee on Education and Labor. In the Senate, S. 249, as reported out of committee, failed to gain approval. Instead the Senate passed a substitute which was introduced by Senator Taft and which would retain a major portion of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947.
The Department of Labor is firmly convinced that legislation along the lines recommended by the President would best promote labor peace by
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placing reliance on the methods and procedures of free and voluntary collective bargaining and by confining the function of the Government to assuring the greatest possible degree of equality for both parties at the collective-bargaining table. The Department of Labor will continue to support such legislation.
Wages and Hours
The Department of Labor recommended to Congress the following five general steps for improvement of the Fair Labor Standards Act: (1) Raising of the minimum wage to 75 cents per hour and provision for industrycommittee procedures to set higher rates, wherever possible, up to a dollar an hour; (2) extension of the coverage of the act to activities affecting interstate commerce and at the same time clarification along fair lines of the many exemptions which are now in the act; (3) strengthening of its childlabor provisions; (4) definition of the term “regular rate” for purposes of calculating overtime, thus giving to employers and workers a clear-cut guide and providing a solution to so-called “overtime on overtime” questions, such as those which had been raised in the longshore industry; and (5) improvement of the administration of the act by (V) centralizing the administrative functions in the Department of Labor by vesting them in the Secretary of Labor, (b~) enabling the Secretary to carry out the purposes of the act in the most practical and effective manner by providing for rulemaking authority under the act, and (c~) facilitating the collection of back wages due under the act by authorizing the Department of Labor to supervise wage payments and to sue in behalf of employees in case of default.
A number of bills to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act were introduced in the Senate and in the House during the first session of the Eighty-first Congress. The Secretary of Labor appeared before both the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare and the House Committee on Education and Labor in support of those bills which would further the objectives of the Department of Labor. Early in the session the House committee reported favorably upon a bill which included most of the recommendations of the Department. Efforts to bring this bill to the floor of the House for consideration were unsuccessful, and at the close of fiscal 1949 the bill was still awaiting action by the Rules Committee. In the Senate, action on the bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act had not been taken by the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare when the fiscal year ended on June 30, 1949.1
1 After the close of the fiscal year there was enacted on October 26, 1949, Public Law 393, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., which may be cited as the “Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1949.” The amendments made by the act, which become effective January 25, 1950, increased the statutory minimum wage to 75 cents per hour and effected a number of other changes in the Fair Labor Standards Act but did not broaden the coverage of the act, as recommended by the President and by this Department.
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Labor Education
The Department of Labor has long advocated legislation to establish within the Department a federally assisted labor extension program comparable to the educational and informational services rendered to the agricultural community through the Agricultural Extension Service in the Department of Agriculture.
Legislation providing for such a program was introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives during the fiscal year and was reported favorably by the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. But, as the fiscal year ended, no further action had been taken.
Under a soundly conceived labor extension program, the instruction and discussions would be related to the experience of the workers themselves and would be developed in simple and practical terms which would have meaning for them. Workers would learn to meet the problems which constantly face them in their every-day lives, in their jobs, their unions, and their communities. Under such a program, they could receive training in basic labor law, trade-union methods, contract negotiations, the handling of grievances, parliamentary procedures, economics, and public speaking. Harmonious collective bargainingwould be promoted by a study of successful agreements and their operation in various industries. More responsible and democratic labor organizations would result from a better informed membership with sufficient knowledge to prevent subversive elements from seizing control.
A labor extension service would benefit not only the workers but management, the community, and the public, and therefore the Nation as a whole.
Rebuilding Labor Department
The Department of Labor has long opposed the tendency to disperse the labor functions of the Federal Government among a number of agencies. It has consistently maintained that sound administration requires that all such functions, so far as practicable, be in the Department of Labor. On July 1, 1948, however, a rider to an appropriation bill stripped the Department of further functions by effecting the transfer of the United States Employment Service to the Federal Security Agency.
On February 7,1949, the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government submitted its first report, relating to the general management of the executive branch, in which it stated that any effort to improve the organization and administration of the Government must “create a more orderly grouping of the functions of Government into major departments and agencies under the President.’’ The Commission, therefore, recommended that “the numerous agencies of the executive branch must be grouped into departments as nearly as possible by major purposes.
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The Commission later submitted its report on the Department of Labor in which it spoke of the Department as having been ‘ ‘ steadily denuded of functions” and of the “growing tendency to set up specialized labor services outside of the Department * * * thus causing a diffusion of labor functions throughout the Government.” The report concluded that the Department had “lost much of its significance and should have transferred to it” certain agencies. Such transfer, the report stated, “would make for greater efficiency in the Government.” The Commission recommended that the following agencies and functions be transferred to the Department:
(1)	Bureau of Employees’ Compensation.
(2)	Employees’ Compensation Appeals Board.
(3)	Bureau of Employment Security (United States Employment Service and Unemployment Insurance Service).
(4)	Selective Service System.
(5)	Enforcement of labor standards in Government contracts.
(6)	Determination of minimum wages for seamen.
(7)	‘ ‘ Prevailing wage’ ’ research to be conducted by Bureau of Labor Statistics.
(8)	Division of Industrial Hygiene.
As the first step in carrying out the recommendations of the Hoover Commission, the President, on June 20, 1949, transmitted to the Congress Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1949 which provided for the transfer of the Bureau of Employment Security (composed of the United States Employment Service and Unemployment Insurance Service) from the Federal Security Agency to the Department of Labor. If this plan were not disapproved by a majority of the total membership of either House of Congress prior to August 20, 1949,2 it would become effective on that date, thereby effecting the first step in the rebuilding of the Department of Labor.
In addition to Reorganization Plan No. 2, S. 249 and H. R. 2032, as bills relating to the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, provided for the restoration of the Conciliation Service to the Department of Labor. The Hoover Commission made no recommendation in this respect inasmuch as the Congress “is engaged in revising labor policies which will affect” this agency. However, the functions of the Conciliation Service come within the statutory duties of the Department of Labor; and if the basic principle laid down by the Hoover Commission is followed—that is, that “ the numerous agencies of the executive branch must be grouped into departments as nearly as possible by major purposes”—then the Conciliation Service clearly should be restored to the Department and could be more effectively coordinated with other labor functions under this Department.
2 The Plan was not disapproved by either House and became effective, therefore, on August 20, 1949.
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Elimination of Discriminatory Employment Practices
The principle that a person shall have economic opportunity in accordance with his individual ability and qualifications is basic to democratic theory. Many of our people, however, are restricted in their opportunity to earn a living by discriminatory employment practices based on race, color, religion, or national origin. Discrimination in employment is manifested by refusal to hire, by the denial of upgrading opportunities, by wage differentials, and by exclusion from union membership or the formation of auxiliary unions without the full benefits of union membership. Such restrictions upon the economic opportunities of individuals based upon factors of race, color, religion, or national origin are contrary to principles of freedom and equality.
The Department of Labor, therefore, has supported legislation to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, color, religion, or national origin. It favors legislation which would rely primarily upon peaceful persuasion in dealing with discriminatory employment practices but which would also provide appropriate sanctions for those cases where persuasion is unavailing. Several bills of this nature were introduced in both Houses of Congress during the fiscal year, and the Secretary of Labor testified in support of such legislation before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and Labor.3
A few States have had fair employment statutes for several years and during the most recent sessions of State legislatures several additional States enacted such legislation. Discrimination in employment is not a State or local problem alone. It crosses State lines and has a depressing effect not only in the State where it is practiced but subjects employers in other States, which may have fair employment practice laws, to unfair wage competition. It is a national problem which affects our whole economy and requires action by the Federal Government.
Equal Pay for Women
As a matter of justice to the millions of women in the American labor force and to prevent the use of women as wage cutters, the Department of Labor favors legislation to eliminate discrimination in wage payment on the basis of sex. The Department endorses legislation which would make it an unfair wage practice for any employer engaged in interstate or foreign commerce to discriminate between the sexes in the payment of wages.
Several bills requiring the observance of the principle of ‘ ‘ equal pay for equal work” were introduced in both Houses of Congress during the fiscal
3 Subsequent to the close of fiscal 1949, H. R. 4453, which the Secretary had supported in his testimony before the subcommittee, was reported favorably by the House Committee on Education and Labor. A similar bill (S. 1728) was reported by the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare without recommendation.
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year. Enactment of such legislation would not only promote a policy of fairness insofar as women employees are concerned but would also contribute to the preservation of wage standards and the maintenance of consumer purchasing power.
Safety and Health
In spite of a slight decline in the number of industrial injuries in 1948, there were still over 16,000 deaths, 85,000 permanent disabilities, and almost 2,000,000 temporary disabilities resulting from this cause during the calendar year 1948. When consideration is given to the fact that about 90 percent of this tremendous cost in physical suffering, loss of wages, and productive man-hours is preventable, the need for a concerted effort to promote industrial safety is obvious.
To meet this need, and in accordance with the President’s recommendations, the Department of Labor has supported legislation providing for grants to the States for the promotion, establishment, and maintenance of safe work places and practices in industry. This program is embodied in S. 1439, H. R. 3853, and H. R. 4075, introduced in the first session of the Eighty-first Congress, which were similar in nature to S. 101, Eightieth Congress.
The welfare of wage earners is dependent not only upon proper working conditions but on their general health as well. The President’s recommendations for a national health insurance program, therefore, received the support of the Department of Labor. Several bills conforming to the President’s recommendations were introduced during the fiscal year.
Displaced Persons
The Department of Labor favors legislative action to correct the shortcomings of the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which has been generally criticized as being discriminatory and unduly restrictive. It is felt that the act does not adequately meet American responsibilities toward the solution of the difficult problem of displaced persons.
A bill which would go far in meeting many of the objections to the act was passed by the House during the fiscal year. This bill, H. R. 4567, would remove the most discriminatory features of the act by changing the “cut-off” date from December 22, 1945, to January 1, 1949, and by eliminating the statutory preferences for displaced persons whose place of origin has been de facto annexed by a foreign power, or who are agriculturists. In addition, it would increase the number of immigration visas authorized to be issued from 205,000 in 2 fiscal years to 339,000 in 3 fiscal years. Bills which would similarly liberalize the act have also been
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introduced in the Senate but no action had been taken in that House at the end of the fiscal year.4
Discussions of legislation pertaining to immigration always raise the question of its effect upon unemployment in this country. The immigration of displaced persons which would be made possible under H. R. 4567 would add but a fraction of 1 percent to our civilian labor force. Immigrants in the past have provided new occupational skills and talents which have been the means of creating new employment opportunities for American workers. There is every reason to believe that immigrants under a liberalized Displaced Persons Act would contribute, as did the immigrants of past years, to the strengthening of American agriculture, commerce, and industry.
Social Security
The problem of attaining an adequate degree of social security for the people of this Nation stands out in sharp relief against the complex pattern of our modern industrial life. A worthwhile beginning was made toward a solution of this national problem when the Social Security Act of 1935 was adopted. Substantial changes, however, have taken place in our economy since that time, materially increasing the cost of living and otherwise enhancing the factors which make for personal insecurity. The law in its present form is manifestly deficient in meeting the prevailing security needs of our workers, arising from the hazards of old age, unemployment, and illness. The President included the expansion of the social security program among the basic recommendations which he made in his initial message to the Eighty-first Congress.
The Department has over the years advocated revisions in both the old-age and survivors insurance system and the unemployment compensation insurance system under this law, to bring the coverage and benefits more nearly in accord with the demands of our present-day economic life. In order to achieve a truly national program, extended coverage has been advocated to include workers on a more comprehensive basis. Increased monetary benefits have been advocated to meet more realistically current family budget requirements. It has been urged that sickness and disability insurance be added to the program in recognition of the fact that protection against financial stress resulting from illness necessarily forms a vital constituent of an effective social security program.
A bill (H. R. 2893) containing the desired provisions, insofar as the old-age and survivors insurance system and sickness and disability insurance
4 H. R. 4567, was reported out of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary without recommendation on October 12, 1949, but was recommitted to the Committee by a close vote during the closing hours of the first session of the Congress.
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are concerned, was introduced in the Eighty-first Congress and actively supported by the Department. The Secretary of Labor appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee on April 6, 1949, in behalf of this bill, strongly urging its passage. Further action, however, was not taken on this measure before June 30, 1949.5
Liberalization of that portion of the Social Security Act which applies to unemployment compensation is also considered to be of major importance in the maintenance of economic stability and security. No action was taken in this respect, however, during the past fiscal year.
Aid to the Handicapped
The Department of Labor is vitally interested in obtaining increased opportunities for both physically and mentally handicapped persons. This means finding a job the particular individual can do well in spite of his handicap. It also very often means medical or surgical care, education in the use of prosthetic devices, and vocational training.
A study made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that, when given reasonable job placement consideration, physically impaired workers were able to compete on a par with unimpaired workers in work performance, and that absenteeism and injuries were less frequent with impaired than with unimpaired workers. This study indicates the need for education of employers so that they will judge the employability of handicapped individuals by what they can do, not by what they cannot do.
The Department of Labor has supported, and will continue to support, legislation which will provide effective means of helping the physically and mentally handicapped to their proper place in society.
Legal Status of Women
The legal status of women has generally not been equalized with that of men under State law, and to a minor extent, under Federal law. The rights and obligations of men and women are prescribed on a different basis, to the disadvantage of women, Laws which distinguish between men and women in the economic, civil, social, and political spheres continue to exist in numbers on the statute books, although they are based on outmoded assumptions and conditions.
The promotion of the welfare of women, particularly women in industry, through the progressive elimination of unreasonable distinctions, has for many years constituted an active program of the Department of Labor. In this connection, the Department is constantly making studies of laws
» Subsequently, H. R. 6000, which would extend the coverage and increase the benefits under the old-age and survivors insurance provisions of the Social Security Act, was overwhelmingly passed by the House.
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and administrative practices on a State and Federal level as they relate to the legal status of women.
This Department has favored legislation to establish a Commission on the Legal Status of Women to further the removal of existing inequalities. It has been recommended that such Commission make comprehensive studies regarding discrimination against women on the basis of sex in order to establish policies for the removal of such discrimination in both State and Federal law and practice. Several bills which would effect this objective were introduced in the first session of the Eighty-first Congress, but no action had been taken with respect to such legislation up to the close of the fiscal year.
International Labor Affairs
In the field of international affairs the Department of Labor has certain responsibilities in connection with the carrying out of the obligations of the United States under the constitution and rules of the International Labor Organization.
During the fiscal year the Department analyzed the provisions of six conventions which had been adopted at the General Conference of the International Labor Organization at Geneva in June 1947 |and assisted in the transmittal of them to the President and the Senate for appropriate action. Five of these conventions relate to labor in nonmetropolitan territories, and they cover a wide range of subjects including labor inspection in industry and commerce, social policy questions, the settlement of labor disputes, labor standards, and the maximum length of contracts of employment of workers who are natives of such territories. The sixth convention is applicable to the Nation as a whole and relates to labor inspection in industry and commerce.
The constitution and rules of the International Labor Organization require, in the case of Federal States, that conventions and recommendations not appropriate for Federal action be referred by the Federal Government to the States for action. Accordingly, one convention and two recommendations were analyzed and appropriate transmittals prepared for their submission to the governors of the 48 States and the self-governing Territories for consideration.
Private Employment Agencies and Labor Contractors
The Department of Labor for a number of years has recognized a necessity for Federal regulation of private employment agencies and labor contractors engaged in recruiting workers on an interstate basis. Bills which would provide such Federal regulation have been introduced during each session of Congress for a number of years. At the first session of the Eighty-first Congress Mrs. Norton introduced H. R. 3651. The purpose of such
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bills as this is to prevent fraud, misrepresentation, excessive fees, and other abuses which have been found to exist among certain agencies and contractors. The interstate nature of the operations of many of these employment agencies and labor contractors makes impossible their regulation under State laws. Federal regulation, therefore, is essential.
INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES
One of the most striking developments since the war has been the emergence of labor as a major political factor throughout the world. In western Europe, for example, labor parties play major roles in many coalition governments, and in some cases there are labor governments. The importance of labor abroad politically, coupled with its tremendous social and economic significance, makes expert knowledge of foreign labor developments an essential element in the conduct of United States foreign policies. International affairs can no longer be considered as separate and distinct from domestic affairs; the two are inseparable. Domestic policies have a direct bearing on foreign affairs and conversely foreign developments affect the domestic situation. Consequently, the Department of Labor, which is responsible for the labor policies of the United States Government, is concerned with the international as well as the domestic aspects of labor affairs.
The Office of International Labor Affairs (OILA), operating under the Assistant Secretary of Labor in charge of international affairs, is the focal point of the international activities of the Department. This Office, in the Office of the Secretary, has a small staff which is responsible for coordinating and supervising all international functions of the Department, as well as for formulating positive international labor policies.
During the year the Office of International Labor Affairs, in order to make the fullest possible use of the resources available within the Department, drew heavily on the technical competence of the other bureaus and offices. Especially important in this regard was the Office of Foreign Labor Conditions of the Bureau of Labor Statistics which, using reports of labor attaches and other relevant materials, made day-to-day analyses of foreign-labor developments and developed the basic information upon which policy decisions were reached. The Office of Foreign Labor Conditions also conducted programs of educational exchange.
Other bureaus upon which a great deal of the burden of technical specialized responsibility rested were: The Office of the Solicitor, with respect to legal assistance on all international matters; divisions of the Bureau of Labor Statistics other than the Office of Foreign Labor Conditions, with particular reference to the International Labor Organization and the tradeagreements program; the Bureau of Labor Standards, with its work on the
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International Labor Organization, the Economic and Social Council and its various commissions, and programs of educational exchange; the Bureau of Apprenticeship, in regard to educational exchange and the International Labor Organization; the Women’s Bureau, particularly with regard to the Human Rights Commission and the Commission on the Status of Women of the Economic and Social Council, the International Labor Organization, and programs of educational exchange; and the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions in regard to the International Labor Organization.
Trade-Union Advisory^Committee
This committee, composed of top officials of the American Federation of Labor, Congress of Industrial Organizations, Railway Labor Executives Association, and the Brotherhoods of Locomotive Engineers and Railroad Trainmen, meets periodically with the Secretary of Labor and the Assistant Secretary in charge of international affairs to advise the Department of the opinions, needs, interests, and recommendations of American labor on international affairs.
During the year, the committee considered the labor aspects of the European Recovery Program, German labor problems, study programs and industrial training for foreign workers, the labor situation in Latin America, and labor matters in Japan, particularly the Japanese national public service law.
Interdepartmental Committees
In order to prepare coordinated, Government-wide positions on various aspects of foreign policy, a system of interdepartmental committees has been established. Of these committees, the Department is particularly active in the following:
a.	The Committee on International Social Policy (ISP) which recommends to the Secretary of State the policies and positions which the United States Government should adopt on international social matters. In addition to the top committee, important subcommittees of ISP of which the Department is a member are: The Committee on Labor of which the Department of Labor representative is chairman; the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Status of Women; the Committee on Non-Self-Governing Territories; and the Committee on Social Welfare.
b.	The Executive Committee on Economic Foreign Policy (ECEFP) which examines problems and developments affecting the economic foreign policy of the United States and makes recommendations to the Secretary of State. In addition to the top committee, important subcommittees of ECEFP of which the Department is a member include: The United Nations Economic Committee which considers general economic policy questions as they relate to the work of United Nations
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bodies, specialized agencies, and other international organizations in the fields of employment, economic stability, economic development and reconstruction; the Committee on In ter-American Economic Affairs which prepares instructions and advice to the United States representatives on inter-American economic agencies; and the Committee on Foreign Investment Policy which formulates United States policy with respect to Government and private foreign loans and investments.
c.	The Inter-Agency Committee on the Food and Agriculture Organization which assists in formulating the Government’s position with respect to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
United Nations
Of the major component bodies of the United Nations, the Department of Labor is principally interested in the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).—The Economic and Social Council of the United Nations seeks to promote conditions of economic and social stability and progress through higher standards of living, full employment, educational exchange, and the universal observance of the fundamental human rights.
Through interdepartmental committees, particularly the ISP and the ECEFP, staff members of the Department participated in formulating United States positions for the seventh and eighth sessions of ECOSOC. The agenda included forced labor, migration, freedom of association, equal pay for equal work, and the economic development of underdeveloped countries.
Representatives of the Department also served as labor advisers to the United States delegates to ECOSOC.
Commissions of the Economic and Social Council.—Officials of the Department worked particularly on matters relating to the Commission on the Status of Women and the Human Rights Commission.
The Commission on the Status of Women prepares recommendations and reports on promoting women’s rights in the political, economic, social, and educational fields and recommends actions to ECOSOC. Through interdepartmental machinery, particularly the ISP Subcommittee on Human Rights and Status of Women, the Department of Labor assisted in the preparation of the United States positions for the third session of the Commission, held in Beirut (Lebanon), on equal pay for equal work for women, women’s organizations, and women in trade-unions. A questionnaire on the political and civil status of women was answered. Work relating to this Commission was done primarily by the Women’s Bureau, the Solicitor’s Office, and the Office of International Labor Affairs.
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The Human Rights Commission is concerned with the extension and preservation of the fundamental rights of man. Staff members of the Department, particularly representatives of the Solicitor’s Office, the Women’s Bureau, and OILA, assisted in the United States participation in the work of this Commission through the ISP Subcommittee on Human Rights and Status of Women. The Director of the Women’s Bureau served on the United States delegation to the fifth session of the Commission as consultant on the labor aspects of Draft Covenant on Human Rights, particularly the articles on Freedom of Association and Forced Labor.
International Labor Organization (ILO).—The International Labor Organization, founded in 1919, is the oldest of the major specialized agencies of the United Nations. The United States has held membership since 1934. Fundamental purpose of the ILO is to improve labor conditions and raise living standards throughout the world. Representatives of government, management, and labor from the 60 member countries meet annually at International Labor Conferences to consider the adoption of conventions and recommendations dealing with international labor standards. If adopted, the conventions and recommendations are referred to member countries for appropriate action. The ILO carries on operating programs of practical assistance in the manpower field, and performs research and disseminates information on industrial and labor problems. In addition it conducts meetings of various industry committees, such as Iron and Steel, Petroleum, and others, at which government, management, and labor are represented, as well as meetings of technicians on specific problems. It assists other countries by sending special technical missions upon request.
The Department of Labor, under the over-all foreign policy guidance of the Department of State, is responsible for the participation of the United States in the ILO. Within the Department of Labor, ILO work is directed by the Office of International Labor Affairs. The technical work, including the preparation of reports, replies to ILO questionnaires, and comments on ILO reports and position papers (for the instruction of United States delegates to ILO meetings) is initially performed either by the Office of International Labor Affairs or, at its request, by the bureaus of the Department and, in some instances, by other agencies of the Government. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Labor Standards, the Bureau of Apprenticeship, the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions, the Women’s Bureau, and the Office of the Solicitor prepared a large amount of these technical materials.
During the past year, United States delegations were selected for the following ILO meetings: Technical Tripartite Conference on Safety in Factories (Geneva); Second Session of the Textiles Industry Committee (Geneva); Second Session of the Petroleum Industry Committee (Geneva); Asian Preparatory Conference on Labor Inspection (Ceylon—observer only);
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Subcommittee of the Joint Maritime Commission (Geneva); 106th, 107th, 108th, and 109th Sessions of the Governing Body (San Francisco and Geneva); Third Session of the Permanent Migration Committee (Geneva); Second Session of the Building, Civil Engineering, and Public Works Committee (Rome); Third Session of the Coal Mines Committee (Pittsburgh); Fourth Conference of American States Members of the ILO (Montevideo); Third Session of the Inland Transport Committee (Brussels); and Thirty-second Session of the International Labor Conference (Geneva). Employers and workers were also represented on most of these delegations.
Replies to questionnaires which the ILO sends to member countries in preparation for discussions at the annual conference, regional meetings, and industry committee meetings were prepared by the Department and other agencies of the Government on the following subjects: vocational training, technical selection of workers in inland transport, labor inspection, hours of work in coal mines, employment of young workers in inland transport, social security measures for workers in Rhine navigation and conditions of work in Rhine navigation (which were prepared in Germany), migration for employment, labor clauses in public contracts, protection of wages, application of the principles of the right to organize and bargain collectively, vocational guidance, and fee-charging employment agencies. Additional questionnaires, on subjects under study by the International Labor Office in connection with the manpower program, covered placing and working conditions of refugees or displaced persons in United States zone in Germany, manpower shortages and surpluses, and systems of occupational descriptions in national employment services.
In addition, the Department of Labor developed and transmitted to the ILO the views of the United States Government on the functioning of conventions 1, 14, 19, 20, and 21; amendments to certain draft Red Cross conventions on prisoners of war and treatment of civilians in time of war; resolutions adopted by the Metal Trades Industry Committee; resolutions adopted by the Iron and Steel Industry Committee; a report concerning technical improvements in the textile industry; and annual reports on the maritime conventions Nos. 53, 55, and 58 which the United States has ratified. Also, at the request of the ILO, an expert from the Bureau of Apprenticeship assisted the ILO in advising representatives of labor and management in European countries on training problems.
