TABLE 2.-Provisions for premium pay for overtime in State minimum wage orders for the laundry and cleaning and dyeing industries

Sources: Women's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor and Commerce Clearing House.

TABLE 3.-Average hourly earnings for production workers, power laundries and dry cleaners, May-July 1955

1 Computed by research department, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, on the basis o weighted averages.

NOTE.-The figures exclude premium pay for overtime and for work on weekends, holidays, and late

shifts.

Source: U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Summary Release, Earnings in Power Laundry and Dry-Cleaning Industries, May-July 1955.

TABLE 4.-City worker's family budget, 34 large cities, October 1951

1 Calculated by dividing the total annual cost by 2,080 hours, i. e., 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Source: U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, May 1952, p. 521.

TABLE 5.-Working women's budgets in various States in the United States

1 The total annual cost of commodities and services was listed as $1,723.07. This amount did not, however, include Federal income and social-security taxes, listed as $209 and $34.46, respectively. Since data for other States include these items, they were added to the Massachusetts figure for purposes of comparability.

*The Consumer Price Index of the U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, was used. Sources: U. S. Department of Labor and departments of labor, industry, and/or welfare of the various States and the District of Columbia.

Senator DOUGLAS. We will adjourn at this time and meet again at 2 o'clock.

(Whereupon, at 12: 30 p. m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 2 p. m.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

Senator DOUGLAS. The first witness this afternoon is Mr. Russell R. Mueller, managing director, National Retail Hardware Association. Mr. Mueller, we are very glad to see you.

First, may I thank you for your courtesy in being willing to postpone your testimony.

Mr. MUELLER. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before your committee, Senator.

STATEMENT OF RUSSELL R. MUELLER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, NATIONAL RETAIL HARDWARE ASSOCIATION

Mr. MUELLER. My name is Russell R. Mueller. I am appearing before this committee as managing director of the National Retail Hardware Association, an affiliation of 38 State and regional hardware associations, with a membership of approximately 23,000 dealers located in communities throughout the United States.

My qualifications as a witness before this committee are not based solely upon my present position with the National Retail Hardware Association. For a number of years I had ownership interest in two small hardware stores in New England. Further, I have earned my livelihood from the retail hardware industry for the past 17 years. No classification of retail merchants are more typically American than are dealer members of the National Retail Hardware Association. These retailers maintain independently owned and operated establishments. Historically, they have served the daily hardware needs of their local communities. They carry stocks of various items of hard

goods, such as hand tools, garden tools, housewares, paint, builders' hardware, nails, wire products, and farm supplies.

Forty-three percent of the membership of the National Retail Hardware Association is located in towns and communities under 2,500 population. Seventy-four percent of our 23,000 member stores are represented in communities under 25,000 population. With this type of varied retailing, store operations and conditions of employment would depend greatly upon the customer demands upon these stores, i. e., farmers, mechanics, tradesmen, do-it-yourselfers, and home goods housewife buyers.

While these truly small-business men may be thought by some to be individually of relative insignificance, collectively, and in their own communities, they represent a substantial position in the economy and render a worthwhile service to the consumers they serve.

Each year the association makes a retail hardware survey, using a representative sampling of the member stores, based on store sizes and community population. Much of my testimony will be based upon data taken from the 1955 survey. A few figures taken from this survey will, I feel, give you a specific briefing of the types of local merchants engaged in the retail hardware business.

In order to conserve time

Senator DOUGLAS. May I say, please take all the time you want because I have already presumed upon you a great deal and you should have a full opportunity to develop your case.

Mr. MUELLER. I won't read from my prepared statement. I would like the statement and the exhibits of our study to be made a part of the record. I will follow the chronological order of the statement, high-spotting those considerations that may be peculiar to the hardware business, and those factors on which we would like to call the attention of the committee in your present and in future deliberations. Also, by conserving time on my statement, I am hopeful that in this manner more time may be allotted to questions that may be stimulated as a result of my remarks.

An overall look at where our stores are located shapes up about like this: 43 percent of our stores are in towns under 2,500 population; 74 percent are in communities under 25,000. I couldn't help but be impressed with Dr. Blum's comments this morning, particularly his quotations from some of the eastern papers. We market our hardware looking west of the Hudson River, rather than east of it. I know in your own State of Illinois 47 percent of our stores are in towns under 2,500 population, 58 percent are in towns under 5,000 population, 80 percent are in towns under 25,000, and 87 percent of our hardware stores in Illinois are in towns under 50,000 population.

I have run such a tabulation on some of the other States. In West Virginia, we have 88 percent of the stores there that are under 50,000, even in Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy's bailiwick, and where I have operated a couple of stores, 73 percent of the stores there are in towns under 50,000 population.

In Arizona, we have 23 percent under 2,500, 40 percent under 5,000, 53 percent under 25,000, 78 percent under 50,000.

Senator DOUGLAS. I see that you have tailor made your figures to adapt them to the membership of this committee.

Mr. MUELLER. Well, let's take the figures for Iowa; 72 percent of our stores are in towns under 2,500; in Nebraska 71 percent are in

towns under 2,500; and in South Dakota we have 80 percent of our stores in towns under 2,500 population.

Each year our association makes an annual survey. It is a study of the facts and figures and operation of our stores and much of my statement refers to this survey that was recently completed covering the 1955 operating year.

Perhaps this is some of the mechanics that Dr. Blum referred to this morning, but I still would like to recite them for our particular industry.

In 1955, the average sales volume for the retail hardware stores throughout the United States was $96,500. The average salary per storeowner or manager was $4,470. The average salary for all employees, exclusive of storeowners or managers, was $2,705.

Attached to my staement you will find what I refer to as exhibit A which gives a breakdown of annual salaries of owners, employers of stores and communities, towns and cities by population, together with a breakdown by sales volume of stores.

Basically, we feel that wages and hours in retail hardware stores are matters so local in character that they are not susceptible to controls designed for nationwide application.

Our stores are trying to satisfy the needs of the community, and these needs differ within the State, within regions within the State, within counties and within the towns. The store hours must coincide with the buying habits of these consumers.

A tradesman on a construction job might pop into one of our stores at 7 o'clock in the morning. He is looking for some pickup items, shovels, wheelbarrows, et cetera. The farmer patronizes our stores based on the weather. If he can work in the field until almost dark he wants to come into our store and satisfy his needs so he can get back into the field the next day. Our householder, Mrs. America, fills in the day between those two early and late customers of ours.

The store sizes and the number of employees are affected greatly by the area in which they are trying to serve. The seasonableness of our business is very important. I break that out in exhibit B, which is included with the statement. Spring planting and in the fall, when we get into cold weather needs, and other such variables create varying conditions and needs.

The employment conditions in hardware stores has some rather unique characteristics. We employ, including the storeowner, four and a half people. A rather strong and personal relationship develops between the storeowner and the employees.

Our people think of employees in terms of annual wage earners, rather than on a weekly or monthly basis. Irregular hours are not unusual. In fact, the hardware dealer that happens to live within a block of his store or happens to live up above his store is many times called upon to service the needs of the community at all hours of the day or night. Going back to our statistics in the matter, January, February, and March, traditionally, are red-ink operating months and yet our stores maintain a full work force during that period. We do 70 percent more business in May than we do in January, and we do 73 percent more business in May than in February. Under a straitjacket of a minimum wage and a 40-hour week, a hardware dealer would have to consider laying off employees during extremely slow