Hon. RICHARD B. RUSSELL, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. SAVANNAH, GA., May 15, 1956. DEAR SENATOR: It is my understanding that the Labor Subcommittee of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee has started hearings on proposals to extend coverage of the Wage-Hour Act to include some retailers. If maneuvers are successful they would lead to elimination of section 13 (a) (2) exemption for all retailers. Please give serious consideration to any such proposals and my reasons why retailers should not be covered: 1. The majority of retailers do not seriously affect interstate commerce or the wage scale of manufacturing plants. 2. If covered, this could cause a large portion of the retailers to confine their purchases within the States. Which would then be exempt from the act. 3. Unfortunately the retail building material merchant cannot control the need of his customers and must govern himself according to local needs. This alone creates a long working week, thus causing a hardship because he has to be on hand to serve the public or pay for this service to be performed at an excessive wage scale. 4. Past experience will tell you that any retail operation, whether it be retail building material merchants, filling station operators, grocery stores, clothing stores, and thousands of others that come under this category would have to close their doors if put to such test were the retail exemption eliminated. Please place in the record of the committee a copy of the enclosed letter and request their consideration in retaining the retail exemption which I am sure will be of more value to our economic structure than the changes now proposed. Thanking you in advance for any courtesies rendered, also wishing you good health and a successful administration. Yours truly, C. B. MIKELL, Director, Building Material Merchants of Georgia. CRAEMER'S, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, May 11, 1956. Senator PAUL H. DOUGLAS, Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR DOUGLAS: We know that there are many forces trying to influence you to include retail establishments under the Federal wage-hour law. The people who are exerting this pressure either have an ulterior motive or do not understand the nature and problems of the retail business. Retailing is intrinsically local and the business of each establishment is confined to a trade area whether that area be a few blocks or a few miles. This applies equally to the units of the giant chains as well as to small neighborhood stores. Retailing is a pure example of American competitive enterprise and each establishment, to survive, must meet the conditions of its locality and the demands of its buying public. Rates of wages are certainly one of these conditions and you will find that retail employees are comparatively well paid. If this was not true the stores would not be staffed. Retail establishments compete for employees as well as for customers. The inclusion of retail establishments under the Federal wage-hour law will work a hardship on them, particularly on small retailers, to the extent that many will be forced out of business by such Government-compelled increase of overhead expenses. Expense increases cannot be passed on to the buying public and the narrow, survival margin of profit has been continually decreasing during the past few years. We urge you and your colleagues to take a firm, audible stand in our behalf, and we ask that you make this letter part of your subcommittee's record. Yours verly truly, RICHARD M. MILLER. SENATOR PAUL H. DOUGLAS, THE HOWLAND-HUGHES Co., Waterbury, Conn., May 11, 1956. Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR DOUGLAS: We operate an independent department store in Waterbury, Conn., and our business is essentially local in character. In the State of Connecticut, as you are undoubtedly aware, there is ample authority vested in the State commissioner of labor to increase minimum wages whenever his investigations find that an increase is indicated. We, therefore, urge that your committee recommend that the retail exemption in the Fair Labor Standards Act be retained in its present form and that this letter appear as a part of your subcommittee's record. Very truly yours, RALPH H. PAINE, President. SENATOR PAUL H. DOUGLAS, SPOKANE DRY GOODS Co., Spokane, Wash., May 10, 1956. Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR DOUGLAS: It has come to my attention that the Senate Subcommittee on Labor and Welfare, of which you are chairman, are holding or soon will hold hearings on the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is my understanding that the primary purpose of these hearings is to consider extension of the act to employers not presently covered, such as the retail industry. Traditionally, I am sure that you know that the retail industry has always been expressly exempt from the coverage of this act. As retailers, we have always maintained that retailing is a purely local function and that retailers are not in interstate commerce. Here in Spokane the retailers as a group are much concerned about the possible expansion of the act to cover them, and are very much opposed to it. I notice that there is some trend at this time to only cover chainstores and the larger retailers. The smaller retailers still oppose this expansion of the act, feeling that it is only a first step in the expansion, and that if the larger retailers and chainstores are covered, it is only a matter of time until they would also be brought under the coverage. My friends in the retail industry, as well as I personally, sincerely hope that you will use