In accordance with the obligations of Federal-States, as prescribed in the revised constitution of the ILO which the United States accepted in August 1948, those conventions and recommendations of the thirtieth session of the International Labor Conference which dealt with matters in whole or in part under State jurisdiction were referred to the States. In addition, the views of the executive branch of the Government with respect to the
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implementation of the conventions and recommendations of the thirtieth session were transmitted to the Secretary of State. To acquaint the States with their role in connection with international labor standards, the Bureau of Labor Standards revised the publication, World Labor Standards.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).—This specialized agency of the United Nations was established to coordinate activities, conduct research, and collect and disseminate information designed to improve the quality, productivity, and distribution of the world’s food and agriculture. Through the Interdepartmental Committee on the FAO, the Department of Labor aided in determining the positions of the United States delegates at the fourth session of the FAO. A Department expert acted as labor adviser to the United States delegation.
Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA).—Throughout the year the Department of Labor cooperated with the Economic Cooperation Administration on the labor aspects of the European Recovery Program. The Department assisted the ECA by providing orientation for labor advisers going to ECA countries; preparing, at the request of ECA, handbooks of labor conditions in Italy, France, Germany, Turkey, Greece, Great Britain, and the Netherlands; assembling, on a weekly basis, publications on domestic labor affairs to keep the ECA labor advisers informed on current United States labor developments; and assisting in the orientation of visiting groups of foreign nationals sponsored by ECA to study production techniques. All bureaus of the Department participated in various aspects of this work under the guidance of OILA. Of particular significance was the work of the Office of Foreign Labor Conditions in connection with the preparation of handbooks on labor conditions.
Foreign Service
The Department of Labor is a statutory member (Foreign Service Act of 1946) of the Board of the Foreign Service. This Board, composed of representatives of the Departments of State, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, makes recommendations to the Secretary of State ‘ ‘ concerning the functions of the Service; the policies and procedures to govern the selection, assignment, rating, and promotion of Foreign Service officers; and the policies and procedures to govern the administration and personnel management of the Service.” One of the principal functions of the Department of Labor relates to the labor attache program. Because of the growing awareness of the important international role of organized labor, labor attaches have, during the past year, assumed greater importance than ever before in the activities of our Government abroad. As of June 30, 1949, there were 25 full-time labor attaches on duty in 23 countries throughout the world, and in Washington on interservice assignment. At that time,
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in addition to the full-time labor attaches, there were seven labor-reporting officers who devoted approximately one-half time to labor work stationed in countries not requiring full-time labor coverage.
Staff members of the Department of Labor, during the past year, participated in developing the staffing patterns for the foreign missions, determining the distribution of labor, commercial, agricultural, and other officers at the different posts; were actively involved in examining, recruiting, and selecting persons to fill labor attache positions; trained labor attaches and other Foreign Service officers prior to their assignment abroad; assisted in preparing instructions to the labor attaches; kept the labor attaches informed of current United States labor developments; and analyzed and evaluated the labor reports of economic and labor officers.
In cooperation with the Office of the Foreign Service, the Director of the OILA participated in the Paris conference of labor attaches, ECA labor advisers, labor officials of the American Military Governments in Germany and Austria, and American trade-union officials, at which problems of labor and labor reporting were discussed. The Under Secretary, two Assistant Secretaries, the Director of the Office of International Labor Affairs, and other officials of the Department visited several Foreign Service posts for conferences with labor attaches and other officers.
Trade Agreements
One of the cornerstones of our economic foreign policy is the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Program. This program is designed to provide both national and international economic stability and progress through the promotion of international trade. The program authorizes the President to negotiate agreements with foreign nations with a view to reducing, within certain limits, American tariff rates in return for compensatory concessions by other countries.
The Interdepartmental Committee on Trade Agreements (TAG) is responsible for the preparation of all studies relating to trade agreements, and makes recommendations to the President concerning the conclusion of trade agreements and the provisions to be included therein. The Department of Labor, because of the effects which tariff actions may have on such matters as the employment and purchasing power of the individual worker, is particularly interested in the work of the trade agreements organization, including both the TAC and the Committee for Reciprocity Information, which acts as the public hearing body for the program.
In connection with his functions as a member of these two committees, a representative of the Department served as a member of the United States delegation at the third session of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade held this past year in Annecy, France, to negotiate multilateral trade agreements.
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Occupied Areas
The Department of Labor assisted the Department of the Army in connection with labor matters in the occupied areas and in selecting American personnel for service with the Labor Divisions of Military Government.
Top-level discussions were carried on during the year by officials of the Departments of Labor, State, and Defense concerning the labor situation in Japan and particularly the Japanese national public service law. Assistant Secretary of Labor Gibson toured Japan to survey the Japanese labor situation. Also, a study on collective bargaining by Government employees was completed for use by Military Government in Japan.
German Trade-Union Program.—At the request of the Department of the Army, the Department of Labor inaugurated a trade-union program for Germans. This program is part of the over-all project for the democratic reorientation of Germany. It is designed to give Germans the opportunity to observe and study at first hand the American scene, the trade-union movement, working conditions, industrial relations, and the general role of labor in American society. The reorientation is not an indoctrination of American labor practices and methods, but rather an exposure to labor as one of the many facets of American society.
During the past year 46 Germans have been received and programmed by the Department. They were organized into small groups, brought to the United States, and sent to various local sponsors throughout the country where they were able to become acquainted with the American labor scene on an informal and personal basis.
All the participants were connected with the German trade-union movement in some form or other, either as trade-union members, labor educators, or government labor officials.
The program was the joint responsibility of the Departments of the Army and Labor. Military Government in Germany was responsible for the selection, processing, and transportation of these persons to and from the United States. The Department of Labor, which was responsible for arranging their programs in the United States, was immeasurably assisted in this work by the close cooperation of the American Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, independent unions such as the International Association of Machinists, educational organizations such as Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin, and management groups such as the American Management Association, the Society for the Advancement of Management, the United States Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers.
Technical Assistance
Among the most important international activities of the Department of Labor were those involving cooperation with foreign governments and
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peoples. These included providing formal training programs for selected foreign nationals; upon request, supplying foreign governments with technical consultants; servicing foreign visitors; supplying interested persons and organizations abroad with technical labor information; and making plans to implement President Truman’s Point IV program of economic development of the underdeveloped areas.
These programs were designed to provide technical assistance to other countries, to provide a better understanding of the United States in other countries, and to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of the foreign countries.
Training Programs.—Under the authority of Public Laws 355 (76th Cong.) and 402 (80th Cong.), and under the over-all guidance of the Interdepartmental Committee on Scientific and Cultural Cooperation (SCC), formal training programs in various aspects of the labor field were arranged by the Bureau of Labor Standards, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Women’s Bureau for 43 persons from many countries, including most of the American Republics, India, and the Philippines. These programs were similar to those which these bureaus have been carrying on for a number of years. This past year training in labor legislation, labor law administration, and industrial safety was given to 13 foreign trainees by the Bureau of Labor Standards. The Bureau of Labor Statistics conducted training courses for 23 foreign statisticians, mainly in connection with the labor aspects of the 1950 Census of the Americas. The Women’s Bureau arranged training programs for seven women concerned with the field of women’s employment. In addition to conducting these programs, the Department of Labor undertook two new types of training programs for foreign nationals.
In cooperation with the Department of State’s Division of Exchange of Persons, the Women’s Bureau initiated a special course of study and observation in the field of women’s voluntary activities. This program was carried on with the cooperation of nine national women’s organizations. Five women leaders from Latin America participated at the invitation of the United States Government. The 3-month course included an orientation period in the Department of Labor, field observation under the sponsorship of national women’s organizations, and a period of evaluation in the Women’s Bureau.
During the past year, the “Government industrial training program’’ for foreign nationals was transferred by the Department of State from the Department of Commerce to the Department of Labor. The Bureau of Apprenticeship was assigned responsibility for administering the program, which is designed to make American industrial and technical “know-how” available to underdeveloped areas, through the training of select foreign nationals in some specialized branch of United States industry.
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Eighteen trainees, selected by their respective governments, were sent to the United States where the Bureau of Apprenticeship, in cooperation with American industrial firms, arranged training for them in their specialized fields. On-the-job training was given in such fields as automatic telephony, rayon textiles, radio communication, plumbing, construction, mounting of heavy machinery, rubber technology, auto and truck mechanics, pattern making, and fruit-juice production.
There are two industrial training programs, the “Government industrial training program,’’ described above, under which the expenses of the trainees are paid in whole or in part by the United States Government, and the “non-Government training program’’ under which United States Government funds are used only for making necessary administrative and placement arrangements. The non-Government training has not yet been transferred from the Department of State to the Department of Labor, but negotiations were undertaken this past year which are expected to result in the transfer in the near future.
Consultants.—A limited number of technical consultants were provided to several of the American Republics at their request. The Bureau of Labor Standards sent a consultant in the field of child labor and safety standards to five Latin-American countries for a 2-month period. The Women’s Bureau sent a consultant to Mexico for about 6 weeks to assist the Mexican Government in dealing with the problems of industrial home work and other problems related to women workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics furnished assistance to several countries in Latin America in the field of the labor aspects of the 1950 Census of the Americas, prices, and other labor statistics. One consultant conducted a special statistical course for nearly 2 months in Mexico City. Another consultant to Guatemala participated for about 6 weeks in a program to provide census training. Pursuant to a request from the Costa Rican Government for assistance in reorganizing their labor-statistics activities, two consultants were made available to aid in revising the Costa Rica cost-of-living index.
Visitors.—Officials of the Department met with visitors from more than 40 countries during the year. Meetings and consultations were also arranged for them with representatives of labor and management, with officials of State and local governments, and with leaders in the educational, economic, and social fields.
Among these visitors were the Minister of Labor and Education of India, the president of the Burmese Trade Union Congress, and labor and management groups from Japan, Germany, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, Italy, and Greece.
Information Activities.—The Department has been a clearing house for information on all aspects of national and international labor affairs. Other Government agencies, the Congress, American management and labor
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organizations, and the public have called upon the Department for information on the international aspects of labor. The Department has also been a source of information to foreign persons and organizations on the technical aspects of labor affairs in the United States. Pertinent Department publications were translated into foreign languages.
Wide distribution was given the Monthly Labor Review, Notes on Labor Abroad, the Weekly Labor News Digest, the Labor Information Bulletin, and Facts on Women Workers. Of particular note this past year was the publication of the Gift of Freedom, a study of the economic and social status of wage earners in the United States made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This publication was widely sought here and abroad where it was distributed both in English and in translation through the United States Information Service.
Point IV.—The fourth major element of our foreign policy, as set forth by President Truman in his inaugural address, called for a “bold new program” of technical and financial assistance to underdeveloped areas throughout the world. This program has come to be called Point IV. An interdepartmental committee, the Advisory Committee on Technical Assistance (ACTA), was set up to develop the program to implement this aspect of foreign policy. The Department of Labor, as one of the members of this committee, was vitally concerned with its work, which included consideration of such subjects as budget, legislation, and the administrative machinery which would be necessary to carry out an effective program.
BUDGET AND MANAGEMENT
The Office of Budget and Management, in carrying out its functions of fiscal administration and business management for the Department, has completed or initiated numerous studies, surveys, and statistical reports as a measurement of performance with respect to budgetary provisions.
The relationship between apprentice and on-the-job training programs of the Department’s Bureau of Apprenticeship and the Veterans Administration was studied and a detailed analysis was made of the laws providing for such training. As a result of this and a field study, recommendations were made to the Secretary of Labor and to the Bureau of the Budget that on-the-job training programs should be administered by the Department.
A revised reporting program for the Bureau of Veterans’ Reemployment Rights, as an improved measure of the work load and promotional activities under the old and the new 1948 Selective Service Acts, was initiated and is now operating satisfactorily.
The Department’s administrative regulations and procedures manual relating to business management has been undergoing complete revision.
The Bureau of Apprenticeship’s field-office reporting of operating statistics
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR 25 was studied thoroughly and, as a result, revised methods of evaluating the work load and a simplification of reporting were adopted.
A joint survey of processes of work performance in the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions and the Office of the Solicitor has been started, with a view to developing greater economy and efficiency of operation.
A survey of Library procedures and servicing methods was initiated to determine the scope of Library facilities and the greatest economy of operation.
A Department-wide review of all voucher processes was completed, with resulting improvements.
An operating program of publications control has been in effect in the Department for several years. Therefore, compliance with the Senate Appropriations Committee’s request for such control was readily achieved.
The Director of Budget and Management carried out his responsibility as security officer for the Department; bureaus were found to be in compliance with departmental security regulations.
The Department’s program for participation in President Truman’s Point IV program was considered and analyzed in its relationship to other departmental operation programs as well as in estimating potential budgetary needs.
The Office of Budget and Management worked with the Bureau of Labor Statistics in developing its project to revise the Consumers’ Price Index, estimated cost and time factors, and in presenting the program for consideration by the Congress.
A coordinated program was developed for channeling funds jointly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Employment Security to the States cooperating in collecting employment statistics for both bureaus.
The reports of the Hoover Commission wrre analyzed and considered in reference to the functions and operations of the Department.
The Director of Budget and Management testified at the hearing before the House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments on the increase in per diem’Tor travel, and presented related material. The Director has continued to serve on the departmental Employees’ Suggestion Committee and the Loyalty Board.
On June 30, 1949, the Department occupied approximately 294,000 square feet of floor space in four different buildings in Washington, D. C.
Because of the transfer of the United States Employment Service from the Department of Labor to the Federal Security Agency on July 1, 1948, reallocations were made in the space occupied by the other bureaus of the Department in Washington and in the field.
Renegotiations of leases for some field locations were made because of the expiration of old leases and changing market conditions.
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Totals of 13,088 outgoing and 9,019 incoming telegraphic messages were sent and received.
Transportation reservations totaling 1,835 were obtained for officials and employees of the Department.
The departmental budget for fiscal year 1950 6 as presented and approved was as follows:
Bureau programs................................. 7 $31, 223, 661
Approved and submitted to the Bureau of the
Budget........................................ 7 24,204,724
Approved by Congress............................ 8 16, 766, 200
Financial statement fiscal year 1949
Appropriations made directly to the Department....... $15, 489, 720. 36
Funds transferred to the Department from other Government agencies to cover services performed for such agencies.............................................. 790, 389.05
Total funds made available to the Department for the fiscal year.................................. 16,	280,109.41
Funds rescinded............................... $165,	550.00
Funds transferred from the Department to other Government agencies........................ 16,	326.00
------------ 181, 876.00
Net amount available for obligation.............. 16,	098, 233.41
Obligations incurred during the fiscal year............ 15,	923, 239.50
Unobligated balance at close of fiscal year....	174, 993. 91
PAY ROLLS, VOUCHERS, AND BONDS
Office	Number of pay rolls	Number of checks issued	Number of cash payments	Number of savings bonds issued
Apprenticeship		53	12, 827		3,263
				
Solicitor		53	5, 692		1, 322
Veterans’ Reemployment Rights		31	1, 207		46
Labor Standards		32	1, 892		260
Secretary		87	5' 084	1, 609	1,036
Total		256	26, 702	1, 609	5, 927
6 Excludes appropriation for the Bureau of Employment Security, transferred from the Federal Security Agency to the Department of Labor August 20, 1949, under Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1949.
7 Excludes $135,200 pending in Congress.
8 Excludes $1,135,200 pending in Congress. (The House Subcommittee on Labor Department and Federal Security Appropriations approved the revision of the Consumers’ Price Index, which will cost $4,200,000 over a 3-year period, but recommended an appropriation for the fiscal year 1950 of $1,000,000 to begin the program.)
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VOUCHERS AUDITED
Office	Miscellaneous	Travel	Total
Secretary 		9,837	4,492	14, 329
PUBLIC INFORMATION
Increased public interest in the Department’s programs was shown by a great volume of requests for publications and other information received from the public, press, radio, magazines, television, and other media.
The Office of Information answered some of these requests and channeled others to the Department’s offices and bureaus.
More than 500 press releases were issued, covering the issuance of statistical data by the bureaus, summarizing reports, and announcing departmental actions. In addition, the office issued shorter releases prepared weekly for a request list of more than 800 weekly, semimonthly, and monthly labor papers and journals.
The Labor Information Bulletin, a monthly publication summarizing news developments on governmental activities affecting labor and manpower in industry, was edited and issued by the Office of Information.
The Office aided the bureaus in planning, issuing, and distributing releases, and mimeographed and printed bulletins. It cleared all issuances of departmental and bureau information for public distribution, and advised, assisted, and planned departmental exhibits for conventions of labor and other groups.
THE LIBRARY
In order that the Department of Labor Library may become increasingly more effective, not only in building its valuable historical collection, but also in so serving the present seekers of information that their contributions may be of greater value, it has during the year 1948-49 sought to modernize its methods and to rearrange its collections so as to facilitate their use. With this in mind, considerable emphasis has been placed on reorganization both of staff and of material. This process is still in the early stages, although a great deal of the planning has been done. Reorganization of the technical processes and rearrangement of the stacks are under way; the transfer to other libraries of no longer needed duplicates of periodicals, documents, and trade-union publications has been begun; a more adequate charging system has been installed; and the staff, although still inadequate in size, has been enlarged.
With the increase of interest throughout the world in labor and industrial relations problems, many universities have established centers for training
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future workers in this field. The Library of the Labor Department has helped, both in making available to professors and students material from its collection and in supplying to them from its stores of duplicates, publications which in many instances they would find it impossible to acquire elsewhere.
As in other years, one of the major functions of the Library has been to provide information or sources of information needed by Department members for research. More than 18,000 questions were answered during the year, over 3,500 of which required considerable research. About 64 percent of the latter group were asked by members of the Department, 12 percent by employees of other Federal agencies, and 24 percent by persons outside the Government. The questions included a request for the statistics of French trade-union membership since 1930; the total number of workers in the United States covered by collective-bargaining contracts; immigration laws and statistics for Argentina, Brazil, and Chile; and price trends in Germany, 1775-1825.
Numerous lists of selected references were compiled by special request on such subjects as management and labor prerogatives, employee benefits, incentive wage plans, employment prospects for nurses, collective bargaining in the bituminous coal industry, cost-of-living wage adjustments, the shortened workweek, and sabotage.
During the year, 15,956 books and 28,337 periodicals were charged to readers, an increase of 8,848 over last year. Of the books circulated, 14,297 were loaned to members of the Department (including 735 borrowed from other libraries) and 1,659 were loaned to other libraries. The latter figure is an increase of nearly 125 percent, an evidence of the better service made possible by the small increase in staff. It has resulted in a much better cooperative relationship with other Government libraries, in which the resources of each library in the Federal Government supplements the holdings of every other library, to better serve all agencies.
The Library served 2,077 persons outside the Department, most of whom requested assistance from the reference librarians. Of these, 443 were from other Federal agencies, 17 from State governments, 100 from tradeunions, and 609 from educational institutions.
The Library received 4,079 different periodicals. Three hundred and forty-five new periodicals were checked in. Of these, 133 were journals from 39 foreign countries, 50 were from Government agencies, 20 were from trade-unions, and 63 were on general labor and economic subjects. The Library is currently receiving periodicals from 67 foreign countries.
Thirteen thousand three hundred books and other publications were received for cataloging. Of this number, the staff fully cataloged 8,223 items (3,057 monographs and 4,354 continuations) thereby adding them to the permanent collection. Of those fully cataloged, 2,041 were new
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titles which also required classification. Another 903 items were given temporary cataloging. In addition, 812 volumes of periodicals were cataloged. The Library cooperated with the Library of Congress by cataloging 155 items, for which cards were printed for sale to other libraries. These items comprised new publications of the Department of Labor and the International Labor Organization as well as certain other books and documents dealing with labor problems. In addition, 894 analytics were made for articles within other publications in order to record material that might otherwise escape the attention of those seeking the most recent information on a subject. There were 11,606 new cards filed into the public catalog.
Two valuable collections were presented to the Library during the fiscal year. The first comprised books, pamphlets, manuscripts, magazines, reports, trade-union constitutions, and clippings which had formed a portion of the library of Russell Sage Foundation’s Division of Industrial Studies. It was donated to the Department by the Foundation. The second consisted of the library and files of the late Otto S. Beyer. His books and publications had been collected over a period of many years in connection with his life-long study and work in the field of union-management cooperation. This gift was made by his widow, Mrs. Clara M. Beyer.
The librarian collaborated with the librarian of the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation in the publication, for the President’s Committee on National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week, of ‘ ‘Employment of the Physically Handicapped: Selected References.” This list was widely distributed during NEPH Week to libraries throughout the country.
PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION
Noteworthy during the year were the virtual completion of the veterans’ promotional program initiated by General Order No. 23 of the Secretary of Labor, dated November 25, 1946, and the increasing interest in the employee suggestion system.
The veterans’ promotional program of the Department was seriously delayed by the budget slashes of 1948. However, by the end of the fiscal year 1949, 94 percent of the veterans who had been determined by the Department’s Veterans’ Affairs Committee to have lost opportunity for promotion because of military service had reached the level they would have reached had they not gone into the armed services.
The campaign to arouse employee interest in suggestions for increased economy and efficiency proved successful. In December 1948, for example, more suggestions were received from employees than had been received during the entire previous fiscal year. Seventeen awards were made to employees, as compared with five awards during fiscal 1948.
861326—50---3
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Under the decentralized examining program of the Civil Service Commission, many examinations are conducted by the Boards of Examiners and Committees of Expert Examiners. These examiners are officers and employees of the departments concerned and are experts in the field in which the examinations are held. In the latter part of fiscal 1948 and early in fiscal 1949, several committees and boards were established in the Department of Labor to conduct examinations for high-level economist and administrative positions throughout the Department, for technical positions in the Bureau of Apprenticeship and for entrance-level investigator positions in the field service of the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions. The detailed examination plans were developed, announcements prepared and issued, and thousands of applications received. At the close of the year, all examinations had been held except those for wage-hour investigators, which are to be held throughout the country in the first quarter of the fiscal year 1950.
A marked increase in the number of persons calling to file general applications for employment was noted also.
The Department of Labor Loyalty Board, appointed by the Secretary under Executive Order 9835 during the previous fiscal year, completed the great bulk of its adjudication of cases during the fiscal year 1949. Staff services to this board, whose chairman is the Director of Personnel, were provided by the Office of Personnel Administration.
While the veterans’ placement program, employee suggestion system, and examining and loyalty programs are examples of major individual programs of the year, the day-to-day job of personnel administration, involving administration of such responsibilities as classification, recruitment, promotion, efficiency ratings, placement, and employee relations, represent the continuing and basic functions of the office.
Under the staffing standards issued by the Bureau of the Budget, a sizable reduction in personnel staff was made necessary. After thorough study and consideration, it was decided that most effective operations with the limited staff available required that separate bureau personnel offices be merged at the departmental level, and personnel administration be carried out through only one office instead of through the separate bureau offices previously existing. Detailed plans and procedures were developed during the last quarter of the fiscal year and were placed into effect the beginning of the new year.
OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR
The Solicitor of Labor is legal adviser to the Secretary and other officials of the Department, and to all the bureaus and divisions in Washington and the field. He is in charge of all the legal proceedings, and of the formulation of regulations, rulings, and interpretations instituted and pro-
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR 31 mulgated under the statutes that are administered and enforced by the Department.
By various general orders of the Secretary delegating certain specified powers, the Solicitor is additionally responsible for the administrative functions established by the Copeland Act, the Eight-Hour Law, and the Federal Tort Claims Act. Further, in joint authorization with the Assistant Secretary so assigned, the Solicitor has been delegated by the Secretary to perform the statutory duties assigned under the Davis-Bacon Act, the National Housing Act, the Federal Airport Act, the Hospital Survey and Construction Act, and the Tennessee Valley Authority Act. He also serves as the legal member of the Department’s Committee on Employee Investigations and of the Veterans’ Reemployment Rights Committee.
In addition to the Associate Solicitor, who participates in policy and administrative matters, the Solicitor Is aided by five Assistant Solicitors guiding the following organizational divisions: Legislation, Bureau Service and Trial Examining; Trial Litigation; Appellate Litigation; Interpretations and Administrative Services; and Wage Determination and Veterans’ Reemployment Rights.
Legislation, Bureau Service and Trial Examining Division
The fiscal year 1949 witnessed an exceptional number of legislative matters of especial interest to the wage earners of this country. As a consequence, the Legislation and Bureau Service Branch of the Legislation, Bureau Service and Trial Examining Division of the Solicitor’s Office was called upon to prepare an unusually large number of advisory opinions and reports analyzing the scope and legal effects of a variety of legislative proposals.
The division assisted in the preparation of official comments requested of the Secretary by various congressional committees and the Bureau of the Budget, and in the preparation of statements and testimony submitted by the Secretary and other Department officials at a considerable number of congressional committee hearings. For example, the Secretary and the Administrator of the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions testified before committees of both the Senate and House of Representatives on legislation to increase the minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act and to amend the act in other particulars. The Secretary also testified before committees of both the Senate and House on measures to amend the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, and before the House Ways and Means Committee on proposals to amend the Social Security Act of 1935, as amended.
Attorneys in the division, upon request, assisted members of congressional committees engaged in preliminary consideration of various bills and, upon occasion, furnished requested assistance to Members of the Congress generally on labor matters pending before that body. A detailed
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account of such legislative services is given in the section of this report entitled “Legislation.”
The Legislation and Bureau Service Division furnished legal advice to several bureaus in the Department of Labor in connection with their specific activities and programs, many of them concerned with the interpretation of State and Federal laws on labor relations, labor standards, and working conditions. Assistance of the division was also frequently requested by various Federal and State agencies in drafting statutory and other material toward effecting coordinative practices and other local labor legislation.
The Solicitor furnished the Secretary with a number of advisory opinions prepared with the assistance of attorneys in the division concerning the legal effects of various provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947- By virtue of title I of that act, amending sections 9 (f) and (g) of the National Labor Relations Act, unions are required to file organizational and financial statements with the Department of Labor, and attorneys in the division assisted in dealing with the problems in connection with the administration of these provisions by the Bureau of Labor Standards. Attorneys in the division also assisted the Secretary in the preparation of recommendations respecting Executive action on enrolled bills and proposed Executive orders.
The division continued to prepare monthly summaries of leading court decisions and newly enacted legislation of interest to labor for publication by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Monthly Labor Review. It also prepared an article for the 1948 edition of the United Nations Yearbook on Human Rights.
Further, the division passed upon claims involving the Department, including claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and drafted and reviewed proposed administrative orders and contracts on behalf of the Department and its bureaus. It supervised the preparation of regulations, orders, and interpretative statements required to be published in the Federal Register and arranged for the transmission of all such documents to the Federal Register for publication.
During the fiscal year of 1949, the division prepared 170 reports and legal analyses of bills submitted to the Secretary of Labor for his views by the Bureau of the Budget and congressional committees, as compared with 106 such items last year. One hundred and nine legal opinions, analyses, memoranda, and orders were written for the Secretary, bureau chiefs, and other officials. Information was prepared in answer to 95 requests for data or material in connection with legislative and other matters, and 50 items were processed for publication in the Federal Register. Fourteen articles were prepared for the Monthly Labor Review, and 74 reports on the International Labor Organization were written for the Department’s Office of International Labor Affairs. The division also handled 1,225 items
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involving miscellaneous correspondence and requests for information. The most pronounced increase in the volume of work of this division has been in the number of completed drafts of bills and amendments on which assistance was requested. During fiscal 1949 work was completed on 113 bills and amendments, constituting over times the previous year’s volume. The division rendered extensive assistance in the drafting of the bill entitled “National Labor Relations Act of 1949,” which proposed to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act and to re-enact the original Wagner Act. An amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was also drafted, which provided an increase in the minimum-wage rate and extension of the provisions of the act to many groups not covered at the present.
The division also gave its aid and counsel in the preparation of a measure to provide grants-in-aid to State labor departments in maintaining safe and proper working conditions in industry; of legislation to make the provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act applicable to public housing financed by the Federal Government, of a bill to protect Americans working outside the country under Government contracts; and other important legislation concerning the Department of Labor.
Hearing examiners are segregated from other Department attorneys in the unit known as the Trial Examining Branch of the Legislation, Bureau Service and Trial Examining Division and function independently. They also preside over other hearings authorized to be conducted by the Secretary, or by bureaus, offices, and other agencies in the Department.
In the field of international labor, the Solicitor is rendering a rapidly expanding volume of legal services necessitated by the varied and complex activities of the Department in international matters. These services consist of opinions, memoranda, studies and research in connection with conventions (proposed treaties), recommendations, and resolutions of the International Labor Organization; the preparation of reports, and review of reports for legal sufficiency, for which the Department is responsible by reason of United States membership in this organization; the furnishing of advice in formulating the position which this Government should take on proposed or adopted ILO conventions and other formal matters in this field; the rendering of legal advice and assistance to the Department in the response bility imposed upon it to coordinate the views, interests, and activities in the international labor field; and the supplying of legal specialists from the Solicitor’s staff to assist United States delegations in attendance at international conferences upon labor matters.
Walsh-Healey Proceedings
The Public Contracts Act (act of June 30, 1936, 49 Stat. 2036, 41 U. S. C. 35~45), known as the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act, provides that certain basic standards be maintained by employers furnishing certain kinds
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of supplies and materials under Government contracts exceeding $10,000 These standards pertain to minimum wages, overtime compensation, non employment of child and convict labor, and observance of certain health and safety requirements. Stipulations incorporating these Walsh-Healey requirements must be included in all appropriate Government contracts.
Enforcement is entrusted to the Secretary of Labor, who is authorized to prescribe necessary rules and regulations in the administration of the act, to make investigations, and to hold hearings on alleged violations. Findings of fact, after notice and hearing, are conclusive upon all agencies of the United States, and, if supported by the preponderance of the evidence, in any United States court.
Violation of the Walsh-Healey contractual provisions subjects the contractor to liquidated damages in the sum of $10 per day for each knowing infringement of the child- and convict-labor prohibitions, and to a sum equal to the amount of underpayments for violation of the minimum-wage and overtime requirements. Any sums so due the United States may be withheld from any moneys owing the contractor or, if still unpaid after final administrative decision, be recovered in suits brought by the Attorney General of the United States. Damages on account of child-labor violations are paid into the United States Treasury. Sums recovered or withheld because of wage underpayments are held in a special deposit account subject to payment, on order of the Secretary of Labor, directly to the employees involved. The act provides that unless the Secretary recommends otherwise, violators are ineligible to receive Government contracts for 3 years from the date on which they are found to have violated the act, and the Comptroller General is directed to circulate a list of such contractors among all Federal contracting agencies.
Walsh-Healey proceedings are presided over by hearing examiners of the Division of Legislation and Bureau Service, designated in each case by the Secretary. Decisions of the examiners are final unless a review is sought of the Administrator of the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions. On review, the Administrator may enter a final decision on the merits of the case and the damages due. He may also make his own recommendation to the Secretary concerning exemption of the contractor from the ineligible-list penalty. Appeals to the Secretary are confined solely to requests for relief from this sanction, and may be filed after the hearing examiner s decision or the Administrator’s review, as the case may be.
The Solicitor advises and assists the Secretary in determining whether to apply the ineligible-list sanction, and attorneys of his office handle all legal work in the administration of the act. Attorneys in the Trial Litigation Division and regional offices prepare and try all cases under the jurisdiction of the Department, and attorneys in the Interpretations and Administrative
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Services Division advise and assist the Administrator in preparing his review decisions.
Litigation
The Trial Litigation Division is responsible for enforcement in the United States District Courts of the Fair Labor Standards Act and for the litigation in administrative proceedings under the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act. The Appellate Litigation Division handles appeals to the United States Courts of Appeals and to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Acceleration and broadening of enforcement actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act was initiated in the fiscal year 1945, with each year thereafter showing a substantial increase in enforcement litigation. The total number of actions instituted during the fiscal year 1949 was 519. These included 361 civil actions comprising 290 contested injunction suits and 71 consent-decree matters, 26 contempt proceedings, 18 special proceedings, 5 defensive suits, and 3 subpena enforcement actions. A total of 94 criminal cases were instituted.
Two hundred and forty-seven civil enforcement actions were closed during the year, with the Department prevailing in approximately 97 percent of the cases. Ninety-two criminal cases were closed during the year, resulting in 82 convictions and 3 acquittals. Seven cases were nol-prossed.
Twelve administrative enforcement proceedings were instituted this fiscal year under the Walsh-Healey Act, and 32 proceedings were completed. Thirty-seven administrative hearings were held, and 24 petitions for review by the Administrator and the Secretary of Labor were handled in 17 cases.
During the fiscal year 1949, 43 briefs were filed in appellate proceedings, of which 10 were in the United States Supreme Court, 30 in the Federal circuit courts of appeals, and 2 in State supreme courts. During the October 1948 term, the Supreme Court handed down five decisions involving provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Department’s position was sustained in the two cases in which it participated. During the fiscal year, there were 24 decisions of the circuit courts of appeals in cases in which the Solicitor’s office participated, in 14 of which the Department’s views were sustained. The favorable decisions concerned a wide variety of issues. The adverse ones related for the most part to the status of certain employees working under cost-plus-fixed-fee contracts between their employers and the Government, and involved issues which the Supreme Court will probably determine in the October term of court.
In addition to the Bay Ridge cast, infra, the Supreme Court handed down important rulings concerning the scope and enforcement of injunctions issued by the courts to compel compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act, the interpretation of the exemption applicable to employees employed in
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“agriculture,” and the applicability of the act to military bases leased from other countries. The status of employees employed by cost-plus contractors was again before the Court, and it also ruled on the filing of affidavits of poverty in employee actions brought on behalf of poor persons. A number of lower-court rulings on the act were left in effect when the Supreme Court denied review.
The decision in ALCW v. Jacksonville Paper Co. is highly significant in the enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act since it not only upheld the validity of a broad injunction decree where an employer has violated the act but also upheld the authority of the Administrator to seek restitution of wages in a civil contempt proceeding. The Court held:
1.	Where an employer has violated the minimum-wage, overtime, and record-keeping provisions of the act, the lower court has the power to issue a general injunction restraining the employer from violating any of those statutory provisions. In other words, the court need not limit the injunction to the specific practices by which the employer had previously violated the act.
2.	Where the employer fails to comply with the act after an injunction has been issued, the court should adjudge him in contempt when the Administrator of the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions brings civil contempt proceedings. This is true regardless of whether the employer’s practices which violated the act are precisely the same illegal practices as were originally committed by the employer. The act does not permit “experimentation with disobedience of the law.”
3.	* ‘Since the purpose [of the Administrator’s civil contempt proceedings] is remedial, it matters not with what intent the defendant did the prohibited act.” Therefore the “absence of willfulness does not relieve from civil contempt.”
4.	Not only should the employer be adjudged in contempt for his violations, but the court should grant the remedial relief needed “to enforce compliance” with the injunction and “to compensate for losses or damages sustained by reason of noncompliance.” The Supreme Court indicated in its opinion that an order compelling the employer to pay restitution of back wages is “the most effective sanction for its decree,” and that unless restitution is ordered “a premium has been placed on violations.”
The significance of the Jacksonville Paper decision, with respect to the collection of back wages by the Administrator in injunction and contempt proceedings, has already been commented upon by a circuit court of appeals. In McComb v. Crane, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit pointed out that it previously thought “it was not the intent of Congress that the Administrator should by injunction and civil contempt proceedings collect deficiencies in wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act, but that the Supreme Court has now held otherwise’ ’ in the Jacksonville Paper case.
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Inasmuch as the United States occupies a number of military and naval bases leased from other countries, the decision of the Supreme Court in Vermilya-Brown Co. v. Connell is of considerable importance. The Court there held that the coverage of the act extends to land in Bermuda which has been leased by the British Government to the United States as a military base. While the Court recognized that such land remains under the sovereignty of Great Britain, it concluded that the base was a “possession” of the United States within the meaning of the act. The Court stated that in view of the broad scope which the Fair Labor Standards Act was intended to have, “it seems reasonable to interpret its provisions to have force where the Nation has sole power, rather than to limit the coverage to [this country’s] sovereignty.”
On the other hand, in Foley Brothers v. Filar do, The Federal Eight-Hour Law was held to be inapplicable to employees working on public works of the United States in foreign countries. The Supreme Court, in distinguishing the Fair Labor Standards Act from the Eight-Hour Law, pointed out that the former statute expressly applies to “possessions” of the United States, whereas there is no language in the Eight-Hour Law “that gives any indication of a congressional purpose to extend its coverage beyond places over which the United States has sovereignty or has some measure of legislative control.”
In Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co. v. McComb, the Supreme Court for the first time construed the exemption for agriculture contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act. It held that field employees and a bookkeeper of a mutual ditch company supplying water to local farmers were engaged in an occupation necessary to the production of crops for interstate commerce carried on by the farmers, so as to come within the general coverage of the act. Further, the fact that they engaged in an occupation necessary to agricultural production did not require the conclusion that they were engaged in agriculture so as to be within the exemption for “employees employed in agriculture.” The Court pointed out that the act defines “agriculture” as including farming operations, and also operations performed by “a farmer” or “on a farm” as an incident to or in conjunction with farming operations. The ditch company, however, performed no farming operations, and while its activities were incidental to farming, they were not conducted “on a farm” nor were they performed “by a farmer.” In concluding that the mutual ditch company is not a farmer, the Court pointed to the fact it is an organization which has an identity separate from that of its farmer members, and upheld the view of the Administrator that the agriculture exemption does not apply to farmers’ cooperative associations.
In Adkins v. du Pont de Nemours & Co., the Supreme Court held that attorneys bringing actions on behalf of poor persons to recover wages due
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under the act need not themselves file affidavits of poverty in order to prosecute their causes without prepayment of costs.
One of the important problems facing the Supreme Court and the circuit courts under the Fair Labor Standards Act involves its application to employees working for employers who have contracted with the Government on a cost-plus basis, to produce munitions for war purposes. The contention has been made by the contractors sued in these cases that such workers are employees of the United States so as to be excluded from the scope of the act, and that they do not produce goods for commerce within the act’s coverage. In Murphey v. Reed, the Supreme Court held that the record was too meager to permit decision of these questions on the merits, and, without deciding any of the cost-plus issues involved there, it remanded the case to the district court for amplification of the record. Those causes of action in the Murphey case “solely involving construction work’’ were dismissed. In Creel v. Lone Star Defense Corp, and in Aaron v. Ford, Bacon & Davis, which also involved production of munitions by a cost-plus contractor, the Court granted a petition for certiorari, indicating that an authoritative decision on the cost-plus questions may be expected from the Court during the October 1949 term.
In the Aaron case, as well as in three other cases, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reached the novel conclusion that the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act are mutually exclusive, and for that reason that the Fair Labor Standards Act does not apply to employees producing munitions under a cost-plus contract which is subject to the Walsh-Healey Act. As indicated above, the Supreme Court has already decided to review the Aaron decision, and a petition for certiorari has also been filed in Powell v. United States Cartridge Corp., another of the eighth circuit decisions. Thus it appears likely that during the October term of the Supreme Court an authoritative ruling will be made in regard to the relationship between the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Walsh-Healey Act, as well as on the applicability of the Fair Labor Standards Act to employees of cost-plus contractors.
In two other cost-plus cases arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act, two circuit courts reached opposing results. In Joshua Hendy Corp. v. Mills, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that employees manufacturing troop transport and cargo vessels under a cost-plus contract were engaged in the production of goods for commerce within the coverage of the act. On the other hand, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held in Selby v. J. A. Jones Construction Co. that production of the atomic bomb was not production of goods for commerce under the act, and that employees of cost-plus contractors performing activities necessary to such production were employees of the United States.
In a decision pertaining to coverage under the Fair Labor Standards
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Act, employees working in a warehouse operated in connection with a chain of retail stores were held in McComb v. Wyandotte Furniture Co. (C. A. 8) to be engaged in commerce. The court stated that inasmuch as the goods received at the warehouse from outside the State were destined at time of shipment to be stock for the retail stores, they did not come to rest at the warehouse.
Several decisions dealt with interpretation of exemptions. Three involved the section 13 (a) (2) “retail” exemption. In Fred Wolferman, Inc. v. Gustajson (C. A. 8) employees working in a candy kitchen, which was operated by their employer in conjunction with several retail food stores, were held to be nonexempt. The court stated that where an establishment “engaged in the production of market goods, it steps outside the institutional character and economic function, for which section 13 (a) (2) would seem to have been designed to provide exemption.” Similarly, in Grant v. Bergdorf & Goodman Co. (C. A. 2), it was held: “Where a manufacturing department is on the same premises as a retail establishment where its products are sold, only the employees engaged in the retail department are exempt.” In McComb v. Wyandotte Furniture Co. (C. A. 8), a warehouse operated in conjunction with a chain of retail furniture stores was held not to be a “retail establishment.” The court indicated that the question was not affected by the fact that the warehouse was physically connected with one of the retail stores.
In McComb v. Robert W. Hunt Co. (C. A. 7), the section 13 (a) (1) “ administrative” exemption was held inapplicable to inspectors employed by a company which furnished an engineering and testing service to its clients. The court held in McComb v. Consolidated Fisheries (C. A. 3) that the section 13 (a) (5) “seafood” exemption applies not only to employees actually processing fish but also to a cook, an office employee, a watchman, and maintenance employees working at a fish processing plant. In McComb v. Southern Bureau (C. A. 4), employees of a weighing and inspection bureau maintained jointly by various railroad companies were held to be excluded from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act by the section 13 (b) (2) “railroad” exemption.
The Solicitor’s position that issues of coverage and exemption under the act should be decided only after a full trial was again sustained in Tip ton v. Be ar I Sprott (C. A. 9) and McComb v. Bramhall Co. (C. A. 8).
Two decisions involved interpretation of Section 9 of the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, which provides that under certain conditions an employer has a “good faith” defense against actions brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Walsh-Healey Act, and the Davis-Bacon Act. In McComb v. Robert W. Hunt Co. (C. A. 7), it was held that section 9, which relieves an employer from “liability or punishment” under those acts, has no application to an injunction action brought by the Administrator
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of the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions. Inasmuch as an injunction proceeding is brought to enjoin future violations, such an action is not one to impose any “liability or punishment.” In Fred Wolf-erman, Inc. v. Gustaps on (C. A. 3), an employee suit brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the employee claimed a “good faith” defense, based on the fact that the Administrator had previously dismissed his appeal from an adverse decision of a district court in an action brought by him to enjoin the employer from violating the act. The circuit court held that the Administrator’s dismissal of his appeal in the previous action did not constitute an “administrative regulation, order, ruling, approval, or interpretation, * * * practice or enforcement policy” within the language of section 9, and therefore the employer’s reliance on the dismissal did not give him a defense under that section. The court stated that an “administrative regulation, etc.” refers “only to some formalized expression by the Administrator.”
Two other circuit court cases involved section 2 of the Portal Act, which bars employee claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act for activities performed prior to May 14, 1947, if the activities were not compensable by either “an express provision” of the employment contract or by custom or practice at the place of employment. In Joshua Hendy Corp. v. Mills (C. A. 9) and Frank v. Wilson & Co. (C. A. 7), the courts were called upon to interpret the effect of section 2 upon a clause commonly appearing in union contracts, to the effect that hourly rated employees shall be paid overtime compensation for all time worked in excess of the established shift hours. In the Joshua Hendy case, the employee was regularly required to work during the lunch period, which was outside the scheduled shift, and in the Wilson & Co. case, the employees were regularly required to report for work 5 minutes before the beginning of the regular shift. In neither case did the employees receive any compensation for the work performed during the extra periods. It was in held both cases that the activities thus performed were “compensable” under an “express” provision of the contract and therefore were not barred by section 2 of the Portal Act. In the Wilson & Co. case, however, the employees were not permitted to recover, because the court regarded the 5-minute periods as de minimis.
The Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act was the subject of two appellate-court decisions. Reynolds v. Morse (C. A. D. C.) involved the question whether a contractor against whom administrative proceedings had been brought under the Walsh-Healey Act could have the legal issues determined in a suit for declaratory judgment brought against officials of the Labor Department. The court held that the issues could not be determined in that manner. In United States v. Harp (C. A. 10), the court concluded that the administrative findings were supported by a preponderance of the evidence and that the findings were therefore conclusive on the courts in
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an action brought under the Walsh-Healey Act to collect the liquidated damages found due in such proceedings.
Division of Interpretations and Administrative Services
Interpretations Branch.—The major developments in the field of legal interpretations during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1949, were (1) the establishment of the general legal position of the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions concerning the meaning and effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in the so-called “overtime on overtime’’ case in the longshore industry, Bay Ridge Operating Co. v. Aaron (331 U. S. 446), and the application of these general principles to approximately 1,000 contract clauses submitted by employers, unions, and employees for opinion as to the status of various premium payments provided therein for work at night, week ends, holidays, or other special periods; (2) assistance to the Legislation and Bureau Service Branch in analysis and explanation of the legal effect of proposed amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act provided in H. R. 3190, S. 653, H. R. 858, and other bills introduced in the Eighty-first Congress; and (3) the increase in the number of problems arising under the Davis-Bacon Act, the Copeland Act, and the Federal Eight-Hour Law. In addition to these special projects, the Interpretations Branch carried out its regular duty of rendering interpretations of the statutes administered by the Department, including advising the Administrator of the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions and his staff on legal problems arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act and Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act. During the year, it continued to furnish opinions to Members of Congress, trade associations, labor organizations, individual employers and employees, the various bureaus, divisions, and regional offices of the Department, and other Government agencies, concerning those statutes, as well as the Copeland Anti-Kickback Act, the Federal Eight-Hour Law, and the Davis-Bacon Act, which govern practices on Federal construction and repair projects.
The Supreme Court in the Bay Ridge case, which involved the longshore industry, determined that premiums paid for work at night and on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays were not true overtime premiums since they were paid without regard to the number of hours or days previously worked by the employee in the day or workweek. The Administrator of the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions, in order to conform his interpretations to this decision, revised his position on the computation of overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act for premium payments paid for work on Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays. The decision also caused many hundreds of employers and employee groups to reexamine their contracts and to besiege the Administrator by letter, telephone, telegram, and personal calls for clarification of the status of their wage contracts or practices.
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The legal positions were worked out on the basis of the Supreme Court decision and announced in a series of releases, particularly PR-161, which had the effect of reassuring industry generally that no major revisions were required in their pay practices. The legal position adopted was based on the principle that premium payments did constitute true overtime when it could be demonstrated that these payments were made because the employee worked in excess of a bona fide daily or weekly standard.
After developing these general principles, the Interpretations Branch and the Administrator’s office began to apply them to the numerous contract clauses and fact situations submitted to them for opinion by employers, employees, and their respective trade and labor organizations. All types of clauses and agreements dealing with premiums for work outside of certain specified basic hours, before and after regular shifts, on days off, Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, etc., were given interpretation as to their overtime or nonovertime status under the Bay Ridge decision. However, there were many hundreds of unique situations presented which created an extraordinarily heavy work load for the Interpretations Branch.
The treatment of “show up” and “call back” pay in computing overtime compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act was also made uniform under a policy statement issued June 8, 1949 (releases PR-187, D-219). The effect of this policy is to regard only payment for hours actually worked in computing overtime pay for employees receiving “show up” or “call back” pay, and to permit employers to take credit for true overtime payments made for such hours.
In addition to H. R. 858, which dealt only with the so-called “overtime on overtime” problem under the Fair Labor Standards Act, bills were introduced in Congress, pursuant to the President’s program, to increase the act’s minimum-wage rate, expand its coverage, and in other ways increase the efficacy of the Fair Labor Standards Act as an instrument of national policy. Among such general amendments were H. R. 2033, H. R. 3190, and H. R. 5856 (Lesinski), and S. 653 (Thomas of Utah). The Interpretations Branch assisted the Legislation and Bureau Service Branch in the preparation of analyses and explanations of these and other bills, and of their probable legal effect in the event they were enacted. Memoranda were prepared at the request of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare and the House Committee on Education and Labor and their members, as well as for the interested officials of the Department. In addition, this branch contributed technical interpretative assistance in the preparation and presentation of testimony before House and Senate committees pertaining to wage and hour legislation.
The number and variety of inquiries under the Davis-Bacon Act, the Copeland Act, and the Federal Eight-Hour Law increased substantially last year. This accelerated program grew out of the freeing of an extensive
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR 43 backlog of public building, repair, and alteration, which had accumulated during the war. In addition, various acts of Congress authorized construction of hospitals, airports, and other public buildings.
Answers were given in several novel situations as to the meaning of the term “site of work’’ as used in the Davis-Bacon Act. For example, in one case it was determined that a concrete pipe-making facility, which was located on the site of an aqueduct project and was operated by a contractor to supply himself and other contractors with pipe which they were laying at other points on the aqueduct, located from 6 to 25 miles away, was subject to the prevailing minimum-wage determination made under the act for the aqueduct project. Other significant interpretations were also rendered concerning the extent of the Davis-Bacon Act’s application to federally aided projects, to unadvertised contracts, to projects under the Hospital Survey and Construction Act, and to subcontractors who, on the site of the construction, furnish board and lodgings exclusively to the employees of the contractor engaged in covered construction work.
The Interpretations Branch also furnished interpretative’assistance in the revision of certain regulations of the Secretary issued under the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act.
Administrative Services Branch.—Three major projects high lighted the work of the Administrative Services Branch in fiscal 1949. These were (1) the reconsideration and revision of minimum-wage determinations issued under the Public Contracts Act for various industries; (2) analyzing and editorially revising, in preparation for publication of the 1949 edition of the Cod^ of Federal Regulations, the entire body of the rules and regulations issued by the Department and its bureaus; and (3) industry-committee proceedings under the Fair Labor Standards Act for all industries in the Virgin Islands.