your influence to preserving the traditional exemption of retailing. I would also greatly appreciate it if you would make this letter a part of the subcommittee's official record. Sincerely yours, R. A. PATERSON, President and General Manager. THE ROBERT CLOTHING Co., Senator PAUL H. DOUGLAS, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR DOUGLAS: I am writing to you in regards to the Fair Labor Standards Act which is coming on the floor May 9. The retail exemptions should be retained in the present form for the following reasons: 1. Manufacturing and retailing differ in that manufacturing can figure their selling costs down to the fraction of a cent and adjust their selling prices accordingly, while the small retailer has no means of figuring how much each clerk will sell. I handle mostly branded merchandise with a nationally advertised retail and cannot make any allowances for an increase in overhead. 2. I employ a couple of high school boys after school and on the weekends and if the minimum wage affects us I will be forced to let them go. The same thing applies to my other part-time help during peak seasons. 3. Not only will it affect the small store owner, but it will throw a lot of part-time people out of work who need the additional revenue. I would appreciate it if you would make this letter part of the subcommittee records. Thank you very much for your cooperation on this matter. Very truly yours, Senator PAUL H. DOUGLAS, ROBERT M. SHAMANSKI. LIPMAN WOLFE & Co., Portland, Oreg., May 9, 1956. Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR DOUGLAS: As I understand it, your committee is currently holding hearings on the Fair Labor Standards Act with the primary purpose being to consider the extension of the act to employers not presently covered, including the retail and service industries. Some of my objections to the removal of the retail exemption are: 1. The retail industry's method of payment, including monthly commissions, which is peculiar to this industry alone, was developed in the absence of coverage by the Fair Labor Standards Act, and would be completely unworkable under the act. 2. We have State laws which adequately protect our people. 3. Our competition is local rather than national, so that laws which are national in scope are not applicable. 4. A substantial number of stores in the retail industry would not be subject to the act, because they would be outside Federal jurisdiction. Thus, a very unfair competitive relationship would be established. 5. Retailing, unlike many other industries, is a full-time operation. A retailer does not and cannot shut down in slack periods, and a workable compensation method must give recognition to this fact. For the reasons listed above, I recommend to your committee that the retail exemption be retained in its present form. I would like to also ask that this letter be made a part of the subcommittee's record. DEAR SENATOR DOUGLAS: We are writing to ask that the retail exemption be retained in its present form in the wage and hour legislation and that this letter be made a part of the records of your hearing. Yours very truly, Hon. PAUL H. DOUGLAS, United States Senate Office Building, W. W. KALE. IRA A. WATSON CO., Knoxville, Tenn., May 9, 1956. Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: This letter is being written to respectfully urge you to lend your support to the preservation of the retail exemption clause of the Fair Labor Standards Act in its present form. Our company operates a chain of retail dry-goods stores in seven of the Southeastern States. At the present time we have 22 stores which are located primarily in rural communities. Our stores are individualized operations to quite an extent and our store managers, who own 25 percent of the capital stock of the stores which they manage, are residents and citizens of the communities in which the stores are located. As retail merchants in these 22 different communities, we believe that the local nature, relatively low gross profit and high expense ratio of the retailing business makes the preservation of the retail exemption of utmost importance to all retail establishments and thereby to the general business conditions and well-being of the thousands of communities throughout the United States. 78155-56-44 We believe retailing, regardless of type of ownership, is local in character, serving its own local trading area. Each unit is a local retail establishment in itself. Furthermore, retail sales do not directly affect the type of interstate commerce which we believe was intended to be controlled by the Fair Labor Standards Act. We believe that Congress purposely included the retail exemption in the original act to make certain that local retail and service establishments were not subject to Federal wage and hour controls. It seems to us that nothing has occurred since then to change the local character of retailing. It seems to us that the local nature of the business of retail stores makes them largely intrastate businesses and that it would be an infringement of States rights for them to have Federal regulation of hours and wages. Furthermore, we believe States are better qualified to act in this area of local business if and when necessary. We will appreciate very much your strong support of the retail exemption clause and thank you in advance for it. Also, we respectfully ask that this letter be made part of the record of the Senate Subcommittee on Labor and Welfare in connection with the hearings on the Fair Labor Standards Act. Very truly yours, HENRY N. CARMICHAEL, Jr., Secretary. MEMORANDUM KLINE'S, Marion, Ohio. To: Senator Paul