In the period immediately following the passage of the Public Contracts Act in 1936, minimum-wage determinations were made, in accordance with the provisions of the act, for all major industries the products of which were normally purchased by the United States Government. Determinations covering approximately 60 industries were issued in the 5 or 6 years immediately succeeding the passage of the act. Changing economic conditions in the intervening period and the general advance in wages in the postwar period have raised the level of prevailing wages in most industries to a point much higher than the minima fixed in industry determinations. It therefore has become necessary to reconsider the determinations to bring them into line with prevailing conditions. Reconsideration of the minimum-wage determination for an industry will involve preliminary discussion with industry representatives, a hearing at which data is received with respect to wage conditions in the industry, and the preparation for publication of a determination for the industry. During the fiscal year, wage
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determination proceedings were undertaken in the iron and steel, textile, soap, glass, cotton garments, woolen and worsted, uniform and clothing, and hat and cap industries. The following chart shows the minimum wages previously determined for each of the listed industries and the wages found to be prevailing upon reconsideration of the industry wage determination:
Industry	Previous determination	Current determination
Iron and steel 		Cents 45 to 62 40	f	$1.08/ I to $1.23 .87
Textile 			
Soap 		0 42/	
G1 ass 			.83/ 1.05
Woolen and worsted			
Uniform and clothing: Heavy outerwear		40	.85
Woolen trousers		40	.75
Hat and cap		67/	.85
1 Not completed.
All regulations issued by the Department and its bureaus are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations under appropriate titles. The first edition of the code was issued in 1938; annual supplements to the 1938 edition have been issued through 1947. The 1949 edition will contain a codification of the Department rules and regulations, general and permanent in nature, duly promulgated on or before December 31, 1948, and effective as to facts arising on or after January 1, 1949.
In preparation for the 1949 edition of the code, it was necessary to review all regulations, wage orders, minimum-wage determinations, organization statements, enforcement policies, etc., which had been issued by the Department from 1938 to the present. This review was necessary in order to eliminate all material not having prospective effect as of January 1, 1949, and to make such editorial changes or corrections as might be needed in all material to be codified in the new edition of the code. The project was carried out by the Administrative Services Branch with the cooperation of the various bureaus of the Department.
During fiscal 1949 an industry committee was appointed to consider wage rates in all industries in the Virgin Islands and to recommend to the Administrator appropriate minimum-wage rates for such industries compatible with the criteria set forth in the Fair Labor Standards Act. Representatives of the Solicitor’s Office participated in the hearings held by the committee and advised the committee on various matters which arose both during the hearing and in preparation of the committee report and recommendations. After the committee made its recommendations to the Administrator, a notice was published in the Federal Register that the Administrator proposed to adopt the committee’s recommendations, and
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that a hearing would be held before the Administrator at which time interested persons could present data, views, or arguments relative to the proposed rates. Upon completion of such hearing, wage orders for the various industries in the Virgin Islands will be issued.
The work, begun in fiscal 1948, of redefining the terms “executive, administrative, professional,” etc., as used in section 13 (a) (1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, continued through fiscal 1949. This work was virtually completed as of the end of the fiscal year.
Two changes in the Public Contracts Act regulations were adopted during the fiscal year. The first was a modification of the section relating to overtime compensation in order to make it conform to the decision of the Supreme Court in the so-called longshoremen’s cases. The second was a new provision for the protection of employers who have on file age certificates issued pursuant to child-labor regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
One of the main functions of the Administrative Services Branch is to review the decisions of the hearing examiners in proceedings under section 5 of the Public Contracts Act, and to prepare a proposed decision for consideration by the Administrator of the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions. Review of the examiner’s decision is had only where the parties to the proceeding petition for such review. In the absence of a petition for review, the examiner’s decision, in accordance with the Rules of Practice, becomes final. When the parties petition for review of the decision of the examiner, the Administrator issues a decision which is final on all issues raised in the proceeding with the exception of the ineligible-list sanction provided by section 3 of the act. The Rules of Practice reserve to the Secretary the authority to make final decision upon the ineligible-list question. In fiscal year 1949 the volume of work of reviewing examiners’ decisions remained at about the level of fiscal 1948.
The Administrative Services Branch handles all requests for access to records of the Department and its bureaus. Attempts by parties to lawsuits to invoke the good-faith defenses of the Portal-to-Portal Act resulted in a large number of requests for certified copies of rulings and interpretations of the Administrator under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and other documents and records in Department files. The Administrative Services Branch also prepared certified copies of records of a large number of Public Contracts Act proceedings for use in judicial enforcement of administrative decisions.
All Labor Department documents prepared for publication in the Federal Register are cleared through the Administrative Services Branch for compliance with the Federal Register regulations. This branch is also responsible for publication of descriptions of Department organization and procedures required by section 3 (a) of the Administrative Procedure Act. In fiscal 1949 the branch processed complete revisions of organization 861326—50----------4
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statements of the various bureaus of the Department in preparation for publication in the 1949 edition of the United States Government Organization Manual.
Wage Determination
The Wage Determination Branch of the Wage Determination and Veterans’ Reemployment Rights Division predetermines prevailing wage rates as the minimum payable to mechanics and laborers employed on Federal construction under the Davis-Bacon Act; on federally aided construction under the Federal Airport and Hospital Survey and Construction Acts; and on federally insured housing construction under the National Housing Act. This branch also makes decisions in cases of disputed wage rates arising under the Tennessee Valley Authority Act,
During the fiscal year 1949, the work has been particularly heavy due to the increase in postwar construction, reactivation of many military installations, and the greatly increased volume of construction arising under the Hospital Survey and Construction Act, the Federal Airport Act, and the Federal Housing Act. The work load has increased steadily for the last 3 years as shown by the following table:
	1947	1948	1949
Requests for new (and review) determinations		9,093	9,771	11,179
New (and review) wage decisions issued		8, 903	10' 179	10' 914
Incoming correspondence		5,452	5' 819	6,704
Outgoing correspondence		4,974	3, 997	3, 530
Furthermore, this has been a difficult year due to the fact that collective bargaining between employers and employees has been more strained than it had been in the recent past, requiring considerable correspondence and many investigations in order to obtain information concerning prevailing wage rates.
The Federal construction program included the construction, alteration, and repair of public buildings and public works of the United States such as Federal post offices, courthouses, customhouses, office buildings, veterans’ clinics and hospitals, and hydroelectric developments, airports, atomic-energy facilities, soil conservation, and flood-control dams, and research facilities relative to agriculture and aeronautics. The program also included the construction and repair of military installations, Federal roads and highways, and aids to navigation.
Veterans’ Reemployment
Reemployment provisions of various Federal statutes give veterans the right to their former jobs, upon release from military service, and specify certain benefits they are to enjoy upon reinstatement. By the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, and related statutes, Public Law 26,
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Eightieth Congress, March 31, 1947, and the Selective Service Act of 1948, the Secretary of Labor is charged with rendering assistance to veterans in this connection. This duty has been delegated to the Bureau of Veterans’ Reemployment Rights within the Department.
The Veterans’ Reemployment Rights Branch of the Solicitor’s Office provides legal advice and assistance to the Director of the Bureau of Veterans’ Reemployment Rights. This includes the preparation of opinions on the legal merits of a veteran’s claim, and advice generally concerning negotiation and appropriate settlement of such claims. The branch also renders opinions and advice, upon request, to individual veterans, employers, and representatives of labor organizations concerned with the proper disposition of veterans’ claims under the reemployment statutes. In carrying out these functions, members of the staff participate in oral conferences, both in Washington and the field, with representatives of employers and employees in attempts to reach satisfactory settlement of veterans’ claims without recourse to court action. The success of the entire activity may be measured rather closely by the proportion of claims settled short of final court decision. Once a case reaches litigation the likelihood of amicable relations continuing between the veteran and the employer is substantially lessened.
The branch also reviews, for legal accuracy, publications and information articles such as those of veteran or employer organizations; employer or union policies concerning reinstatement of veterans when such policies are submitted with a request for review; and also occasionally, upon request of State agencies, examines existing State policies or statutes concerning reinstatement of veterans, offering suggestions as to their improvement. In carrying out these functions, it is necessary that the branch prepare and maintain a digest file of all court decisions interpreting the statutes.
For the guidance of the field representatives, volunteer committeemen, and interested employers, labor organizations, and members of the public, the branch has also prepared an Interpretative Bulletin and Legal Guide, together with a Supplement, covering general interpretations of the Department in this field; it also contains, in readily accessible form by subject, resumes of all court decisions in the field. The branch maintains close liaison with the Department of Justice as to progress of litigation and with the Civil Service Commission, to insure, so far as possible, uniformity of policies and opinions concerning reemployment activities in private industry and in government.
During the past year the branch has analyzed in detail 29 important court decisions, prepared 272 case digests, prepared for the Solicitor s approval opinions on 745 questions, and reviewed for legal accuracy 163 problems initially settled by field representatives. However, the backlog of pending questions rose from 20 to 595-
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There has been a continuing volume of inquiries concerning the veterans’ rights following his return to the job. His right to promotion, seniority on promotion, proper rate of pay, vacation pay, and protection beyond the first year of reinstatement are in the long run more important than the bare right to reinstatement. Despite nearly 400 court decisions, these questions remain unsettled. Controversy over them will become more intense if substantial unemployment causes competition for jobs. A veteran may seek his old job and his employer may believe he should not have it; or he may want a specified salary, vacation pay, place of work, promotion, work schedule, or seniority date which either the employer or union is unwilling to give him. In every one of these cases a very real and important right of the veteran is at issue and he may need assistance. General information and advice previously prepared by the branch frequently enable the field representative to adjust the claim amicably. In difficult cases the branch prepares specific opinions which, by informing the parties as to their legal obligations, form a basis for settlement. If litigation becomes necessary, the opinion supplies the United States attorney with the initial guidance enabling fuller representation of the veteran.
Many difficult questions remain unanswered and will increase the qualitative difficulty and amount of work in each case. The Selective Service Act of 1948 created a large group of new legal problems along with making a new group of draftees and volunteers eligible for reemployment rights. Reemployment assistance is a function obviously extending over the next 3 or 4 years—perhaps longer if the armed forces continue to recruit in substantial numbers and litigation continues in the hit-or-miss fashion which leaves crucial questions unsettled.
Library
Because of the enactment of new Federal labor laws during the period 1935-40, it became necessary to establish a law library directly in the Solicitor’s Office in 1940. From a beginning of only the barest basic materials, the library has been developed to a point where it is now presently equipped with approximately 10,000 lawbooks. These include the various reporter systems, legal service sets and texts, and other publications of a general legal nature, keyed to the highly specialized and vastly expanding field of labor law.
A cooperative relationship is maintained with the departmental library in connection with acquisition, exchange, and other services rendered to the bureaus of the Department. It is expected that it will be possible to further improve the law library by obtaining up-to-date specialized sets to replace those which have become obsolete due to developments in this field.
Reports of Bureaus
BUREAU OF APPRENTICESHIP
The past year found the Bureau of Apprenticeship in a position to reexamine its procedures and to make certain adjustments in its operations.
In view of the attention which was focused on national security, the Bureau gave greater attention to the training of apprentices in trades and industries which would directly support the security program. Therefore, the construction- industry no longer was given priority of attention over those trades and industries essential to the security program. Previously priority had been given to the building trades because of the acute shortage of skilled workers and the emphasis placed on the housing program.
Because apprenticeship development during the war years was virtually at a standstill, the demands from industry for technical assistance following the declaration of peace resulted in a tremendous growth in the national apprenticeship program. The impetus provided by the GI bill was also a major contributing factor in this growth. The agency staff, therefore, was forced to devote its efforts almost exclusively to development of programs. Since the pressure for establishing apprenticeship for veterans has eased, more time has been available for an appraisal of the whole apprenticeship program and an evaluation of results. Indications already are that the diverting of emphasis from development of new programs to maintenance of existing ones has had a worthwhile effect in raising the quality of apprenticeship.
In order to permit increased emphasis on apprenticeship at the national level in several major industries, the functions of those representatives of the Bureau, who are national consultants on apprenticeship to those industries, were clarified, giving them more time for promotion of apprenticeship with national employer and labor groups.
By authority of the organic act under which the Bureau of Apprenticeship functions, the Secretary of Labor has appointed national committees to advise on apprenticeship. Among such committees is the Federal
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ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR
Committee on Apprenticeship, composed of representatives of management, labor, and the United States Office of Education, which recommends over-all policy for the Bureau. The General Committee on Apprenticeship for the Construction Industry, made up of representatives of contractors and labor, advises on the promotion of apprenticeship in the building trades. In addition, advisory joint committees in several branches of the construction industry have been appointed.
In addition to assistance rendered by the staff to management and labor in the United States, the Bureau assumed responsibility for administering the Government industrial-training program for foreign nationals under the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948. It also provided technical information to representatives of foreign countries and to international organizations.
Apprenticeship programs established during the year increased 29 percent, from 39,915 in July 1948, to 51,312 in July 1949. Of this number, 4,755 programs were set up on an area-wide basis, covering an average of about 22 establishments each, and were effectuated by labor-management committees. The number of establishments participating in the national apprenticeship program was estimated at 150,000.
The number of apprentices registered with State apprenticeship agencies or the Bureau of Apprenticeship increased from 218,334 to 236,515 in the last 12-month period. It is estimated this number constitutes at least 70 percent of all apprentices employed in the United States and Territories. A table giving more detailed statistics appears on page 59.
Although the increase in apprentices shows significant progress, it is evident there is still much to be done. If all craftsmen were to be trained through apprenticeship (allowing for turn-over during training at the rate of about 25 percent), a total of 130,000 apprentices for every one million skilled workers would be in training at all times in the United States.
Textile Industry
Apprenticeship activity in the textile industry has progressed in the past months. There was evidence of an increased awareness on the part of management and labor of the need for greater efficiency of its workers.
The approach to apprenticeship in the industry has been on a regional and local level, with the hope that, as more experience is gained and as management and labor become convinced of the value of training, a national program can be developed to provide uniformity, particularly of trade classifications and work-experience schedules.
Good relationships have been established among the textile employer organizations, with the result that representatives of the Bureau of Apprenticeship have been invited to discuss apprenticeship at various meetings of the national and State manufacturers’ associations.
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Both AFL and CIO textile unions have agreed to insert clauses on apprenticeship in future bargaining agreements in those areas where the industry is organized.
Machine-Tool Industry
The National Joint Apprenticeship Committee which has been working toward the development of an apprenticeship program covering the machine-tool industry has completed the breakdown of work processes and assignment of hours of training on each basic machine tool, and the list of related training subjects and hours to be spent in instruction on each. Preliminary work has also been done toward completion of labor standards of apprenticeship.
At the recommendation of the committee, a survey is being made, with the assistance of the Bureau of Apprenticeship, of the machine-tool industry in Massachusetts to determine the need and prospects for apprenticeship in that industry. The results obtained from this survey will illustrate the need for conducting similar surveys in the other States.
The National Advisory Apprenticeship Committee for the International Association of Machinists issued revised standards of apprenticeship covering the apprenticeable trades within the jurisdiction of this union. These standards represent the policy of the International Association of Machinists with respect to apprentice training and are intended as a guide to its local affiliates.
Air Transport Industry
In view of the expansion and growth of the air transportation industry, it is anticipated the need for skilled mechanics to maintain equipment will be greater and will bring about more training activity in this industry.
A number of commercial airlines operated successful apprenticeship programs prior to the war. Since the close of the war, the Bureau of Apprenticeship has attempted to reactivate those programs which had been discontinued and has made some progress. Because of the large number of people trained in the industry during the war, airlines have been slow to recognize the need for establishing apprenticeship.
Particular emphasis was placed in the past year on a national approach to the problem through contacts with the Air Transport Association, the International Association of Machinists (Ind.), and the Transport Workers of America (CIO) with the objective of establishing a national joint apprenticeship committee. The interest displayed in this effort by the groups concerned has been encouraging.
Railroad Industry
Activity on apprenticeship in the railroad industry during the year resulted in the establishment of a system-wide apprenticeship program for the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which brings the number of railroad ap
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ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR
prenticeship programs to 5, with 1,765 apprentices in training. Apprenticeship programs for 2 additional railroads are nearing completion, and negotiations with management and labor on 35 other railroad systems have been conducted toward the development of apprenticeship programs.
The Railway Employes’ Department of the AFL has indicated that apprenticeship activity on the part of the Bureau has improved the quality of apprenticeship in many instances although formal standards have not been established.
Construction Industry
During the year, the number of joint apprenticeship committees in the construction industry increased from 3,078 to 3,187.
The number of apprentices in training in the industry, including both registered and nonregistered apprentices, increased from 132,114 in July 1948 to 134,294 in December 1948. Reporting procedures were revised and the figures since that date are limited to registered apprentices only. The total number of registered apprentices in the industry as of July 1949 was 118,227.
The basic development work in construction apprenticeship has been completed. Efforts during the year were concentrated on maintenance of apprenticeship programs to improve the quality of the program and the operating efficiency of joint apprenticeship committees.
Advisory committees, composed of representatives of contractors and labor, have been appointed by the Secretary of Labor in the following trades: Electrical, painting and decorating, plastering, stained glass, sheet metal, and bricklaying. The purpose of these committees is to review their respective national apprenticeship programs and to make recommendations to local joint apprenticeship committees for improvement and stimulation of their programs.
In addition to the national standards of apprenticeship previously formulated in 13 building trades, the National Association of Marble Dealers and the Bricklayers, Masons & Plasterers International Union of America jointly adopted national standards for marble setters which are being used as a guide to contractors and labor representatives in organizing local committees to set up and conduct programs.
The General Committee on Apprenticeship for the Construction Industry, through its executive committee, continues to cooperate with the Bureau of Apprenticeship in the promotion of apprenticeship in the building trades. The executive committee has met twice during the past year, and has made several recommendations of importance to the industry.
In addition to national labor unions and contractor organizations, the Structural Clay Products Institute, the United States Chamber of Commerce, and the Tile Council of America have been outstanding in their activities in furthering apprenticeship in the construction industry.
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Several of the building trades have adopted, on an annual basis, national craftsmanship competitions to select the outstanding apprentices in their trades through local and national selection. These contests have stimulated much interest in apprenticeship on the part of the industry and the public and have served as incentives to apprentices to excel in their trades.
Foundry Industry
Efforts to bring about the development of a national apprenticeship program for the foundry industry have continued during the year. In addition to contacts at the national level, several industry meetings have been initiated by the Bureau of Apprenticeship to stimulate interest.
Field exploration demonstrated that because of the large number of associations and unions involved the most practicable approach to the development of apprenticeship in this industry is to place emphasis on those areas where there is the greatest concentration of foundries and to work toward a uniform approach within each area.
The American Foundry Association has issued a policy statement outlining the standards of apprenticeship it recommends.
Graphic Arts
National apprenticeship standards for the commercial branch of the photo-engraving industry were formulated by a joint management-labor committee representing the American Photo Engravers Association and the International Photo-Engravers’ Union of North America. A national program for the newspaper branch had previously been established jointly by the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association and the Photo-Engravers’ Union. Both national programs have been printed in pamphlet form and are available to employers and labor for their guidance.
Although development of national programs to train apprentices in the other graphic-arts trades has not been completed, local management-labor groups have been active as is evidenced by the 13,286 apprentices in training during the past 12 months. Trades involved are printer, pressman, electrotyper and stereotyper, lithographer, photo-engraver, bookbinder, and mailer.
Automotive Service
With the resumption of peacetime activities, the automotive industry was given considerable assistance in the building up of its force of skilled workers. Most of its apprentices are being trained as auto mechanics. This came about largely as a result of the stimulus provided by the GI bill which enabled thousands of small garages to train apprentices.
It became evident during the year that there was considerable need for reexamination of these programs to determine whether they remain active
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and whether good training is actually being provided to apprentices. Therefore, the efforts of the staff were concentrated on maintenance of existing programs in the service field and on culling those which do not conform to standards rather than on initiation of new programs.
Cooperation With State Apprenticeship Agencies
An apprenticeship law was enacted in the State of Utah, providing for the appointment of an apprenticeship council equally representative of management and labor to cooperate with the State industrial commission on apprenticeship matters. Plans were made for the transfer of records of the Bureau of Apprenticeship on programs and apprentices in Utah to the industrial commission.
The Arkansas Legislature passed a law repealing the State apprenticeship law which was enacted in 1937. This action was taken because of difficulties arising from approval of programs for veterans receiving benefits under the GI bill. The apprenticeship records of that State are temporarily being handled by representatives of the Bureau of Apprenticeship.
At the request of the Puerto Rico Apprenticeship Council, a member of the Bureau spent several weeks in Puerto Rico, providing technical assistance to the commissioner of labor and to the director of apprenticeship in formulating plans for securing the cooperation of employers and employees in setting up programs of apprenticeship.
At the urgent request of the Commissioner of Labor of Alaska and the Department’s Territorial representative, a field man has been detailed to Alaska to provide assistance to management and labor in setting up active apprenticeship programs. One of the objectives is to assist in the development of a skilled labor force of persons resident in the Territory.
In an effort to bring about more comprehensive national statistical reports on apprenticeship, a meeting of officials of State apprenticeship councils was called with the objectives of obtaining agreement on definitions of terms used in statistical reporting and on as nearly a standardized reporting system by States as operational procedures will permit. Full agreement was not reached, but indications are that within a year or two more accurate and more comprehensive national reporting will be achieved.
A conference of 10 Southern States, the first of its kind in the South, jointly sponsored by the Louisiana Apprenticeship Council and the Bureau of Apprenticeship, was held in New Orleans. A similar conference of 16 Eastern States was held in Magnolia, Mass., with the Massachusetts Apprenticeship Council as host. Each of these meetings was attended by approximately 450 persons including management and labor leaders, as well as representatives of State and Federal apprenticeship agencies, vocational-education, civic, and veterans’ organizations. The conferences served to coordinate viewpoints on apprenticeship matters and to secure
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better understanding of the methods and procedures employed in working toward the development of an adequate, well-trained skilled labor force.
Liaison With Other Federal Agencies
The Bureau was represented on the Interdepartmental Consultant Group, established by the Manpower Division of the National Security Resources Board, in the development of a proposed critical occupation list and in providing statistics on apprentices in training.
Conferences were held with the National Security Resources Board and the National Selective Service System with regard to a national policy for apprentices affected by Selective Service regulations.
Assistance was given to the Department of the Air Force in developing an apprenticeship program embodying the standards recommended by the Bureau of Apprenticeship to cover all air force installations in which this training will be offered.
At the request of the Secretary of the Army, a staff member was detailed to that Department to assist in the planning of reporting procedures.
The Army Ordnance Department was given technical assistance in connection with apprenticeship surveys in some of the Ordnance establishments. Several conferences were held with representatives of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces to provide them with information on the development of apprenticeship during and after the war in connection with manpower mobilization studies carried on as part of their course.
Extensive assistance was given to the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Interior, in the revision of its bureau-wide apprenticeship policy, and in implementation of this policy through development of an apprenticeship program for all crafts at Boulder Dam.
In cooperation with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Interior Department, representatives of the Bureau of Apprenticeship investigated the possibilities and opportunities for apprenticeship among the Navajo Indians.
A conference was held with representatives of the American Vocational Association, and the Trade and Industrial Education Division, United States Office of Education, to develop further working relationships in the field of apprentice training and to devise methods of securing understanding and cooperation at national, State, and local levels between vocational educators and apprenticeship representatives, including representatives of State apprenticeship councils.
Cooperation was extended to the Bureau of Employment Security in classification of jobs, particularly apprenticeable occupations, to be included in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles.
The Bureau of Yards and Docks of the Navy Department issued a circular letter encouraging the employment by contractors of apprentices who are receiving training under recognized programs on Bureau contract work.
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This action on the part of the Navy Department, which resulted from a recommendation made by the executive committee of the General Committee on Apprenticeship for the Construction Industry, is considered an important step in the furtherance of apprenticeship in the building trades.
The Census Bureau has been utilized extensively in obtaining statistical information required by the Bureau of Apprenticeship. It has agreed to schedule more detailed returns on apprentices and to be more specific in its definition of “ apprentice” in collecting information in the 1950 census.
Cooperative departmental activities included the review of hazardous occupation orders prepared by the Child Labor Branch, Bureau of Labor Standards, and meetings with the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions on clarification of problems as they affect the employment of apprentices in interstate commerce under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Bureau of Labor Statistics used apprenticeship statistics, particularly in construction industry publications.
Standards-Review Branch
A total of 2,323 company and area-wide apprenticeship programs were reviewed by the standards branch staff during fiscal 1948-49, prior to their registration either with State apprenticeship councils, or with the Bureau of Apprenticeship. These programs came principally from the field staff of the Bureau; but also included are a number from State councils.
The branch conducted a special survey of apprenticeship work schedules in the various branches of the electrical industry in an effort to secure more uniform development of training programs. The results of this technical study have been placed in the hands of the National Electrical Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee for consideration in connection with a pending revision of its standards.
Where State councils have been recognized to carry on apprenticeship activities in such States, copies of their registered programs or registration data on such programs are submitted for the records of the Bureau of Apprenticeship. A total of 19,957 State council programs were received for standards checking during the past fiscal year.
In 21 States, which had no State apprenticeship agencies during the fiscal year, the Branch issued registration certificates covering 2,592 new or revised apprenticeship programs.
A registry for apprenticeship indentures and subsequent apprenticeship actions, under approved programs, is maintained for those States which have no State councils. A total of 17,044 individual apprenticeship agreements were recorded for these States in fiscal 1948-49.
Six thousand two hundred and eighty-three certificates of completion were issued to apprentices registered by the Bureau; this was nearly double the number issued for the preceding year.
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In addition to its review and registration functions, the branch staff provided consultative service to the field staff and to industry, in connection with apprenticeship proposals and with occupations not currently included in the list approved by the Federal Committee on Apprenticeship.
A revised list of apprenticeable occupations was prepared for inclusion in the 1949 edition of the Bureau’s publication, The National Apprenticeship Program. The Branch’s work in connection with apprenticeability determinations involved many labor-management contacts in the field and in Washington, both in person and by correspondence.
The branch also provides an advisory service to State councils and their staffs in connection with the apprenticeability of occupations new to the experience of such States or when some special questions as to apprenticeability have been raised in a State. A number of such questions were received from New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio, and Virginia.
A special activity of the branch during the year was the completion of a technical file containing examples of apprenticeship schedules for the various apprenticeable occupations. These were subsequently compiled into a reference handbook for the use of the field staff.
Research and Statistics Branch
The activities of the Research and Statistics Branch are directed primarily toward serving the needs of the operating staff. Secondary objectives include the furnishing of data to governmental and private agencies concerned with the Nation’s skilled labor supply and providing information for the interested public.
Conversion of apprenticeship statistics from hand to machine tabulation, commenced during fiscal year 1948, was continued during the year. As of June 30, 1949, the following States had been entirely converted: Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, South Carolina, and Utah. In addition, all program accessions in all States are currently being placed on punch cards. The effort expended in conversion has resulted in improved statistical service. In April the initial comprehensive occupational distribution of apprentices was published for the United States and for 40 States separately. Next year, because of the use of machine tabulation, it is planned to add the expected year of completion of training to the annual apprenticeable occupational distribution series.
Investigations conducted by the branch involved comparisons of the optimum number of apprentices with the actual number in training. A formula for determining the optimum number of apprentices for a trade, industry, or area, and a rough determination on a Nation-wide basis for broad occupational groups were developed. More detailed de
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ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR
terminations were prepared on the printing industry and on certain critical occupations for the National Security Resources Board.
In connection with minimum-wage determinations under the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act, the branch prepared analyses of apprenticeship wage rates in five industries in which wage determinations were under consideration.
Information compiled for the purpose of facilitating administration of the Bureau’s program dealt principally with geographic, occupational, and industrial potentials, and relative progress of the various units within those categories toward realization of potential.
Publications Branch
During the 12-month period the Publications Branch prepared 4 pamphlets, 15 magazine articles, 63 news releases, 20 speeches, and 4 radio scripts for use by the Director and other members of the Bureau’s staff. In addition to the above this branch prepared three issues of an Apprenticeship Bibliography containing digests of 490 articles and news items relating to apprentice training which appeared during the year in employer, labor, and vocational education periodicals.
A total of 42,000 copies of pamphlets and reprints of articles were published during the fiscal year for distribution through the field staff and other channels to labor and employer representatives, vocational authorities, veterans’ organizations, and other organizations and individuals concerned with apprentice training.
The pamphlets prepared included the National Apprenticeship and Training Standards for the Sheet Metal Industry, National Apprenticeship Standards for Photo-Engravers in the Newspaper Publishing Business, National Standards for Carpentry Apprenticeship, and a new edition of the National Apprenticeship Program. Among the articles of major importance were Craft Training—Yesterday and Today, which appeared in the April issue of American Vocational Journal; Training Tool and Die Maker Apprentices at Talon, published in the February 24 issue of Iron Age; U. S. Chamber of Commerce Aids Apprenticeship Program, and Indiana Bricklaying Apprentices Vie for Championship, which appeared respectively in the July 1948 and September 1948 issues of the Labor Information Bulletin.
During the year 3,250 letters requesting informational material were answered.
Newspapers throughout the United States devoted 666 columns or 83 pages to the subject of apprenticeship, and 490 articles and items dealing with various phases of the subject were published in 100 industrial publications.
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Apprentice registration actions reported by type of action and State or Territory during fiscal year 1948-49
States reporting	Active at year begin	New registrations	Resumptions and reinstatements	Completions	Cancellations and suspensions	Active at year end
Total		i 210,495	78,780	1,962	319,362	2 34,021	236, 515
Alabama		-		 		1,848	583	21	213	342	1,897
Arizona 1 2 3	- 	 		1,814	679	29	111	717	1 694
Arkansas 3 _ 	 		 		1,871	266	4	73	137	1 931
California4			26,027	17,579	1 053	4 298	3 416	36 945
Colorado				1,794	851	9	276	352	2, 026
Connecticut	 	 			5,132	1,542	0	776	899	4 999
Delaware . 	 		168	54	o	22	11	189
District of Columbia.- 	 - 			1,108	640	0	197	102	1 449
Florida 	 	- 			2, 895	1,462	7	288	781	3 295
Georgia			2,634	629	10	234	332	2, 707
Hawaii . _ . - - -- 	 . 			' 454	240	2	22	174	500
Idaho 		396	208	13	32	75	510
Illinois 					7,062	2,025	76	1,181	592	7,390
Indiana 	 _		 		3,625	959	45	548	732	3 349
Iowa 	 -	2, 917	911	1	179	234	3,416
Kansas 	 			_	1,899	585	1	104	334	2, 047
Kentucky				4’ 773	1, 726	2	104	1, 688	4 709
Louisiana - __ 				5*036	1,492	26	290	1,827	4,437
Maine 			 - 				' 417	'396	23	135	111	590
Maryland. 	 		2,060	848	62	197	643	2,130
Massachusetts		 		6,336	6,465	0	125	1,515	11,161
Michigan	 			13^ 064	3', 378	177	1,215	3,085	12,319
Minnesota 		8, 801	1' 982	41	1,035	941	8,848
Mississippi			523	181	3	74	191	442
Missouri 		3,086	1,125	41	485	384	3 383
Montana			F268	1,384	62	304	932	1, 478
Nebraska	 -			'956	'335	17	177	240	891
Nevada - 		236	49	0	6	1	278
New Hampshire	-			331	602	0	37	229	667
New Jersey		3,566	1,115	26	295	323	4,089
New Mexico	 		'454	' 289	5	40	92	616
New York 4	_ _	_	_ _	27,871	4,035	0	(S)	(2)	30,567
North Carolina 		2,613	L490	0	0	302	3, 801
North Dakota		 	- ..	38	21	0	3	4	52
Ohio 		15,419	5,419	33	1,084	1,888	17,899
Oklahoma		944	'283	7	130	212	892
Oregon4 _ 		 			4,601	1,703	1	301	1,033	4,971
Pennsylvania		9' 311	3' 311	47	591	818	11,260
Puerto Rico 	 _ _ 		 _		16	25	0	0	11	30
Rhode Island 		980	229	0	11	61	1,137
South Carolina - 			1,076	321	18	49	272	1,094
South Dakota 		' 119	9	0	0	26	' 102
Tennessee. 		2,111	905	17	197	304	2,532
Texas4.. 	 _ .			5,975	2,288	53	891	1,929	5,496
Utah		' 945	' 446	1	191	82	1' 119
Vermont 		 -				892	263	0	133	258	' 764
Virginia		6,504	2,287	11	160	1,307	7,335
Washington		4,282	1,573	14	616	783	4' 470
West Virginia		945	344	1	73	99	1.118
Wisconsin _ 		13,185	3,116	0	1,834	3,186	11,281
Wyoming		117	132	3	25	14	'213
1 Subsequent information revises this figure to 218,334.
2 New York quittals total 1,339. Details on completions and cancellations not given.
3 Not reported for May.
3 Corrected figure due to recount.
BUREAU OF LABOR STANDARDS
President Truman’s call for the cooperation of American business, labor, and government to halve the Nation’s annual toll of 2 million industrial accidents by 1952 assigned to the Bureau of Labor Standards its major task during the fiscal year. The prestige and resources of the Federal Government were for the first time placed behind an all-out attack on this old problem. Determined to reduce the human suffering and financial loss of preventable work injuries, the Bureau enlisted the country’s leading safety authorities in months of intensive effort to develop a national action program.
This program was the main business of over 1,000 leaders of industry, labor, State and Federal governments, insurance associations, educational institutions, and the National Safety Council and other private safety organizations at the President’s Conference on Industrial Safety held in March. Out of this conference, the first such assembly ever convened, came a “ call to action” by the States to hold similar Governors’ conferences on industrial safety, to review and adapt the national program for application to the workplaces of the land. For participants at the President’s meeting recognized not only the legal responsibility but the greater opportunity of the States to reach the thousands of smaller establishments where at least 70 percent of all work accidents occur. At the fiscal year’s end, 3 States were actively planning such Governors’ conferences and 14 others were considering them for the ensuing months.
This year also marked the fifteenth anniversary of the National Conference on Labor Legislation, an institution in which Governors’ representatives from State labor departments and organized labor annually review their common problems and recommend improved labor standards. Many of their recommendations have found their way into the statute books of the States. Especially significant this year was a revival of the determination evident in earlier years to translate conference recommendations into genuine gains for the wage earners of America. That enthusiasm was reflected in the 44 State legislatures meeting in 1949.
Thirty-three States and Hawaii increased their workmen’s compensation benefits, and 13 improved occupational disease coverage. Disability insurance was enacted by 2 States, and 4 others passed fair employment practice laws. Three States and Alaska approved equal pay laws and still others improved hours standards for women workers. Two more States joined the ranks of those with basic 16-year minimum-age laws; Alaska now has
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61
an effective new child-labor law. Acts restricting union activity were repealed by 3 States.
Industrial Safety
Disabling work injuries in 1948 fell below 2 million for the first time in 8 years. A decrease of 5 percent was made despite greater employment in nearly every industry group. Nevertheless, over 16,500 employees were killed, 1,800 suffered permanent total disabilities, 84,000 received permanent partial disabilities, and another 1,860,000 workers lost at least 1 full day of work, but suffered no permanent disability, according to the preliminary estimates for 1948 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The size of the trained labor force available for production in 1948 was thereby reduced by the equivalent of 135,000 full-time workers. In addition, the deaths and permanent physical impairments resulting from industrial accidents in 1948 will reduce the size of the labor force available in succeeding years by approximately 730,000 man-years. Far more important is the tremendous amount of human suffering caused by industrial injuries which cannot be measured in statistical terms.
The source of most of these occupational injuries and deaths can be found in firms taking little or no part in the organized safety movement. While these firms are not, for the most part, large employers, they account for most of the employment as well as most accidents. Very few of these small employers realize the seriousness of this waste of human and material values resulting from preventable accidents. Moreover, large employers are, in general, doing a good safety job. While the performance of these leading firms probably will improve further, no great reduction in the national total can be expected from this source. Unless the “know-how” and daily practice of safety by these safety-minded employers are effectively carried to the hundreds of thousands of smaller employers who collectively account for the bulk of our work-connected injuries and deaths, no important reduction of the national total is possible.
The Bureau of Labor Standards has attacked this problem in two ways: by organizing the President’s Conference on Industrial Safety summarized above and by assistance to State labor departments.
The President’s Conference on Industrial Safety.—On April 23, 1948, President Truman called upon the Secretary of Labor to organize a President’s Conference on Industrial Safety. The Director of the Bureau of Labor Standards was named chairman of a coordinating committee to govern planning and policy for the Conference. On this committee were representatives of labor, management, insurance companies, State labor agencies, safety organizations, and others directly interested in the program.
The National Sand and Gravel Association made available the services of its executive secretary who served as Executive Director of the Confer-
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ence. The working plans of the Conference were developed at the Organization Sessions, held September 27-29, 1948. At these sessions seven technical committees were appointed; the committees then determined the scope of their work and organization.
The Bureau gave technical assistance to these committees in the preparation of reports, notably to the Committees on Engineering, Research, and Education.
For the Committee on Laws and Regulations, the Bureau made a survey of the authority in State laws to issue safety codes and regulations and the procedures in drawing up these codes. In addition, the Bureau made a comprehensive analysis of State safety laws and regulations and a survey of the administrative organization of safety law enforcement.
The Conference was opened by President Truman with a call for 1 million fewer job accidents a year by 1952. The Conference then considered reports by the seven technical committees and issued a “call to action” embracing the major findings of all technical committees together with recommendations for Governors’ safety conferences.
Major conference effort for the coming months will be to lend encouragement and support to the development of industrial safety conferences in the States.
Assistance to the States.—Assistance to State labor departments has been rendered through a number of related activities by the Bureau of Labor Standards designed to assist the States in the promotion and development of State safety programs with special emphasis on small plants.
Special industry safety programs.—The Bureau’s wartime experience conclusively tested the value of Nation-wide safety programs in high-hazard industries. In the postwar period, it has converted these Nation-wide drives into State safety programs for greater concentration of activity, an endeavor that was further refined and elaborated during 1948-49.
Reduction in accident frequency rate 6 months after introduction of special industry safety programs
State	Industry	Date program began	Accident frequency rate 1		Percent reduction in 6 months
			Before program	At end of 6 months	
North Carolina	 Do	 South Carolina	 New Jersey	 Indiana	 Florida	 Virginia		Brick and tile	 Wood furniture	 Woodworking	 	do	 Limestone	 Citrus	 Woodworking		May 1947	 January 1948	 September 1947	 January 1948	 August 1948	 October 1948	 March 1949		40 22 (2) 21 45 (2) (2)	36 17 (2) 19 34 (2) (2)	10 23 3 40 10 24 (2) (2)
i Disabling injuries per million man-hours.
» Not available.
3 Estimated by State safety officials at thelend of 4Imonths.
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Programs initiated the preceding year were systematically followed up and new ones inaugurated in Indiana, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia. Every operating program is scoring reductions in accident frequency with the older, better-established programs showing the greatest improvement.
In developing these programs, Bureau technicians, in cooperation with State inspectors, visited typical plants to study the processes and determine the outstanding hazards. Studies of the processes, operating methods, machines, and hazards were made for the fertilizer, foundry, logging, and scrap iron and steel industries. The major hazards were then summarized in graphic form on a process flow chart and described in detail. Tested safety techniques for the control of these hazards were outlined and all this safety material reproduced for distribution monthly to the industry by the State inspection agencies. After being given supplementary guidance by the Bureau’s engineers, their State inspection staffs then followed up and augmented this technical information by individual plant visits.
The study of the hazards of the fertilizer industry and of suitable control measures was made in cooperation with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The findings have since been published jointly with that Bureau.
Technical assistance to States and to labor.—Acting on State requests, the Bureau gave advice on such problems as the guarding of specialized machines, the safeguarding of specific hazardous processes, the prevention of dust explosions, the control of health hazards in electroplating, and the development of standards to prevent anthrax.
A number of labor unions also requested the Bureau’s advice in developing safety services in behalf of their members in cooperation with their employers. Assistance was given on such problems as the development of safety training courses for union-appointed safety committeemen and the establishment of a safety informational service for union members.
Safety codes.—State control of the safety of workers, as stressed by the President’s Conference on Industrial Safety, is most effectively carried on by safety regulations or codes rather than by inflexible detailed statutes. Day-to-day changes in production techniques require frequent changes in regulations and codes to cope with the hazard they present. The Bureau continued to aid the States in accomplishing this task by rendering technical assistance in the drafting of safety codes and by reviewing proposed safety codes.
The Bureau also participated actively in the development of American safety standards through the American Standards Association procedure. Staff members served on a large number of technical committees charged with the development and revision of specific standards. Bureau engineers also cooperated with the National Safety Council, American Society of Safety Engineers, and the Manufacturing Chemists Association in developing safe-practice standards. As these standards later provide basic data for the
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development of State safety codes, participation in their development is a major part of the Bureau’s program.
Joint certificates of safety achievement.—The Department of Labor continued to recognize outstanding reductions in accident frequency rates by issuing, at the request of the State labor departments, joint certificates of safety achievement to industrial plants making these reductions. The certificates, signed by both the State commissioner of labor and the United States Secretary of Labor, were awarded to industrial firms making outstanding safety records. This year 193 certificates were issued to North Carolina firms either reducing their accident frequency rate by 40 percent or more during 1948 as compared with 1947 or maintaining rates 75 percent or more below the State average for their industry. In Rhode Island 34 certificates were issued to firms reducing their accident frequency rate by 40 percent or more over the same period last year.
Labor Legislation and Administration
One advantage of the 50-odd systems of labor law in the Nation is that each State and Territory acts as a laboratory for new ideas in labor legislation and administration. In the light of tested State experience, a basic function of the Bureau is to serve as a national resource for technical information on all aspects of labor law and administrative procedures, to review changing developments in the regulation and improvement of working conditions, to develop improved standards for legislation and regulation, and to give advisory service to State labor departments and other groups interested in improvement of labor standards and administration. The Bureau also strengthens cooperative Federal-State relationships and works with the States in the implementation of international labor standards through State action.
Formulation of standards.—Working closely with State labor departments, the Bureau continued to formulate desirable legislative and administrative standards. Today many State labor laws contain standards and principles worked out under the guidance of this Bureau. These standards represent the best in State and Federal experience and have had the approval and support of such bodies as the National Conference on Labor Legislation, the International Association of Governmental Labor Officials, and the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions.
During 1949, suggested standards were recommended in seven fields of labor law: Apprenticeship, mediation of industrial disputes, industrial home work, regulation of private employment agencies, wage payment and wage collection, wages and hours, and regulation of labor camps. The Bureau evaluated the existing legislation, studied the various methods used in enforcement of the law, and in cooperation with an advisory
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committee of State labor law administrators, prepared suggested standards for inclusion in legislation.
The standards-development program is built on actual State practice. The Bureau has, therefore, continued its survey of administration of various types of labor laws in the States and has completed surveys in 14 States. It also began a study of disability insurance laws preparatory to the development of standards in that field.
Technical and Advisory Services.—During the past year regular legislative sessions were held in practically all the States. Requests came from most of these States for consultation, advice, or technical assistance on some aspect of labor legislation or, in a few States, on a complete legislative program. While the requests for assistance covered the entire range of labor law, they were especially heavy in connection with workmen’s compensation and child-labor legislation.
As a result of the widespread interest in improving workmen’s compensation, 34 States (over three-fourths of those whose legislatures met) and Hawaii liberalized their laws in 1949. In some States, code commissions or committees were engaged in reviewing workmen’s compensation legislation and in making legislative recommendations. Consultation and technical aid covered both general and special phases such as second-injury funds, occupational disease coverage, extraterritorial coverage, medical benefits, the illegally employed minor under workmen’s compensation acts, and benefits for alien dependents.
On child labor similar aid was given to many State departments and private organizations in evaluating existing legislation and working out standards relating to minimum age, maximum hours of work, night work, and prohibited occupations for incorporation in legislation. The Bureau worked closely with staffs of official State code commissions or with committees dealing with child labor. In Oklahoma, Maryland, and Kansas, for example, it gave technical assistance to State code commissions in appraising child-labor legislation, in providing information on experience in other States, and in preparing suggested recommendations and standards.
Besides advising on labor legislation, the Bureau makes available on request its accumulated experience in labor-law administration. Last year, for example, the Bureau was of assistance to the Puerto Rican and Hawaiian labor departments which sought to integrate their administration of numerous labor laws. Such integration has, in many States, eliminated duplication, improved the quality of work, and made for more effective labor-law inspection and administration.
Analysis and evaluation of labor legislation.—During the year, four comprehensive publications—covering State workmen’s compensation legislation, State child-labor laws, Federal labor laws and agencies, and Federal and State labor legislation enacted in 1948—were prepared and issued by
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the Bureau. To meet a constant demand for simple informational material, charts were brought up to date to show the extent to which each State has met certain recognized standards in its State workmen’s compensation and child-labor laws.
Semimonthly reports of labor legislation, proposed or enacted by the 44 State legislatures in session in 1949, were regularly distributed to more than 2,000 State labor officials, labor unions, and other interested groups and individuals. These legislative digests summarized briefly the content and progress of approximately 4,000 labor bills introduced in the State legislatures. The Bureau also prepared special technical reports at the requests of officials, organizations, and legislators on the trends in such fields as occupational disease coverage under workmen’s compensation laws, regulation of private employment agencies, disability compensation, and industrial relations.
Federal-State agreements on labor-law administration.—The overlapping jurisdiction between State labor departments and the United States Department of Labor in the administration of labor laws has resulted in cooperative agreements between them to reduce duplication of inspection and to promote a uniform approach to the administration of such laws. For many years the Bureau has, therefore, been developing and strengthening these cooperative programs.
Last year, special emphasis was given to increasing the effectiveness of the safety agreements between the Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions and the labor departments of 21 States, the District of Columbia, and the Territory of Hawaii. Under these agreements, duplicate safety inspections are avoided by designating the State labor department as the sole agency to make the Federal safety inspections required under the Public Contracts Act. More than 1,700 safety inspections were made during the fiscal year by the cooperating State agencies at no expense to the Federal Government and without duplication of plant inspections. Amendments to these agreements negotiated with 17 States provided for a more effective reporting arrangement and clarified the responsibility of the Federal inspectors in such States.
The two agreements between the Department and the State labor departments of Minnesota and North Carolina, covering inspections under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act, were renewed.
Cooperative agreements for the acceptance of State age and employment certificates as proof of age under the child-labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act were negotiated and renewed in 44 States, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
Another type of Federal-State agreement now in effect in eight States and Puerto Rico is an informal arrangement between the Wage and Hour and
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR
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Public Contracts Divisions and the State labor departments for the exchange of information on, and cooperation in, the administration of Federal and State home-work requirements.
To lay the basis for the future development of recommended methods of cooperation in other fields, the Bureau collected information on present cooperative practices in such areas as vocational rehabilitation, industrial hygiene, statistics, apprenticeship, and conciliation,.
Union Registration
Under the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, labor organizations, to use the services of the National Labor Relations Board, must file certain financial and organizational data with the Secretary of Labor. On September 4, 1947, the Secretary established the Union Registration Division in the Bureau of Labor Standards to carry out the responsibilities placed on him by sections 9 (f) and 9 (g) of the act.
The work of the Union Registration Division has been closely coordinated with that of the National Labor Relations Board. To be in complete compliance with the act, a union must file a copy of the registration letter issued by the Department of Labor with the Board together with the affidavits and certificates required by the act. The procedures worked out in cooperation with the National Labor Relations Board staff have proved effective and satisfactory in administering this part of the Labor Management Relations Act.
By the end of the fiscal year the Bureau had registered 20,698 of the 60,000 to 70,000 local and international unions in the country. Of the 172 national and international unions registered, 84 were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor and 33 with the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Six thousand three hundred and sixty-six unions registered for the first time during 1948-49; 11,139 renewed their registration for the first time; and 3,193 made their second renewal.
The Bureau received innumerable requests for information about the financial reports of various unions. These requests were answered, in accordance with the regulations, by explaining that the information was confidential except to the National Labor Relations Board, certain committees of Congress, and to members of the union furnishing the data.
Publications
Keeping the general public informed of developments relating to labor standards included the issuance of 10 new or revised bulletins with 7 others in press at the end of the year. These included analyses of State
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legislation relating to workmen’s compensation and child labor; digests of current State and Federal labor legislation; conference proceedings; a directory of State labor officials; and interpretative pamphlets for promotion of industrial safety, child-labor standards, and international labor standards.
During the year exhibits and other visual aids were prepared for the purpose of interpreting to the public the salient facts about industrial safety and health, child labor, employment service, veterans’ employment, apprentice training, handicapped workers, women workers, vocational guidance, enforcement of labor standards, labor and the farmer, the European Recovery Program, and others subjects.
NEPH Week Committee
The activities of the President’s Committee on National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week expanded under the mutual cooperation of committee members and interested organizations. The small staff assisting the Committee was transferred to the Bureau for administrative purposes in December 1948.
Working on a voluntary basis and holding two general meetings during the year, the Committee increased the interest and understanding of 160 member groups in the problem of the handicapped. As a result, support of the observance of National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week (October 2-8, 1948) was very gratifying.
Two programs, those of the Essay Committee and the Awards of Merit Committee, resulted in outstanding cooperation with many Governors’ committees on employment of the handicapped. Several Governors presented committee awards of merit to outstanding employers, and 23 States, including the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, participated in the committee’s essay program.
Other subcommittees worked on management-labor institutes on employment of the handicapped, sponsoring a number in cooperation with local committees, and on the problems of disabled veterans. The labor committee’s report was widely distributed throughout the labor movement, and the committees on education, public information, and medicine also made substantial contributions.
Reprints, pamphlets, periodicals, and informational material of general interest were circulated to committee members and considerable independent action resulted. A notable contribution during the year was a jointly announced program of the United States Chamber of Commerce and the International Association of Machinists to increase the employment of disabled and older workers.
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
Economic changes during the fiscal year ended June 1949 intensified the prevailing widespread interest in the current economic statistics which the Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly releases. The Bureau’s statistical series relating to employment, prices, hours, and earnings were of particular importance in the analysis of the problems associated with the inflation of the first half of the fiscal year and the decline which followed in 1949.