H. Douglas, chairman. We urge that the retail exemption be retained in its present form. Very truly yours, KLINE'S DEPARTMENT STORE, CHARLOTTE LAUNDRY, INC., Hon. SAM J. ERVIN, JR., Senate Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. ERVIN: We have received notice that Senator Douglas (Democrat, Illinois) has scheduled hearings on the extension of coverage of the wage-hour law, to begin on May 8. As you very well know, Senator Ervin, years ago when the Wagner Act became effective, laundry and dry-cleaning plants were declared to be intrastate business and were exempt. This exemption has been effective ever since that time and we maintain that it should continue. Laundries, in most instances, are small plants, employing from 10 to 150 people, a large majority of whom are women. It is a service industry purely, selling labor only. Last year, 1955, our own plant and sales labor amounted to 63.06 percent of our total sales. We have estimated that if we were not exempt from the wagehour law, recently passed, this same labor would total 83.79 percent of our total sales on a basis of 1955. Now in order to reduce that percentage to €3.06 percent, we would have to increase our sales price 32.65 percent, which is absolutely impossible. The biggest part of our business is received from the housewife, who, strangely enough, is our bigegst competitor. While up to now our increases in the price of our services have been modest, a further increase, as outlined above. would drive our customers away from us and those whom the wage-hour law is supposed to protect would lose their jobs. Due to the sales of millions of home washing machines in our Nation, the laundry industry is in a rather precarious situation. These washing machines are highly advertised at a cost of millions of dollars by machine manufacturers, with extravagant claims and no downpayment. These efforts are aided by millions of dollars of radio, television and newspaper advertising by soap manufac turers and while we know that if every item of expense of home washing were taken into consideration, commercial laundry service would be more economical. but we have not been able to meet the tremendous influence of this costly sales promotion by the machine and soap manufacturers. As above stated, most of our employees are women and most of these women are comparable to domestic labor, that is, servants in the home. Of our 118 plant employees, 62 are over 40 years of age, 34 are over 50 years of age and 8 between 61 and 70. We believe the same situation exists in all laundry plants, not only in North Carolina, but throughout the South. The wage-hour law, if extended to cover laundry and dry cleaning plants, would endanger the very existence of this industry. Many plants situated in the East have been compelled to close their doors. One in Charlotte expects to go out of business within 30 days. Many plants located in North Carolina and throughout the South are operating on lowest profits in the history of the industry and some without any profits at all. Especially is this true of what we consider the larger plants, employing 100 to 150 people, who formerly did the largest percent of volume of business. We will be very glad to give you any other information that you may need in the hope that you will do everything in your power against the removal of the present exemption from the wage-hour law. With kindest regards and best wishes, we remain, HENRY B. BENOIT, President. Senator PAUL H. DOUGLAS, BROCKBANK APPAREL Co., Salt Lake City, Utah, May 14, 1956. Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR DOUGLAS: It is our understanding that you are now holding hearings on the Fair Labor Standards Act. The primary purpose being to consider extension of the act to employers not presently covered, including retail establishments. As retailers we wish to state our position. We are operating in small farming communities. Our business is of small volume. It has never been, and is not now, such that we could even approximate the $1 per hour minimum wage. We would undoubtedly have to close our doors, and pull out at a substantial loss, unless we could find some other way of increasing our business. We therefore ask that the retail exemption be retained in its present form, and that you please make this letter a part of your subcommittee record. Yours very truly, SHIPLEY M. SNOW, Manager. Mr. STEWART E. MCCLURE, Staff Director, Senator Douglas Subcommittee THE EASTERLING Co., Chicago, Ill., May 10, 1956. of Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Capitol Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. MCCLURE: Certain bills now pending before the Senator Douglas subcommittee of the Senate Labor and Public Relations Committee for the amendment of the National Fair Labor's Standard Act (commonly called Wage and Hour Act) are: S. 3310-a bill to remove the exemption for outside salesmen. S. 662-a bill to raise the salary requirement for executive and administrative employees to $6,000 per year with no change in the outside sales exemption. S. 770-same as S. 3310. S. 3310 and S. 770 Industry statistics show that there are presently about 7 million individuals engaged in direct selling. Over 90 percent are doing this solely on a part-time basis whether to help a child through school, to pay for family equipment, or the like. They work outside the offices and control of the sellers. The selling companies are all small or medium-sized businesses. The great bulk of these parttime sales ladies and men, are associated with companies selling less than $1 million per year. No employee relationship ordinarily exists in contract ar |