The program of the Bureau, under a budget of $4,073,000 unchanged from the preceding year, was reviewed in consultation with the Bureau’s labor and business advisory committees, and reshaped in significant ways to serve current public needs for statistical information. Major changes, including basic revisions of statistical series and reorientation of activities to improve the usefulness of the services of the Bureau to the public, were initiated in the fields of employment, price, and wage information. The outstanding publication of the Bureau during the year was the Gift of Freedom, a study of the economic and social status of wage earners in the United States, which gathered together the fruits of years of research on all aspects of labor in American life.
Reversal of the Price Trend
The inflationary process which began in 1941 finally came to an end during the fiscal year 1949 as prices declined on a broad front. The general peak of the inflation was reached in the late summer of 1948 when the Bureau s index of wholesale prices reached a peak in August, and the Consumers Price Index reached its peak in August and September. These peaks were respectively, 120 percent and 75 percent above the 1939 levels. The declines from the peak have, for the most part, been moderate and orderly, although there have been sharp declines in the prices of individual commodities. Thus far the major price adjustments have been largely confined to raw materials or to products which do not require extensive fabrication or processing, such as basic metals, some chemicals, cotton textiles, and most farm products.
Between June 15, 1948, and June 15, 1949, the retail prices of goods and services bought by moderate-income families in large cities declined 1.2 percent. Foods were down 4.6 percent over the same period, and were 5-8 percent below the postwar peak reached in July 1948. Apparel and housefurnishings declined more than 3 percent over the year and were more than 5 percent below the peaks reached in October 1948. The fuel, electricity, 69
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and refrigeration group declined 2.4 percent from the high point reached in March 1949 but was still more than 2 percent higher than it was in June 1948. Rents continued to advance and by June 15, 1949, were 3 percent above the level of the previous year.
Primary market prices decreased more than 7 percent on the average in the year ended June 1949. Farm products and food prices were down 14.0 and 10.5 percent, respectively, while all other commodities averaged almost 3 percent lower. The largest declines were registered by chemicals and allied products, farm products, and foods. Metals and metal products and housefurnishings prices declined from their postwar peaks of December and January but were still above their levels of June 1948.
Retail prices of consumers’ goods and services were compiled and issued in the form of consumers’ price indexes for 10 cities monthly and for 24 other cities on a quarterly basis. National indexes for all cities combined were issued monthly on the basis of data for 18 cities. Food prices and indexes were issued monthly for 56 cities, fuel prices for 35 cities, and rent indexes for 34, on a rotating cycle.
The other major indexes—the monthly comprehensive index of primary market prices, the weekly wholesale price index, and the daily index for 28 commodities—were maintained on a continuing basis.
Studies of postwar consumer expenditure patterns were completed in three more cities, as part of the project of revising the Consumers’ Price Index for each individual city on the basis of postwar experience.
The weekly wholesale price index was revised to make it a more reliable indicator of week-to-week changes in primary market prices, to correct the discrepancy that had previously existed between the levels of the comprehensive weekly and monthly indexes and to make it possible to issue the indexes 3 days after the close of the weekly period covered. A full-scale revision of the comprehensive index of primary market prices was initiated. The revision includes a reappraisal of'weights, sampling and weighting techniques, the addition of new commodities, changes in the basic classification of commodities, and the reexamination of the base period.
Special mail collections of rent data were made in May and June in nine cities to insure reflection in the rent component of the consumers’ price indexes of rent increases allowed under the Housing and Rent Act of 1949.
The Bureau also began to investigate possible ways of defining qualities of housing which will permit an accurate measurement of the price differential between new and old housing of the same quality in order to provide a precise technique by which to adjust the index for new unit bias. Although new units are represented in the rent samples continually, the initial introduction of these units does not at present reflect the differential in price between new units and the average rent for existing housing of identical quality.
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Special services were provided to other governmental agencies such as surveys of consumer prices in Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Knoxville for the Atomic Energy Commission. Several emergency studies were also made in connection with current price developments for the Office of the Housing Expediter, the Economic Cooperation Administration, and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Once each quarter a special retail pricing was conducted in Washington, D. C., for the United States Department of State, which used the results to adjust cost-of-living allowances for foreign service personnel. Estimates based on data already available were provided to the Civil Service Commission for use in adjusting cost-of-living allowances in the Territories.
Recession in Employment
The general decline in economic activity during the second half of the year was reflected in significant downward adjustments in employment in a large number of industries. By June 1949 the reduction in total employment from the high point of July 1948 was about 2 million. At the same time, unemployment, which had fallen to a postwar low in the fall of 1948, began a steady rise immediately thereafter and reached a level of 4 million by midsummer. Nevertheless, by the standards of previous years employment remained high, almost reaching the 60-million mark by the fiscal year’s end.
The slackening of demand, which was already apparent in a number of the soft goods industries as early as the spring of 1948, spread to many of the consumers’ durables and finally to the basic producers’ goods industries during the fiscal year 1949. Reflecting the general adjustment, employment in the manufacturing industries, which had reached a postwar peak in September 1948, declined steadily during the following 9 months. Employment decreases were accompanied by a significant shortening of the workweek as extensive overtime was eliminated and some workers were put on a part-time basis. Weekly earnings consequently declined; by mid-1949 the reduction in hours had about offset the gains in hourly earnings achieved during the “third-round” of postwar wage increases. As job opportunities in manufacturing industries contracted, the hiring rate dropped below the 1939 level. Simultaneously, the lay-off rate rose to a postwar high in the spring of 1949.
The Bureau’s series on employment, hours, earnings, and labor turnover provided valuable tools in tracing the course of the postwar readjustment. To improve the usefulness of the data, a general revision of the employment, hours, and earnings series was completed during the year. The revision incorporated the adoption of the Standard Industrial Classification structure for the manufacturing industries and the recoding of establishments on the basis of postwar product or activity. All segments of nonagricultural
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employment will be covered in the published industry series and new series will be provided for a number of nonmanufacturing industries for which employment data were not previously available.
Data for important industries and for the various States and areas became particularly important in assessing the impact of the readjustment. The Bureau series revealed, for example, that New England, heavily dependent upon the textile and shoe industries, was the first and most severely affected geographical region. The cooperative BLS-State employment statistics program was substantially expanded. By mid-1949 contracts were in effect with 42 State agencies. Monthly series on nonagricultural employment were being published for 29 States, on manufacturing employment for all States, and on hours and earnings for 23 States and 29 areas. To assist the State agencies, the BLS-State Employment Statistics Manual was completed and distributed to the States and a preliminary Area Guide was prepared. As funds for an expanded State and area program were approved by the Congress for fiscal year 1950, plans were under way to bring all States into the cooperative program by the end of calendar 1949 and for the preparation of data for 113 major industrial areas by mid-1950.
Wage Movements
Wage increases in 1948 reached a crest in July and continued during the latter half of the year to produce an addition to wage rates and the Nation’s wage bill comparable in magnitude to the effects of the 1947 round. Early in 1949, however, it appeared that postwar inflationary forces, that had served to raise money wages in all industries, had lost much of their momentum. The widespread movement towards wage increases changed to a highly diversified pattern of wage developments in the first half of 1949.
With business prospects less uniformly favorable, the economic status of the particular company, industry, and locality assumed a more dominant role in wage bargaining than had been the case in previous years. In some industries, requests for wage increases were denied through negotiation or arbitration; in other situations, contract reopening rights were not exercised. Wage decreases resulted from some union agreements in which wage rates were tied to small changes in the Consumers’ Price Index; other forms of general wage reductions were few and scattered. On the other hand, wage rate increases or additional benefits in the form of more paid holidays, longer paid vacations, or improved insurance and welfare plans were received by a substantial number of organized workers.
The character of the wage scene was reflected monthly to thousands of business managers and trade-union representatives, and to the public generally, through the Bureau’s Monthly Report on Current Wage Developments. This report, which has been issued regularly since January 1948, was considerably improved in scope and coverage during the past year. Together with the supplements issued by the Bureau’s regional offices, it is
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estimated that the results o£ well over 1,000 wage settlements were reported on the average each month. The analysis of wage developments accompanying each monthly listing described the background and summarized the main features of the more important situations.
In December 1948, the Bureau’s Division of Wage Analysis began the publication of a series of wage chronologies showing the changes in wage rates and related wage practices put into effect in recent years by leading companies and associations. Seven chronologies, covering such enterprises as United States Steel Corp., Chrysler Corp., Swift & Co., and the bituminous-coal industry, were made available by July 1, 1949. These provide negotiators, arbitrators, and others having responsibility for wage determination, with authoritative and complete accounts of the major wage changes negotiated in the past 10 years.
At the community or plant level, information concerning local wage and salary scales for particular jobs continued to be a requirement for effective wage administration, collective bargaining, and related functions. The Bureau’s occupational-rate surveys filled part of this need. Studies of salaries of office-clerical occupations were prepared for 16 cities. In 6 other cities the cross-industry techniques of the clerical workers survey were also applied to other occupations in all important industries, providing a more comprehensive compilation of current wage statistics for each community than had ever before been attempted. The continuation of the Bureau’s industry-locality series resulted in 267 releases showing local wage levels by occupation in 19 industries. National surveys were made for 8 industries; most of these surveys provided special tabulations needed for minimum wage determination under the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act. In all of these studies, data on supplementary wage benefits such as paid vacations, paid holidays, and shift differentials were also collected and published.
Union-rate surveys were made in 5 industries. For building construction, a report listing union wage scales for 7 basic crafts in 85 cities and summarizing the average change was issued every 3 months.
Other work in the field of wage analysis included surveys of the economic status of social workers (in Michigan), librarians, and dieticians, a survey of earnings of fishermen in the Boston area, and the preparation of a preliminary glossary of currently used wage terms. Wage changes in 1948 and war and postwar trends were analyzed in the first bulletin of a new series devoted to wage movements. A project designed to yield indexes of wage rates in various industries was started during the year.
Labor-Management Relations
Uncertainty over the course of collective bargaining occasioned by the passage of the Labor Management Relations Act in mid-1947 continued throughout the year under review. Although many employers and unions
74 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR adjusted themselves, at least temporarily, to the requirements of the act, other employers and unions experienced difficulties in reconciling their customary collective-bargaining practices to the terms of the new statute. These difficulties were reflected in disputes, sometimes prolonged, in litigation before the courts and in undercurrents of strained industrial relations.
The larger labor-management disputes during the fiscal year 1949 included the union-shop controversy involving the “captive” coal mines (July), the west coast maritime and longshore stoppage (September-November), the east coast longshore strike (November), two stoppages in the spring of 1949 involving most bituminous coal mines, and the May 1949 controversy pertaining to “ speed-up” problems in assembly lines of the Ford Motor Co. Altogether, 22 large strikes (each involving 10,000 or more workers) were recorded for the year ended June 30, 1949. This compares with 14 such large stoppages in 1948, 26 in 1947, and 45 in fiscal 1946, the first postwar year.
Records of the Bureau of Labor Statistics show a total of 3,664 strikes during the 12 months, July 1, 1948, to June 30, 1949—an increase of about 16 percent over the preceding and first full year of the Labor Management Relations Act. Workers involved in these stoppages likewise increased from approximately 1,760,000 for the year ended June 1948 to 2,430,000 for the year ended June 1949. Fortunately, however, the resultant idleness from labor-management controversies declined from 33,800,000 to 26,700,000 man-days.
As part of its regular service to public conciliation agencies, employers, and labor organizations, the Bureau continued to collect copies of collectivebargaining agreements and to analyze their significant provisions. During the fiscal year, in response to 20,000 requests for copies of agreements the Bureau received and indexed more than 12,000 currently effective labormanagement contracts. The file of “active” agreements, at the year’s end, approximated 15,000, covering virtually all branches of American industry. Many of these agreements were, for the first time, coded so as to permit comprehensive analysis by machine tabulation processes.
During the fiscal year the Bureau explored the possibilities of establishing, for the first time, a regular reporting system of information on agreements peacefully concluded, thereby permitting the compilation of data reflecting the constructive achievements of management and labor. Currently available statistics do not record the extent to which agreements between unions and employers are reached without interruptions to production, although it is generally well-known that the strike or lock-out is the exception rather than the rule in industrial relations.
Interest in the Bureau’s studies in the field of industrial relations has increased with the rise in the number of workers, now conservatively estimated in excess of 15,000,000, covered by the terms of written collective
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR 75 agreements. In response to the widespread demands for information on various types of clauses (union security, overtime, vacations, grievance procedures, etc.), negotiated by employers and unions, the Bureau completed during the year its revised series on Collective Bargaining Provisions. Based on the analysis of more than 10,000 agreements this series of 18 printed bulletins describes the outstanding characteristics of all important sections of a typical agreement. By means of some 4,000 actual clauses excerpted from contracts, these bulletins present a rich cross section of the manner in which representatives of labor and management have solved their problems across the conference table. This series has been utilized widely, not only in this country but abroad, and upwards of 80,000 copies have been distributed.
One of the more specialized services of the Bureau’s Division of Industrial Relations has been to keep abreast of the rapid changes in the field of health, welfare, and retirement plans negotiated under collective bargaining. Various individual plans were analyzed during the year and several publications were issued describing and illustrating the different types of plans which are currently estimated to embrace from 3 to 4 million American workers.
Measurement of Productivity
With the broad readjustments in prices and production levels since the beginning of 1949, attention of both management and labor turned toward improved productivity as the key to reduced costs and an adequate wage level. There has been an increased demand for statistical measures of productivity changes for such broad components of the economy as manufacturing as well as specific industries.
The past year also witnessed an awakening of interest in the measurement of productivity in foreign countries. The European Recovery Program, with its technical assistance provisions, provided an additional impetus for such information. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been called on to undertake the planning and completion of a wide variety of studies in the general field of international productivity analysis, and to provide European nations with technical advice on the preparation of statistics in this field.
In order to meet the increased demand for information in all phases of productivity measurement, the Bureau has expanded its program of data collection and analysis. The need for a broad measure for all manufacturing will be met by an increase in the number of industries for which summary indexes are developed from census and other secondary-source data, and an expansion of the number of detailed industry reports to provide coverage in industries not now represented.
During the past year the Bureau published indexes of output per man-hour for 19 manufacturing, 5 mining, and 3 public-utilities industries, and for
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agriculture. Plans for the coming year call for the preparation of 12 additional series, including such important industries as'iron and steel, tires and tubes, and agricultural machinery.
Detailed industry surveys are now available for a group of 17 industries. Current plans call for the addition of at least 7 new studies to provide coverage in the fields of textiles, apparel, leather products, foundries, printing, meat packing, and automobile parts.
The Bureau’s contribution to international productivity programs included a number of research projects, which were instituted in conjunction with the ECA’s program of technical assistance for western Europe. Major projects already completed include surveys of the characteristics of industrial productivity in England and France; a comprehensive digest of sources of productivity information in the United States; a preliminary statement on the uses of productivity information in American manufacturing establishments; and a substantial volume of analytical material on national and international productivity statistics compiled in the past.
The Boom in Housing
Homebuilding activity reached a near-record high in 1948 when builders started 931,000 new permanent nonfarm dwelling units. During the spring and early summer of 1948, new dwelling units were started at the rate of about 100,000 a month, but a downturn in August continued for the remainder of the year. In the first half of 1949 homebuilding construction made rapid seasonal increases and by June had surpassed the 1948 monthly rate.
During the 12 months under review, the Bureau received numerous requests for local data to assist both State and local governmental units and individual builders and real-estate developers in determining future action. In response to increasing demand for local information on all aspects of the housing situation, the Bureau formulated plans for on-the-spot surveys of homebuilding activity in 15 metropolitan areas, each of which is a major housing market. The plans include techniques for collecting and supplying facts about the volume, types, costs, and characteristics of new dwellings started, and their sales and rental prices.
In addition to non-farm-housing data, the Bureau published each month its national estimates of employment by construction contractors, earnings and hours of construction workers, expenditures for new construction (prepared jointly with the Office of Domestic Commerce, United States Department of Commerce), urban building authorized, and Federal construction contracts awarded. Estimates of the labor required to put in place the current volume of construction were released quarterly.
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Occupational Outlook Research
During the fiscal year 1949 there was considerable public interest in the Nation’s needs for and resources of scientific, professional, and skilled workers. This interest was heightened when, in the spring of 1949, an all-time peak in college graduations occurred at the same time as a moderate increase in unemployment, and employment opportunities for graduates in many fields were less favorable than at any time in nearly a decade.
To meet these needs, the Bureau issued the first comprehensive report on the employment trends and outlook in the major occupations of the United States, the Occupational Outlook Handbook. This 454-page volume describing the outlook in 288 occupations summarized the conclusions of 7 years of occupational outlook research. In the course of this research, officials of more than 3,000 business firms, trade associations, unions, and professional societies were interviewed. The Bureau’s statistical records on employment trends, wages, productivity, collective-bargaining agreements, and industrial hazards were analyzed. Data were obtained from other Government agencies and many other sources. The Occupational Outlook Handbook was issued in cooperation with, and with the financial aid of, the Veterans Administration. It included contributions by the Department of Agriculture, the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, and the United States Employment Service and the Office of Education, Federal Security Agency.
The Occupational Outlook Handbook was adopted for official use in all Federal agencies providing counseling services, including the Veterans Administration, the United States Employment Service and affiliated State employment services, the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, and all branches of the National Military Establishment. It was widely adopted by high schools and colleges throughout the country. By the end of fiscal 1949, 30,000 copies had been sold.
Other reports completed during the year described employment outlook in railroads, the building trades, electric utilities, radio and television, and the engineering profession. A study of the economic status of radio artists was made in cooperation with the American Federation of Radio Artists. The wide use of these reports is indicated by total sales of the Bureau’s occupational outlook bulletins—52,000 by the end of 1949, exclusive of the Occupational Outlook Handbook.
Research continued during the year on the development of techniques for the analysis of occupational trends. One of the outstanding developments was construction of Labor-Force Life Tables—actuarial tables which show the effect of both death and retirement from the labor force. Developed for use in analyzing the number of new workers each occupation and
861326—50----6
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industry needs to replace those dying or retiring, they also have proved useful in approaching a number of other problems related to patterns of working life.
Industrial Accidents and Working Conditions
The general downward trend in work-injury frequency rates, which started in 1947, continued throughout 1948 and early 1949. Industry generally appeared to be increasing its efforts to avoid accidents as a part of a drive to reduce operating costs. In sharp contrast to this general trend to increased work safety, however, there were many establishments which felt compelled to reduce their expenditures for safety and as a result experienced a rising volume of work injuries. In the aggregate the total volume of work injuries was slightly less in 1948 than in 1947.
The magnitude of the industrial-injury problem was brought into sharp focus and interest in developing expanded safety programs was greatly stimulated through the activities of the President’s Conference on Industrial Safety. The Bureau of Labor Statistics participated directly in all of the Conference discussions relating to work-injury statistics and provided a great deal of statistical material for the groups considering other phases of safety activity.
Monthly injury rates prepared by the Bureau for all manufacturing and for each of 117 manufacturing industry classifications traced this general improvement in safety and pointed out the activities which were lagging behind, thus stimulating greater safety efforts in those areas. More than 15,000 employers, unions, insurance companies, and State factory inspectors received the Bureau’s reports directly and thereby were enabled to evaluate the safety programs under their control in relation to the average records of others in comparable fields of activity. Supplementing the current frequency-rate reports for manufacturing, the Bureau also issued a more comprehensive annual report summarizing the year’s injury record in greater detail for 214 classifications of manufacturing and nonmanufacturing activity.
A special study of accident hazards and accident causes was completed for the fertilizer manufacturing industry, and similar studies were undertaken for the structural clay products and paper and pulp industries. In addition an extensive special study of work-injury rates in construction was undertaken, designed to provide for the first time specific injury rates for particular types of construction work and for the individual trades or occupations engaged in those operations.
BUREAU OF VETERANS’ REEMPLOYMENT RIGHTS
The reemployment-rights program stems from the following acts of Congress: Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, as amended; Army Reserve and Retired Personnel Service Law of 1940, as amended; Service Extension Act of 1941, as amended; Merchant Marine Reemployment Act, as amended; and the Selective Service Act of 1948. All of these acts are in full force and effect, except that Public Law 239, Eightieth Congress, terminated the unlimited national emergency so far as the Merchant Marine Act was concerned, and any parts of the older acts which are inconsistent with the Selective Service Act of 1948 are suspended for the period the new act is in existence.
The Division of Veterans’ Reemployment Rights, now the Bureau of Veterans’ Reemployment Rights, was established by the Secretary of Labor under the act of March 31, 1947 (Public Law 26, 80th Cong.), and July 30, 1947 (Public Law 271, 80th Cong.). The responsibility of the Bureau was continued by the act of June 24, 1948 (Public Law 759, 80th Cong.).
In fiscal 1949, the Bureau had 44 employees. There were 10 field offices, each embracing from 3 to 6 States and Territories, and 7 area offices, located in the heavy industrial centers or in localities remote from the field offices. The Veterans’ Reemployment Branch of the Solicitor’s Office provided legal advice to the Bureau and prepared legal opinions and interpretations. The Office of the Secretary provided fiscal, personnel, and general services to the Bureau.
The reemployment-rights program is an industrial-relations activity which has been, and continues to be, an important factor in the readjustment of ex-servicemen in their civilian occupations. Because of the wide occupational range of ex-servicemen, their reemployment has required this Bureau to be concerned with almost every phase of economic life as it relates to employment, including the personnel customs and practices o business and the professions, and the collective bargaining process between management and labor.
Reemployment rights involve more than the simple reinstatement of ex-servicemen in their old jobs. They include certain benefits to which veterans may be entitled after reinstatement, such as seniority, working conditions, promotions, pay increases, vacations, bonuses, insurance, and other benefits.
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A veteran who returns to his old job becomes a self-sustaining citizen in his home community. By remaining in his former position, he generally foregoes readjustment benefits, such as unemployment and self-employment payments, and on-the-job, on-the-farm, and college-training benefits.
Utilization of Agencies and Volunteers
Throughout fiscal 1948, the Bureau established a close working relationship with other agencies, State and Federal, in the administration of the reemployment-rights program and organized volunteer State and local reemployment committees to help do the job at State and local levels. In section 9 (h) of the Selective Service Act of 1948, the Congress gave recognition to this method of administration by requiring the Secretary of Labor, through the Bureau, ‘ ‘ to use existing State and Federal agencies engaged in similar or related activities and to utilize the assistance of volunteers” in rendering aid to ex-servicemen.
The use of State and Federal agencies was expanded in fiscal 1949. Previous arrangements with State employment services were continued whereby more than 1,700 local offices served as initial points of contact and general information for ex-servicemen and employers in connection with reemployment rights. State Selective Service System headquarters, through local boards and recruiting stations of the Military Establishment, made available to persons entering the armed services basic information supplied by the Bureau about reemployment rights. Separation centers of the Military Establishment distributed informational material about reemployment rights to ex-servicemen at the time of their separation from the armed services. The Veterans Administration assisted in the dissemination of information to veterans through its contact offices. State departments of veterans’ affairs rendered advice and assistance on reemployment problems in their areas. The Veterans’ Employment Service assisted the Bureau in organizing and maintaining its organization in each State.
The volunteer concept was also emphasized in fiscal 1949- More than 800 volunteer State veterans’ reemployment rights committeemen were appointed by the Secretary of Labor to serve in the 48 States. These committeemen are prominent in such well-known organizations and agencies as the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Veterans of World War II, Disabled American Veterans, American Federation of Labor, Congress of Industrial Organizations, Railroad Brotherhoods, United Mine Workers, Chambers of Commerce, employer associations, industrial associations, State labor commissions, State departments of veterans affairs, State civil service commissions, Adjutants General, State employment services, unemployment compensation commissions, Selective Service System, National Military Establishment, Veterans’ Employment Service, Veterans Administration, United States Civil Service Commission, and
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others. State committeemen serve in an advisory capacity to field representatives of the Bureau in connection with reemployment problems of a controversial nature which arise in the States. They also assist the Bureau in passing along to interested persons in their organizations and elsewhere useful information about the program.
More than 4,000 local volunteer reemployment rights committeemen were appointed by the Secretary of Labor in 1949 to serve, without pay, in the actual handling of reemployment problems and in keeping veterans, employers, and others in their localities informed about the program. These committeemen generally are county service officers of the departments of veterans’ affairs, post service officers of the veterans’ organizations, persons active in employer, labor, and professional groups, and other interested citizens.
Perhaps the most difficult task of the Bureau is the adequate servicing of its volunteer organization. Because of limited field staff of the Bureau and the large areas covered by field representatives, it has not been possible to work out a satisfactory program of assistance to committeemen through personal contacts. The Bureau has had to rely primarily on correspondence and its periodic field letters in maintaining the volunteer organization.
Assistance Provided
The procedures adopted by the Bureau in rendering assistance to ex-servicemen in the exercise of their reemployment rights during fiscal 1949 followed the pattern established in 1948. Through the information program, an ex-serviceman with a reemployment problem is directed first to the nearest local office of the State employment service for information. If it is found that his problem is'affected by the reemployment statutes, the information is recorded and the ex-serviceman furnished the name and address of the nearest volunteer reemployment committeeman. This committeeman develops any further information required, contacts the employer, and seeks to settle the case. Where the problem is a relatively simple one, such as clarifying some point of eligibility, settlement generally is effected promptly at the local level. If the problem is a complicated one, involves a large number of veterans, or an employer at some place other than the locality in which the committeeman and the ex-serviceman reside, or if for some other reason the volunteer committeeman’s efforts fail, he forwards the case to the field representative of the Bureau in charge of the area. The field representative studies the case, continues negotiations short of legal action, and gives all parties concerned the benefit of his knowledge and experience on similar claims, as well as opinions rendered by the Solicitor of Labor and conclusions reached by the courts. More than 90 percent of the claims reaching the Bureau are settled in this way.
If the negotiations of the field representative prove unsuccessful, he
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explains to the ex-serviceman his rights to representation by the United States attorney and, upon written request, refers the claim together with an analysis and the complete file to the United States attorney for the district in which the employer has his place of business. The United States attorney then determines if the claim has sufficient merit to justify legal action. If the United States attorney so requests (and frequently this is the case), the field representative confers with him on the merits of the case and develops any additional information required.
The whole reemployment rights program is set up on such a basis that the ex-serviceman can obtain ready access to information, and have his problem settled quickly with the minimum amount of “red tape’’ and referral.
Cases Handled
A reemployment rights case, as defined by the Bureau, contains the following elements:
1.	It involves a veteran.
2.	It involves an employer. (Where the veteran merely seeks general information about reemployment rights and has no actual problem involving an employer, it is considered a request for information.)
3.	It involves a reemployment rights situation between the employer and the veteran. The actual situation may be settled to the advantage of the veteran, or negotiations may not be successful. The claim may be meritorious or it may not be.
4.	It is reported to the Bureau and requires affirmative action on the part of the Bureau. This may range from giving the veteran or committeeman the benefit of the field representative’s knowledge and experience in presenting the case to the employer to a very complicated situation which eventually, after a series of conferences and negotiations, is settled or transmitted to the United States attorney.
Because they function on a volunteer basis, and receive no compensation or clerical assistance from the Federal Government, local reemployment rights committeemen have not been called upon for, nor could they be expected to furnish, reports on inquiries and problems which they have handled successfully by the use of materials furnished them by the Bureau but which do not require any further action. For this reason, it is impossible to determine the total number of inquiries and cases handled by the approximately 4,000 volunteer reemployment rights committeemen. Two simple post-card surveys and a number of spot checks during the year indicated that the volunteers received and handled successfully many more cases than they reported to the Bureau or forwarded for further action.
It is estimated that at least two out of every three problems reaching local committeemen are disposed of without being reflected in the reports
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made by the Bureau. This is an indication of the effectiveness of volunteer service, but there is always the possibility of misunderstandings arising due to inadequate documentation of such cases and occasional instances of inadequate handling. Frequently the Bureau receives inquiries from Members of Congress or other interested parties concerning cases handled by committeemen on which there is no file or other information. It is believed, however, that while it is essential to provide committeemen continuously with up-to-date information and to increase the field contacts with the more active ones, the additional expense involved in a more comprehensive reporting system would not be justified and that the placing of such a system in effect would result in a loss of services of many committeemen.
Reemployment cases initiated by the Bureau direct with ex-servicemen and those received from committeemen for further handling totaled 5,856 in fiscal 1949 or an average of 488 a month. This compares with 7,866 handled in fiscal 1948 or an average of 655 cases a month. Total personnel employed by the Bureau in fiscal 1949 was 44 as compared to 96 in fiscal 1948.
A national summary of reemployment cases handled at the field office level in fiscal 1948 and 1949 is set forth below:
	Aug. 1,1947, to June 30,1948	July 1,1948, to June 30,1949	Total to July 1, 1949
1. Cases initiated __ -	_ 			7, 866	5,856	13,722
a. Number involving initial reinstatement- - 		3,530	1,742	5,272
b. Number involving rights after reinstatement		4,336	4' 114	8,450
(1) Discharge within statutory year-.. -			434	392	826
(2) Seniority	- 	 			2, 080	2,260	4,340
(3) Vacation rights 		 -	-		1,041	' 753	ij 794
(4) Other employee benefits 	_ 		477	510	' 987
(5) Other	 _	304	199	503
2. Cases closed-.. __ 		 	 . _ 		5,874	5,614	11,488
a. Amount of cash settlements 	 	 .	$242,544.82	$147, 772	$390,316.82
3. Cases referred to United States Attorneys		974	'331	1,305
4. Cases pending	_		 		.			1, 992	2, 235	2,235
5. Pending with Bureau of Veterans’ Reemployment Rights..	R387	1, 803	i; 803
6. Pending with United States Attorneys		605	432	432
It will be seen from the above tabulation that the more difficult cases arising out of the reemployment rights statutes were rights after reinstatement which constituted 55 percent in 1948 as compared to 70 percent in 1949. It is also significant that the monthly average of cases initiated at the field office level exceeded the average number closed by 20, resulting in a steady rise of the pending backlog to a maximum number of 2,235 cases as of the end of the fiscal year.
It is not possible for the records to reflect the number of veterans involved in the cases handled. Frequently, the closing of a single case will establish a pattern which affects large numbers of veterans.
Some reemployment rights claims’ involve the question of damages. Although the number of such cases is relatively small (less than 9 percent
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of the cases settled by the Bureau have involved damages), it is interesting to note that damage settlements in the amount of $390,316 have been negotiated for ex-servicemen by the Bureau’s field representatives. These collections equaled 54 percent of the $712,455 expended by the Bureau since its establishment in 1947 and do not include any damages negotiated by United States attorneys in connection with claims developed by the Bureau and referred to them for appropriate action. Justice Department reports show an additional $964,149 in damages obtained for veterans in this way through May 31, 1949.
Promotion of Compliance
Through a program of education and information, the Bureau has sought to acquaint employers with their obligations and ex-servicemen with their rights under the statutes. This was designed to prevent controversies from arising under the acts as well as to eliminate misunderstandings between employers and ex-servicemen which might result in hardship to veterans and sometimes increased liabilities to employers. The answer to an inquiry or the transmittal of a field letter on a controversial point often relieved the Bureau of any further action in connection with a reemployment problem that may have affected one or more ex-servicemen in a particular plant. If the problem was not arrested at its inception but became a reemployment case, it might have gone on for months, consuming in correspondence, research, and conferences, the time and efforts of volunteer committeemen, field representatives, employers, union representatives, the Bureau staff in Washington, and the Solicitor of Labor. If the claim was not settled by negotiation, the United States attorney was drawn into the case and court action became necessary. The Bureau has frequently been called upon to review employer policies and proposed sections of collective bargaining agreements covering reemployment rights questions and has suggested changes in many instances where conflict with the reemployment statutes appears possible. In this way, many problems have been arrested before attaining case status. A better understanding of the reemployment program by all parties concerned has been found to be of the utmost importance to efficient and economical administration.
The preventive phase of the program falls roughly into two categories: (1) The answering of specific inquiries received from ex-servicemen, potential servicemen, employers, labor organizations, and others, and (2) the dissemination of general information, interpretations, opinions of the Solicitor of Labor and analyses of court decisions in connection with reemployment matters.
Under the first category, incomplete reports show reemployment committeemen answered 11,986 specific inquiries in 1949. Field representatives’ reports show from veterans and employers, 24,164 inquiries by letter,
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24,609 by telephone, and 10,192 by personal visits to field offices. At the national level 2,708 inquiries were answered by letter. There is noway of measuring how many individual ex-servicemen’s problems were settled before attaining case status by the information contained in the answers to these inquiries. It is reasonable to assume that a large percentage of the inquiries stemmed from specific problems which employers anffex-service-men had at the time they requested the information.
Under the second category, the Bureau, with the assistance of the Solicitor of Labor, has made available to ex-servicemen, employers, labor organizations, and the general public 774 interpretations, opinions, and analyses of court decisions. The Bureau also prepared periodically multilithed field letters intended primarily for the use of field representatives, volunteer committeemen, and cooperating State and Federal agencies. Because of individual requests of employers, employees, and others, the use of the field letter as a handbook of information on reemployment rights matters was expanded threefold in 1949. Generally, each field letter discussed the most controversial questions received by the Bureau on a single reemployment problem during a given period. The reemployment rights of ex-servicemen in lay-off status was the most frequent question asked during the month of May. Field Letter No. 9 released in June cited the most pertinent questions on this subject with the answers and gave opinions of the Solicitor of Labor and analyses of court decisions as the basis of the Bureau’s position.
The following informational material was prepared by the Bureau and released in the amount indicated during fiscal 1949:
Informational material:	Distributed
Field Letter No. 5................................................................ 5,590
Field Letter No. 6............................................................... 24, 750
Field Letter No. 7............................................................... 50, 950
Field Letter No. 8............................................................... 15, 732
Field Letter No. 9............................................................... 18, 473
Field Letter No. 10.............................................................. 12,355
Informational leaflet, Information About Your Reemployment Rights Under the
Selective Service Act of 1948........................................... 619, 485
Informational pamphlet, An Ex-Serviceman’s Right to his Old Job.... 94,110
Reemployment rights placard................................................ 39, 590
Above figures do not include Bureau materials reproduced or reprinted by other Federal and State agencies for distribution through their own channels, or by private organizations at their own expense.
WAGE AND HOUR AND PUBLIC CONTRACTS DIVISIONS
Throughout the year, the Divisions were faced with the problem of adjusting enforcement policies and procedures under the overtime compensation provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act in the light of the Supreme Court decision in the so-called overtime on overtime back-wage suits of a number of east-coast longshoremen. The decision, handed down June 7, 1948, in Bay Ridge Operating Co. v. Aaron and Huron Stevedoring Corp. v. Blue ruled primarily on the status of premium payments to employees for Saturday, Sunday, and holiday work, and for work outside a so-called “established workday.” It was up to the Court to determine whether, and to what extent, such premium payments constituted true overtime compensation under the act, or whether all or part of such payments must be included with straight-time earnings in computing an employee’s “regular rate” of pay.
The term “regular rate” of pay was not defined in the Fair Labor Standards Act as originally enacted in 1938. The overtime-pay requirement of the act merely stated that, unless specifically exempt, employees engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for commerce must be paid at least time and one-half their “regular rate” for work after 40 hours in a workweek.
In the Bay Ridge case, the Supreme Court ruled that a true overtime premium under the act is any additional compensation paid to an employee for certain hours of work because he has previously worked in accordance with a bona fide standard of hours established by contract, practice, or statute. Thus, the Court held, the “regular rate” of pay of an employee is computed by dividing his total compensation for a workweek, minus true overtime premium pay, by the number of hours he has worked for which such compensation was paid.
The Court’s decision had an immediate material effect upon the Divisions’ enforcement activities because of the necessity of applying its principles broadly to the approximately 20 million employees entitled to the overtimepay protection of the act. Previously, the Divisions had recognized most premium payments for Saturday, Sunday, or holiday work, or for work on regular days of rest as being true overtime compensation under the act regardless of where such days fell within the workweek. Under the principles set forth in the decision, however, it was necessary to hold that premium payments for such work could be recognized as true overtime compensation only in situations where an employee previously had worked a bona fide standard number of hours or days.
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As a guide to employers, the Administrator immediately issued a statement of the principles he would follow in enforcing the overtime provisions of the act in the light of the Supreme Court decisions. It was found that many employers would be obliged to change their pay practices, and many union agreements would require revision in order to comply with the act’s provisions as interpreted by the Court. To enable employers to adjust to the changed requirements, the Administrator did not order enforcement of the act on the basis of the new principles until October 18,1948,1 week after the Supreme Court had denied a petition for rehearing of the cases involved in the decision.
Because of the many enforcement problems involving “regular rate “of pay questions, the Administrator long has sought congressional clarification of the term. More than a year ago, he presented to the Congress specific recommendations for amendment of the act to provide a definition of the term “regular rate.” In his annual report for the 1948 fiscal year, the Administrator again urged an amendment on this subject, together with other amendments he believed necessary and desirable to improve effectiveness of the act.
A partial definition of “regular rate” is provided by Public Law 177, which was adopted by the Eighty-first Congress and approved on July 20, 1949. Under this law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act premium rates may be treated as overtime compensation under the act, if they are at not less than one and one-half times the nonovertime rate for the same work, when paid for work on Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays, or on the sixth or seventh day of the workweek, or for work outside the hours established in good faith as the basic, normal, or regular workday (not exceeding 8 hours) or workweek (not exceeding 40 hours).
While it left unresolved many troublesome “regular rate” problems, such as those involving profit-sharing arrangements, gifts to employees, radio talent fees, bonuses, and insurance plans, this amendment, which is retroactive in effect, solved the new overtime problems which had confronted the Divisions as a result of the decision in the longshoremen’s cases.
The amendment complements the general principles set forth in the Court decision by providing principles which recognize pay practices long maintained in industry. Thus, the following types of extra, or premium, compensation now are not deemed part of the “regular rate” of pay, and therefore may be credited toward overtime compensation due under the act for hours worked in excess of 40 in a week:
(1)	Extra compensation provided by a premium rate paid to the employee for work in excess of a bona fide daily or weekly standard number of hours or days (true overtime premiums under the principles approved by the Court in the Bay Ridge decision);
(2)	Extra compensation provided by a premium rate paid to the
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employee for work on Saturday, Sundays, or holidays, or on the sixth or seventh day of the workweek, where such premium rate is not less than one and one-half times the rate established in good faith for like work performed in nonovertime hours on other days (sec. 7 (e) (1) of rhe act, as amended by Public Law 177);
(3)	Extra compensation provided by a premium rate paid to the employee, in pursuance of an applicable employment contract or collective bargaining agreement, for work outside of the hours established in good faith by the contract or agreement as the basic, normal, or regular workday of not more than 8 hours, or as the basic, normal, or regular workweek of not more than 40 hours, where such premium rate is not less than one and one-half times the rate established in good faith by the contract or agreement for like work performed during such workday or workweek (sec. 7 (e) (2) of the act, as amended by Public Law 177).
Enforcement and Administration
While problems resulting from the Supreme Court’s decision in the longshoremen’s cases seriously affected the Divisions’ enforcement policies and procedures with reference to the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Divisions nevertheless succeeded in completing32,012 investigations. This was 6 percent above the planned national investigation program for the year and almost 7 percent greater than the 30,053 investigations completed during fiscal year 1948. This excess is accounted for by the fact that the planned investigation program for fiscal year 1949 was revised early in the fiscal year to avoid a concentration of investigations in industries particularly affected by the new interpretations in reference to overtime which resulted from the Supreme Court’s decision. This action was believed essential in order that the Divisions would not be put in the position of requiring changes in long-established pay practices which pending legislation would recognize as being in conformity with the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
A total of 2,527 of the investigations during the year involved determination of compliance with the provisions of the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act. Practically all of these investigations were made concurrently with investigations under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The 62-percent increase in the number of Public Contracts Act investigations completed during the year as compared with fiscal year 1948 is attributed largely to the greater volume of Government purchasing subject to this act, which applies to supply contracts for more than $10,000. Contracts let subject to the act’s provisions totaled $3-6 billion.
In 18,180 (57 percent) of the establishments investigated, violations were found of one or more of the basic provisions of the two acts—minimum
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wage, overtime, and child-labor provisions of either or both acts, and safety and health, home-work, and convict-labor provisions of the Public Contracts Act. This total is reduced to 13,534 establishments (42 percent of all investigated) by excluding the data on trivial or inadvertent violations. In 1,869 of the cases closed, violations were sufficiently serious to warrant their being reported for potential criminal prosecution of the employer or for Public Contracts Act hearing, or they resulted in the institution of injunction proceedings. However, most of these cases were subsequently closed by administrative action after assurance of future compliance was obtained. Violations of the basic provisions were found in all States and in all industry groups.
Results of investigations under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Public Contracts Act, fiscal year 1949
Provision violated	Results of investigations under the Fair Labor Standards Act		Results of investigations under the Public Contracts Act	
	Number	Percent	Number	Percent
Total number of establishments investigated		32,012	100	2,527	100
Establishments in violation of basic provisions:				
Number in violation of overtime provisions _		16, 930	53	763	30
Number in violation of minimum-wage provisions..	L 574	5	20	1
Number in violation of child-labor provisions 		1,766	6	96	4
Number in violation of safety and health provisions.	(')	(9	857	34
1 Not applicable.
Somewhat more than half of the establishments investigated were found to have violated the overtime provisions of either or both acts at some time during the period covered by the investigation, normally 2 years. The violations involved complete disregard of the overtime provisions of the acts as well as instances of improper computation of the regular rate of pay; misapplication of exemptions provided for executive, administrative, or professional employees, and employees employed in a local retailing capacity or as outside salesmen; and inadvertent clerical errors. While many of the violations resulted because of misunderstanding or error, a substantial number of them were wilful or intentional violations.
Minimum-wage violations were disclosed in 1,574 (5 percent) of the investigated establishments. This low violation ratio is not surprising, since average hourly earnings in most covered industries are equal to more than three times the outdated statutory minimum rate of 40 cents per hour. As an interesting comparison, in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, where the minimum-wage rates in effect are more realistic, 56 percent of the establishments investigated under the Fair Labor Standards Act were found in violation of the minimum-wage provisions. (The Public Contracts Act does not apply in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.)
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The investigations closed during the year revealed underpayments amounting to $12,186,957 owed to 186,310 employees in 17,368 establishments. Employers voluntarily agreed or were ordered by the courts to make restitution of $4,279,085 (35 percent of the total). The remaining $7,907,872 (65 percent of the total) was owed by the 6,632 employers who refused to make restitution, and is indicative of the increasing reluctance on the part of employers to make restitution of back wages found due.
The Divisions utilize the civil and criminal actions authorized under sections 16 and 17 of the Fair Labor Standards Act only with respect to those employers who deliberately or otherwise have refused to comply with the act’s minimum-wage, overtime, or child-labor provisions. During the year, a total of 304 injunctions was obtained, 71 by consent and 233 by contest. Criminal actions brought by the Divisions resulted in 82 convictions and the payment of $58,716 in fines.
Child-labor activities.—Both the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act contain child-labor provisions which may apply to possibly half of the 2,818,000 minors between 14 and 18 years of age whom the United States Bureau of the Census reported were employed in June 1949. Application of the child-labor provisions of the two acts is not similar, however. The Public Contracts Act directly prohibits the employment of boys under 16 years of age and girls under 18 years of age and provides for damages of $10 per day for each day an under-age child is knowingly employed on contract work subject to the act. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employment of minors is merely restricted, and a basic minimum age of 16 is established except in occupations covered by hazardous occupations orders of the Secretary of Labor, for which an 18-year minimum is set. Provision is made for the employment of minors 14 and 15 years of age in nonmanufacturing and nonmining occupations under limited conditions of work and outside of school hours. Employment of minors under the prescribed minimum age levels is defined under the act as oppressive child labor.
For these reasons, results of the Divisions’ investigations with respect to violations of the child-labor provisions of the two acts are considered separately.
Child-labor violations under Fair Labor Standards Act.—Violations were found in 1,766 (6 percent) of the 32,012 establishments where this act applied and for which investigations were closed during the fiscal year. Violations were found in every major industry group, with the highest proportion of manufacturing establishments in violation found in canning and preserving, where 20 percent of the canneries investigated were employing “oppressive child labor.” In sawmills, and planing and plywood mills, where work is especially dangerous and therefore covered by a hazardous occupations order, under-age children were employed in 17 per-
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cent of the mills investigated. Of the 22,047 minors under 18 years of age found working in 5,183 establishments, 4,438 (20 percent) were employed contrary to the child-labor provisions of the act. Of all under-age minors oppressively employed, 588 (13 percent) were under 14 years of age, and 40 of them under 9 years of age.
It was found that some of the children under 16 years of age who had been employed contrary to the child-labor provisions of the act had been required to work long workdays, long workweeks, and sometimes very late at night. Children under 14 were found working in most of the major industry groups and in a remarkably wide variety of occupations in factories, wholesale houses, logging camps, and sawmills, assisting in various types of industrial home work, and in agriculture during the hours they were legally required to attend school. A total of 1,495 minors under 18 was found to have been employed in occupations declared especially hazardous by the Secretary of Labor for minors between 16 and 18 years of age. In this group were 285 children of 14 or 15 years of age and 36 who were under 14 years.
Child-labor violations under the Public Contracts Act.—Violations were found in 96 (4 percent) of the 2,527 establishments investigated, during the fiscal year, for compliance with the provisions of the Public Contracts Act. As a result, $104,785 in liquidated damages was paid by the employers, at the rate of $10 per day for each boy under 16 or girl under 18 “ knowingly” employed.
The program for determining occupations that are particularly hazardous for minors under 18 years of age under the child-labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act was marked by completion of a comprehensive study of the hazards to minors in the entire field of operating cold-metal-working machines. The study was undertaken subsequent to a public hearing, conducted by the Divisions on the proposed hazardous occupations order to be issued by the Secretary of Labor, where questions were raised relative to the desirability of exempting students employed in cooperative vocational-education programs and of widening the exemption for apprentices. As the fiscal year ended, a revised proposal based upon a comprehensive examination of all the available information was being prepared.
Hazardous Occupations Order No. 6, issued in 1942, prohibiting the employment of minors under 18 in activities involving exposure to radioactive substances, was amended by the Secretary of Labor to encompass all radioactive substances requiring special handling. Mining operations other than coal mining also were investigated during the year. Coal mining is already subject to Hazardous Occupations Order No. 3. The investigation covered both metal and nonmetal mines, underground or open-pit, placer mining, borehole mining, and work in quarrying, in clay extraction, and in sand and gravel pits, as well as related occupations carried on outside
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the mine or pit (such as work in ore dressing plants and metal mills). Proposals based on this investigation will be made during the 1950 fiscal year.
Under regulations adopted by the Secretary of Labor effective September 17, 1948, certificates of age were made available for employers subject to the child-labor provisions of the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act, as well as under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Certificates thus made acceptable as proof of age under both acts are issued under the State child-labor laws in 44 States, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, in accordance with cooperative agreements between the Secretary of Labor and State agencies, and by the Divisions in Idaho, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.
Various States were aided in development of their age-certification program and in reporting certificates issued for employed minors, and a special departmental regulation was amended to enable broader use of Alaskan age records. In one State, the Divisions were confronted with the question of whether certificates should be issued for employment of minors in a plant where a strike was going on, and adopted a policy of not issuing certificates in such a case, in order not to facilitate employment of minors in such establishments at such times.
The fiscal year showed a decrease in the number of Federal certificates issued—from 14,179 in the fiscal year 1948 to 9,813 in the 1949 fiscal year. The number of certificates of all kinds (including those issued on change of jobs) issued during the calendar year 1948 was 774,156, reported to the Divisions by 42 States, 30 cities in 2 other States, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
All 44 States issuing certificates, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico have accepted redesignation as age-certification agencies under the 2 acts for another year, the year ending June 30, 1950.
A comprehensive community survey of youth employment in Louisville, Ky., titled Hunting a Career: A Study of Out-of-School Youth in Louisville, Kentucky, was being printed as the year closed. It is based on interviews with 524 boys and girls 14 through 19 years of age who were out of school and working, or looking for work, and is supplemented by interviews with employers, labor leaders, and officials of State and community agencies responsible for vocational guidance, placement, and other services to youth. Considerable data were obtained as to the reasons why children drop out of school, the problems they face in finding and holding jobs, the conditions of their employment, the assistance and safeguards available to them in their community, and the extent to which these services are utilized by young people.
The year saw increasing interest in the problems of migratory child workers in agriculture, school drop-outs, methods of making youth-employ-
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ment studies, and methods of cooperation between agencies to get desired results for young workers. In carrying out its responsibility for general research and advisory service on all such aspects of youth employment, the Divisions collected and put into usable form statistical information on trends of child labor and gathered facts on the problems involved. Advisory service on ways of improving conditions was given to other Federal agencies, such as the United States Employment Service; to national organizations such as the National Child Labor Committee; to many other public and private organizations; and to individuals dealing with youth-employment problems.
To provide information needed in the interpretation of the child-labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, investigations were made of conditions surrounding employment of minors in the television industry and the employment of children in school work programs.
By action of the Congress, responsibility for performance of the general function of promoting improved standards and conditions for child labor was removed from the Divisions and returned to the Department of Labor s Bureau of Labor Standards effective July 1, 1949. The Divisions retained the responsibility for the administration and enforcement of the child-labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, including the direct issuance of Federal certificates of age. The child-labor research and youth-employment program, including cooperation with the States on Federal use of State age certificates and the research related to issuance of hazardous occupations orders and child-labor regulations, after 2 years in the Divisions, again became the responsibility of the Bureau of Labor Standards.
Safety and health investigations.—The increase in the number of investigations made during the fiscal year for compliance with the minimum-wage, overtime, and child-labor provisions of the Public Contracts Act brought about a corresponding increase in investigations, both by the Divisions and by cooperating State agencies, for compliance with the safety and health provisions of that act.
Under cooperative agreements which have been made between the Federal Government and States since the adoption of the Public Contracts Act in 1936, State personnel in the 20 generally more industrialized States, the District of Columbia, and the Territory of Hawaii, in the normal course of their own activities, report whether an establishment subject to the provisions of the act is in substantial compliance with the State’s safety and health laws. Compliance with safety, sanitary, and factory-inspection laws of the individual States is accepted as prima-facie evidence of compliance with the Public Contracts Act requirement that performance on Government contracts may not be under conditions that are * ‘ insanitary or hazardous or dangerous to the health and safety of employees.”
Activities of the Divisions’ personnel resulted in safety and health
861326—50----7
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investigations in 924 establishments, while State personnel made an additional 1,760 investigations under the cooperative agreements. Violations of the safety and health provisions of the act were found in 857 establishments.
Examples of the 1,619 recommendations made to management for improvement of safety and health conditions include 234 for the improvement of buildings, stairs, floors, the provision of guard rails around floor openings and platforms, elevator inspection, improvement of illumination, and general housekeeping; 234 for improvement of fire-prevention and protection facilities; and 283 for improving the guarding of machinery, belts, pulleys, shafting, and points of operation. In addition, 104 recommendations were made for the improvement of sanitary facilities, 31 for improvement of medical facilities, and 15 for the improvement of drinking water.
Public Contracts Act wage determinations.—The 1949 fiscal year saw more progress in the re-examination of prewar and early wartime industry wage determinations under the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act, to assure, as this 1936 act requires, that each determination reflect “the prevailing minimum” currently being paid in the industry. Because activity in this field had been suspended during the war years in order to avoid conflict with the national wage-stabilization program, many of the determinations continue today to set a minimum-wage rate as low as 40 cents an hour. The Secretary of Labor, in directing the Divisions to initiate wage-determination amendment proceedings and to conduct public hearings in the various industries as promptly as the facilities of the Divisions will permit, stressed his responsibility under the Public Contracts Act to review each wage determination so as to keep it in conformance with the current prevailing minimum-wage practices in the industry. As the year closed, amended determinations had been issued by the Secretary covering five industries or industry branches, and one determination had been made for an industry on which previous wage-determination action had been taken. In addition, public hearings have been held in three other industries, for which amended determinations were pending at the end of the fiscal year.
Wage-order program in Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands.—Publicity attending the Puerto Rico Insular Government program to provide employment opportunities for a rapidly expanding population has emphasized the Divisions’ responsibility under the Fair Labor Standards Act to establish minimum-wage rates in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands which will result neither in substantial curtailment of employment opportunities nor give manufacturers in the Islands a competitive advantage over mainland producers. This function is of vital importance to the Islands, since the level of the minimum-wage rates is frequently the factor which determines whether an industry can successfully operate there. Thus, the establishment of such rates often involves an appropriate balancing between conflict
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ing economic interests. Several of the wage orders for employees subject to the act resulting from the recommendations of Special Industry Committee No. 5 for Puerto Rico became effective early in the fiscal year, but no additional industry-committee action occurred during the year. The Divisions planned to undertake a new wage-order program for Puerto Rico during the 1950 fiscal year in order to bring the rates for Puerto Rican industries in line with current economic and competitive conditions.
In the Virgin Islands, a Special Industry Committee investigated economic and competitive conditions during the 1949 fiscal year and recommended revision of minimum-wage rates which had been in effect since 1945-Preliminary wage-order minima for the Islands were necessary in order to effectuate the statutory mandate of achieving for industries there the highest minimum-wage rates up to 40 cents an hour as rapidly as is economically feasible, without substantially curtailing employment, and without giving a competitive advantage to any such industry over any industry in other sections of the United States.
Following public hearings held in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, and Christiansted, St. Croix, the committee, composed of representatives of industry, labor, and the general public, filed a unanimous report with the Administrator in which it recommended increases ranging from 5 to 15 cents an hour over the 1945 rates. These recommended rates were incorporated into a wage order made effective August 29, 1949.
"Executive,” "Administrativeetc., exemptions.—The Divisions issued a Report and Recommendations which serves as the basis of the Administrator’s proposed revisions of regulations applicable to exemption of certain so-called “white collar” employees from the minimum-wage and overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Report and Recommendations was prepared by a branch director of the Divisions who served as presiding officer at an extensive public hearing held on 22 days ending in January 1948. Affecting approximately 2,500,000 employees, the regulations were last substantially revised in 1940. They provide salary level and other “tests” which employers must apply in determining which of their employees may be exempt because employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, professional, or local retailing capacity, or in the capacity of outside salesman. In giving notice of his proposed adoption of the presiding officer’s recommendations, the Administrator said the proposed changes in the tests reflect present salary levels and other requirements believed necessary to make the regulations meaningful and easier to apply.
Industrial home work.—A total of 6,400 certificates was issued to home workers in the 7 industries in which such work is restricted under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The total represents a decrease from the 1948 figure, 7,085, but no significant changes were noted in the area of industrial home work. Distribution of home workers’ certificates issued, bv restricted
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industry, was: Buttons and buckles, 92; embroideries, 2,393; gloves and mittens, 1,888; handkerchiefs, 46; jewelry, 328; knitted outerwear, 790; and women’s apparel, 873. With the exception of the restriction provision in these industries and the special provisions relating to home work in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, no distinction is made under the Fair Labor Standards Act between factory workers and home workers in work covered by the act. The Public Contracts Act prohibits all home work.
Handicapped workers.—Consistent with the downward trend in the number of requests for certificates during recent years, only 158 were issued by the Divisions during the year for the employment of handicapped workers at subminimum rates in industry. And, again, most certificates issued were for the employment of aged watchmen who otherwise would not have had employment opportunities.
For the employment of handicapped workers at subminimum rates in nonprofit workshops, where varying numbers of workers are provided jobs, 90 certificates were issued. It is estimated that probably as many as 15,000 handicapped workers receive rehabilitation services and work opportunities in such shops at some time or another during the course of a year.
Learners and apprentices.—Generally high wage rates prevailing throughout industry in the continental United States made unnecessary the issuance of any certificates for employment of learners or apprentices at rates lower than the 40 cents an hour provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act. And, although generally lower rates prevail in Puerto Rico, it was found necessary to issue only 22 learner certificates, 14 student-learner certificates, and 171 apprentice certificates to prevent curtailment of employment opportunities there. However, in the minimum-wage determinations issued during the year under the Public Contracts Act, special provisions were made for the employment either of learners or of apprentices.
WOMEN’S BUREAU
The number of women who work has more than doubled since Congress established the Women’s Bureau 30 years ago. The broad, general problems—economic and social—originally associated with their employment have developed into problems of much greater complexity. These women are now almost a third of the workers in the United States. They constitute a force in the troubled world economy that spells urgency in dealing with issues that hazard their industrial stability and personal welfare. The Women’s Bureau is the agency in Federal Government that carries the responsibility for experienced and considered dealing with these issues.
The Bureau discharges this responsibility in two ways: One is through large-scale, long-range economic and legislative research studies directed toward clear assessment of general economic and social conditions. The other is its day-to-day consultative service to State and Federal agencies and public groups and its short research projects in behalf of this service.
The old problems arebyno means solved. Earlier Women’s Bureau efforts to secure reasonable workdays and wages are still far from realization. Its efforts are exercised primarily in the promotion of adequate minimumwage standards. Similarly, legislative standards are developed with States and public groups to improve women’s working conditions in those large areas where the actuality does not yet approach basic standards. Other fundamental, continuous concerns of the Bureau are with the shifts in women’s employment and unemployment, training, skills, and occupational opportunities.
New, or at any rate greatly accentuated, social and economic problems are presented in this country by the fact that almost half of the women workers now are married women. The establishment of community services, to ease some of the burden of their home responsibilities, and to provide care for children, has lagged far behind the need created.
Perhaps even more significant to the welfare of the Nation are the effects of so great a number of married women in employment on the growth and health of the population. The problems involved are exceedingly complex, the result of many diverse economic pressures. Clearly, first problems that call for solution are those of maintenance of health toward future motherhood, and protection of maternity by provisions for adequate leave, maintenance of wages, and assurance of reemployment.
Urgent also are the problems of the older women workers, accentuated by the aging of the general population, by the greater life expectancy of
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98 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF LABOR women than of men, and by the fact that the services of older women are often dispensed with in periods of employment stress.
The problems cited above—old and new—are unique to women, and revolve about the facts that women are newer in industry than men, have less assured status in it, and have the dual function of workers and of maternity and care of the home. These problems, peculiar to women, explain the existence of a Women’s Bureau by special congressional act.
Peculiar also to the welfare of women workers, but with marked impact also on that of men, are the problems of equal pay. It is one of the Bureau’s responsibilities in this connection to demonstrate that interests thought to be conflicting are identical. At an earlier period men’s interests appeared to be better served by maintaining women in a lower industrial status, in less skilled jobs, and at lower rates of pay. Now, however, the sheer force of women’s numbers, their importance in the economy, and their improved training have put them on a job-competitive basis—most markedly in areas where they have war-acquired skills. Equal pay has become essential to the welfare of men and women alike. It is the Bureau’s job to aid in its achievement. The Bureau does this primarily in its consultative service to States and public groups and in its short research projects.
With recognition of women’s status in the economy there is developing recognition of their duties in and rights to full civil status—to serve on juries, control their own earnings, share equally in the guardianship of children, and have equality of treatment under naturalization and socialsecurity laws. It is the Bureau’s responsibility to aid women in achieving such status in all sections of the country.
Women’s Labor Law and Administration
Charged by act of Congress with “the duty to formulate standards which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women and improve their working conditions,” the Bureau continued one of its major functions, that of formulating standards for women’s labor laws and their administration, and of aiding States and labor, women’s, and civic groups in the development of such legislation. Activity this year centered chiefly around minimum-wage, equal-pay, and night-work legislation.
Major assistance was given on request to 14 States, the District of Columbia, and two Territories, and less extensive, though vital, assistance to the majority of the other States.
Minimum-wage legislation and administration.—Assistance in enacting a basic minimum-wage law, in revising existing law, or in administration and enforcement problems was given to five States and a Territory; in enacting new wage orders, revising existing orders, or preparing for their revision, to the majority of minimum-wage States and the District of Columbia. Consultative services were given State labor department administrations,
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attorney generals, and Governors’ commissions; draft legislation was furnished, and assistance in drafting; advisory services were provided on methods, staffing problems, and other requirements of enforcement.
In connection with wage boards convened or projected, the Women’s Bureau gave consultative services on general and technical aspects of wageboard procedures; on material evidence required by such boards; on effective methods of presenting evidence. It furnished data on minimum-wage legislation and orders; on provisions of earlier wage orders in the States and experience under them; on industry problems and wage-order coverage problems. It provided analyses of wage and employment data; gave field consultative services on methods of making surveys and on techniques of collecting data; developed schedules and trained field staff; processed, and assisted in analysis of or analyzed, collected data; and assisted in preparing final reports.
Further, for use with wage boards, the Bureau provided information on the significance of and justification for utilizing cost-of-living data in connection with setting minimum-wage rates; published a bulletin for the use of minimum-wage administrations on cost-of-living and on the budgets of 12 States; issued revised budgets for 3 States; furnished kits of cost-of-living materials; and continued development of a short-cut method of making cost-of-living surveys. On request, Bureau staff presented testimony before wage boards.
To serve States and public groups, the Bureau also prepared and sent to press Bulletin 227, an analysis of State minimum-wage orders issued or revised since 1942, and prepared various articles, releases, and duplicated materials in the minimum-wage field.
Fourteenth Minimum Wage Conference.—The Annual Minimum Wage Conference is a basic service to States. In December the Bureau convened its fourteenth conference, to provide minimum-wage administrators benefit of one another’s and the Bureau’s experience at first hand. Debate this year covered methods of selecting wage-board members, problems of wageboard operations, time-saving schedules, presentation and recording of evidence before wage boards, effective enforcement programs, and plans for bringing additional workers under coverage. Both the highlights and a report of the proceedings were issued as permanent records to serve both State administrations and public groups.
Equal pay.—The movement for equal pay was greatly accelerated this year by the growing realization that women’s lower wages exert a downward pull on men’s wages, particularly in those areas where women have war-acquired skills. Another factor favoring equal pay was the status of women as a large and permanent segment of the labor force.
Services of the Women’s Bureau in furthering the movement for equal pay were of five kinds: (1) Technical assistance to the States that already
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had equal-pay laws in the development of procedures for administering and enforcing them; (2) technical assistance to the States and the Territory that this year passed such legislation in developing a draft law and revising phraseology; (3) assistance to civic, labor, and women’s groups working actively for the adoption of equal-pay laws in other States; (4) cooperation in the development of a Federal equal-pay bill; and (5) work in behalf of international bodies.
State labor commissioners and legislators were given consultative services and technical materials in connection with equal-pay legislative programs, draft bills, amendments, and strengthening of enforcement procedures. Public groups were given analyses of proposed legislation, history of administration, and data on employer and union attitudes. Following analysis of previously proposed Federal equal-pay legislation, review of official positions thereon, and consultation with supporting groups, the Bureau, with the cooperation of the Solicitor of Labor, developed a revised Federal bill.
The Bureau also carried the responsibility for statements and documentation on United States policy on equal pay, for use at sessions of the United Nations Economic and Social Council and Commission on Status of Women, and gave consultative services and materials to International Labor Organ-zation staff in preparation for action on equal pay at ILO conferences.
In behalf of all concerned groups, the Bureau issued a report entitled “Movement for Equal Pay Legislation in the United States.’’
Other working-conditions legislation.—Primarily night-work and hours problems, but also matters relating to maternity protection and to health and safety, led States, labor, women’s, and other groups to call on the Bureau’s consultative services and materials in this area. Night work, in particular, was a matter of marked concern because of questions growing out of wartime regulations.
The Bureau is also cooperating in the Department’s program of servicing State action on International Labor Organization Conventions, including the revised night-work convention.
Publication in the general area of women’s working conditions legislation included sending to press Night Work in the Hotel and Restaurant Industries, issuing Summary of State Labor Laws for Women Enacted at 1948 State Legislative Sessions, and preparing a new popular leaflet on unemployment compensation. With the opening of the heavy legislative year in the States in January, the Bureau also carried responsibility again for digesting bills introduced in the fields of women’s labor laws, including minimum wage, hours of work, equal pay, prohibited occupations, working conditions, and maternity protection. Digests were continued throughout the year, for use as issued, and for inclusion in the Department’s legislative reports.
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Federal legislation.—Several Federal proposals this year sought action affecting the welfare of employed women. The Bureau prepared evidence and presented testimony on three in particular: (1) S. Res. 137 (an immigration bill), in support of removing discriminations against women as citizens and as immigrants; (2) H. R. 2893 (amending the Social Security Act), in support of extending coverage to domestic and institutional workers, including maternity benefits among disability benefits, and reducing the eligible age of retirement for women; (3) S. 85, in support of maternity benefits for Federal women employees.
Civil and political status.—The Women’s Status bill, of major import to women in industry since laws affecting civil and political status as well as labor legislation have significance for their welfare, was introduced for the first time in the Eightieth Congress. In consultation with the drafters of the original bill and the Solicitor of Labor, the Bureau redrafted the bill, and six House and five Senate sponsors introduced it in the Eighty-first Congress. It provides for the establishment of a Commission on the Legal Status of Women to investigate the nature and extent of discriminations based on sex throughout the Nation, to report on these, and to recommend legislation necessary to bring all laws into conformity with the declared United States policy that “in law and its administration no distinctions on the basis of sex shall be made except such as are reasonably justified by differences in physical structure, or by maternal function.’’ States are urged to adopt a legislative policy in conformity with this declared Federal policy.
The responsibilities the Women’s Bureau has in forwarding women’s civil and political status—their rights and duties to participate in Government and with respect to property and in family relationships—are, however, continuous and were discharged throughout the year in technical assistance to Government agencies and public groups. Further in fulfillment of this obligation, the Bureau issued 17 of its separate State reports on the Legal Status of Women in the United States, sent 17 others to press, and revised its popular leaflet Women’s Eligibility for Jury Duty.
Research Studies and Services
The Women’s Bureau, in fulfilling its congressional mandate to investigate and report upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of women workers, continued this year:
To serve as the one Government agency assembling and correlating economic data relating to women workers issued by Federal, State, international, and private research agencies, for use in responding to public inquiry and in developing major Bureau studies.
To prepare, from analysis of such data (1) major economic reports,
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and (2) brief economic reports on request of State agencies, women’s organizations, unions, international organizations, and others.
To conduct field studies on urgent problems for which data are not available.
To issue, on the basis of both published data and field investigation, reports on important areas of occupational opportunities for women.
Only limited and widely scattered information is available on many aspects of women in the economy. The Bureau therefore continued the functions of regularly assembling, correlating, and interpreting statistical and other economic data, from Federal, State, and private agencies, and university research institutes. Areas included women’s occupations, wage rates, and earnings; labor-force trends applying to women, such as their numbers, employment status, income, age distribution, employment of mothers, and family relations.
Assembled also were data on women’s employment and status in foreign areas available from United States Embassy reports and publications of foreign governments and international agencies.
This type of information served to answer the daily flow of inquiries and as the fundamental background to major Bureau studies.
A major study based on such data and completed this year is Women in the Federal Service which reports on the extent of and trends in women’s employment in the service, and on the training, experience, and length of service of a selected group of women in responsible Government posts.
Another report, based on existing data and completed this year to meet a need of job counselors, job seekers, students, and various agencies and organizations, is Women’s Jobs—Advance and Growth, a condensed simpler version of an earlier, highly technical bulletin.
Brief reports, bibliographies, and reference lists, based on both current and historical data, were prepared on request. Such materials included:
A report on factory women for the Woman’s Manual, a private agency’s compilation for reference uses.
A reference list on numbers, earnings, and conditions of work of women in industry; on conditions in early, prelegislation factory employment versus present-day factory employment; on methods used by the Bureau in investigating status and conditions of women’s work.
A wage report for incorporation in a brief to be presented at a State minimum-wage board hearing.
A report on earnings of office workers in 11 cities, another on part-time jobs for women, and another on marital status and age of women workers by occupational groups, for three women’s organizations.
A report on earnings of office workers and married women, and another on women’s earnings in trade and service industries, for two union organizations.
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A critical report on a proposed questionnaire for use in obtaining wages, hours, and related data on women factory workers, for the department of labor of another American Republic.
In connection with such reports, and apart from such reports, the Bureau has given technical advice to the various types of agencies it services. An example is its cooperation with a State department of labor in collecting data on earnings and hours of women and male minors employed in the State’s hotels and restaurants, for use at a wage-board hearing. The Bureau prepared the schedule forms, advised on sampling and collecting techniques, processed the data, and will assist in its analysis.
The persistent economic and social problems connected with night work, accentuated by wartime relaxations of night-work legislation and efforts to continue them, led the Bureau to undertake a field study of night work. Field work for the study was completed last year. The report, Night Work for Women in Hotels and Restaurants, completed this year, covers the nature of the concern about night work, interest in its control, constitutionality of night-work legislation, and analysis of the first-hand information on night-work hours, shifts, wage differentials, general conditions, and social or economic problems. Data were collected by Women’s Bureau field agents from employers and employees in the hotel and restaurant industries.
Further in line with undertaking studies to meet needs imposed by changing economic conditions, the Women’s Bureau began this year another field investigation, of opportunities for part-time work for women. It was initiated because of the interest women with household responsibilities have both in augmenting family income by part-time work and in maintaining acquired skills toward a period when full-time employment will again be possible for them. In no sense does the undertaking consider part-time employment a substitute for full-time. Vocational counselors, college placement bureaus, university women’s groups, and other women’s organizations stressed the need for the study. In 10 cities data are being obtained through interviews with employers, placement agencies, community agencies, and women now in part-time jobs. Information is being sought on number and type of part-time jobs, at various levels, available to women; on employer attitudes and proposals on part-time employment; and on characteristics of women engaged in or seeking this type of work.
In response to demands for information on the extent to which women have been able to maintain advances gained during the war, particularly advances to supervisory, administrative, and other posts of responsibility, the Women’s Bureau undertook field study to explore this area. It is designed to supply answers to such questions as “How many women hold such positions? What are factors affecting advancement? What are the present opportunities?” The survey covered a sample of women supervisors
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and executives in three industry groups—department stores, finance (banking and insurance), and manufacturing, in Boston, Chicago, and New York. Field work and first-draft report were completed this year.
Occupational opportunities.—The Women’s Bureau continued its series of studies and reports on the employment outlook for women in significant fields, of which the medical and other health fields were the first, followed by the sciences. This year, at the American Dietetic Association’s urgent request, because of critical shortages, a study on the outlook in dietetics and nutrition was begun, library and field research completed, and draft written of the final report, which describes the demand for dietitians and nutritionists in relation to the decreasing number of women preparing themselves for these fields.
Library and field research for the series of studies on the outlook in social work, initiated in 1948, was completed and the first report of the series drafted. A byproduct of the series, a bulletin on the outlook for policewomen and women in related law-enforcement occupations, was completed and sent to press.
For the value it too has of informing women counselors and placement agencies of employment opportunities, a bibliography on women’s occupations, prepared in the United States Office of Education but not printed by that office for general distribution, was prepared for publication by the Women’s Bureau.
Also in the area of job opportunities is the popular leaflet issued this year, Your Job Future After High School (a companion leaflet to the earlier Your Job Future After College). This year’s leaflet, produced with the cooperation of other Federal agencies, has been in great demand by school systems, boards of education, and counselors, for use with graduating students and other jobs seekers.
Educational Activities
Another function of the Women’s Bureau is to help create an informed public opinion on matters that relate to the welfare of women in industry. During the year it has done this in two ways: through continued publication of relevant data, both in technical and popular form, and through continued educational work with groups and individuals.
Twelve major reports and 17 separate State sections of another report were issued this year, and 7 reports and 17 separate State reports were sent to press. These included, in addition to those mentioned elsewhere in this report, a Handbook of Facts on Women Workers. A number of popular leaflets was published and reprints run of out-of-print reports and leaflets in demand. Articles were written for Government periodicals and for journals and the press. The monthly Facts on Women Workers was issued and its translation into Spanish was begun this year for dissemination in the
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other American Republics. A special number was prepared for use at the UN Women’s Status Commission meeting in Lebanon and was translated into French and Arabic by the State Department for distribution in countries of the Middle East.
In addition to sending out 104,282 pieces of literature on its mailing lists, the Bureau responded to 8,802 requests for publications—bulletins, leaflets, charts, maps, and mimeographed materials. Five hundred and twenty-eight were from employers and management, 245 from foreign countries, 520 from Federal agencies, 289 from State and county agencies, 1,317 from school and other libraries, 900 from women’s organizations, 2,324 from counselors, 179 from unions, 2,368 from individuals, and 132 from press and radio.
Also on the Bureau’s information-education program was the preparation of panel exhibits, requested by various organizations of professional women, vocational counselors, occupational groups, and unions, for use at conventions, conferences, and workshops held throughout the country. For the use of delegates to these meetings, quantity supplies of materials were sent for distribution in connection with their jobs, and in many instances individual kits of exhibit materials were supplied.
Conferences
Through the medium of conferences the Bureau furthered its informationeducation program. Conferences which the Bureau was called on to participate in to an unprecedented degree, however, were public conferences of a local or regional character, since its field offices, which had carried much of the responsibility for such functions, were closed this year because of lack of funds. The call on the Bureau for participation in public conferences was greater than it could comply with.
Conferences that furthered the Bureau’s work were those with its Labor Advisory Committee, with its Advisory Committee of National Women’s Organizations, and the Annual Minimum Wage Conference, as well as consultations with Department bureaus and with Federal agencies on matters relating primarily to the Bureau’s research program. Characteristic of conferences on behalf of cooperative programs with other agencies or bureaus was the Women’s Bureau active participation in Census Bureau plans for the decennial census of occupations. The Bureau took part also in the work of a special subcommittee of the Interdepartmental Committee on Children and Youth—that on Children of Working Mothers. It worked with a committee of the National Security Resources Board toward publication of an inventory of practical nurses; and, preparatory to the 1950 White House Conference on Children and Youth, did work on behalf of a manual on training of counselors. It shared in developing reports, for example, on the Economic Status of Family Life for the National Conference on Family Life. It participated in departmental conferences that
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have to do with organizational, administrative, policy, and budget matters.
Requests for information and assistance on problems that especially concern women workers came from numerous sources. Employers turned to the Bureau for advice on such subjects as better methods of selecting, hiring, and supervising women; on services, facilities, safety devices, and clothing. Workers sought aid on similar matters, and on such questions as equal pay, lay-offs, and seniority. Requests came from national, State, and local women’s organizations; from research, legislative, church, farm, and rural organizations; from groups working for world peace; and from labor and employer organizations. They called on the Bureau staff to provide individual assistance; to participate in formal conferences; to serve as speakers, as discussion leaders, and as resources at meetings and conventions. The Bureau participated in special events such as “Women’s Week” and “Business Women’s Week” in various parts of the country; it cooperated with schools, colleges, and universities in addressing faculty and students of economics, sociology, labor problems, and home economics; and it took part in vocational conferences and in meetings concerned with personnel, training, job opportunities, and placement of women.
The report of the work done by the Women’s Bureau in the field of international activities will be found in the section of the annual report dealing with international activities of the Department of Labor.
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