consisting of the chief labor officers of the four occupying powers. Allied wage policy consisted mainly in avoiding wage increases that would lead to price increases; wages, however, were to be sufficient to cover all essential and compulsory expenses. Wage changes were to be confined mainly to hardship cases and to equalization within industries and occupations.

In the spring of 1946, the Allied Commission approved an Austrian law providing for the transfer of control of wage rates from the German-established Labor Trustee to the Austrian Ministry for Social Administration. A Central Wage Commission, composed of Government, employer, and employee representatives, heard claims for wage increases filed by individual workers or employers, or by their organizations at local employment offices (Landarbeitsamt). The InterAllied Wage Control Board reviewed the recommendations of the Central Wage Commission.

Analysis of the claims for wage increases showed that prevailing wage rates were above the legal scales. To the Nazi Labor Trustee's countless exceptions for groups, industries, and individuals, the Austrians had added modifications, legal and otherwise. In addition, the claims revealed serious inadequacies and lack of standards in wages for younger workers, in the opinion of the United States element of the Allied Commission. Marked sex and age differentials were based on traditional practices and not on output; and wage relationships for apprentices, auxiliaries, and juvenile workers were confused.

In the German wage structure, pay was relatively high for munitions workers. In postwar Austria relatively low construction wages were raised to promote reconstruction.

Prices also were frozen at April 1945 levels by military order. Maintenance of these "stop" prices (often below costs) depended upon subsidies which the Austrian Government was unwilling to pay.

Under Allied pressure, the Austrian Government developed general criteria for granting price increases. These increases were to be allowed so as to limit profits, taking into consideration interest on capital, previous earnings, etc. Higher prices were to be granted for the most urgently needed. materials, such as coal and construction materials. Higher freight rates, raw material cost, low worker productivity, and a general trend toward increas

ing wages were raising production costs. The criteria proposed by the Government prohibited compensation for war damages by increased prices; however some evidence exists that an effort was made to finance rehabilitation through high profits.

Thus, the Austrian Government's wage-price policy in the year immediately following the liberation provided for (1) wage stabilization except for increases in special cases, (2) price increases where necessary to meet higher costs of production, and (3) the elimination of subsidies and compensatory price increases.

By early summer of 1946, low wages and mounting prices were creating labor unrest in Vienna. The first potentially serious strikes since liberation took place in June. Short-lived unauthorized strikes occurred in the printing trades, street cars and railways, metal trades, and leather, shoe, and clothing factories. The critical food problem precipitated the strikes; the Austrian Food Ministry had announced that the basic ration for normal consumers, reduced from 1,550 to 1,200 calories daily in the early spring of 1946, might drop to 700. An allied commitment to keep the ration at 1,200 calories allayed the

unrest.

The New Control Agreement. At the end of June 1946, a new control agreement for Austria was signed, whereby the authority of the Austrian Government was greatly extended particularly with respect to price and wage controls. The Austrian Government was required, however, to inform the Allied authorities of proposed changes 7 to 10 working days before they were to become effective. The Allied Commission could veto such changes by unanimous agreement of the four powers. For all practical purposes, the June1946 agreement marked the end of Allied control over prices and wages in Austria. The price-fixing organization under the Ministry of the Interior and the Central Wage Board under the Ministry of Social Administration were given authority over prices and wages, respectively.

The Central Wage Commission's task was complicated by the willingness of employers to grant wage increases which could be offset by higher prices. Between April 1946, when the Commission began to function, and the latter part of July 1947, it had acted upon nearly 2,600 applications

In addition to the disparity between the postwar wage and price levels, individual price and wage relationships were distorted as compared with prewar. In particular, the relatively smaller increases in agricultural prices compared with the rises in industrial prices caused difficulty.

Toward the middle of 1947, there was a growing realization that the recent piecemeal increases in wages and prices were only endangering the country's efforts to avoid inflation and that a basic reform was needed. When it became evident that the widely discussed second currency reform would not be adopted, the pressure for a pricewage reform mounted.

Interim Wage-Price Stabilization. An interim price-wage stabilization program was adopted in August 1947 following an agreement by representatives of labor, agriculture, and commerce and industry, approved by the Government. The basic policy was wage and price stabilization at approximately 300 percent of the April 1945 levels or 50 percent above the June 1947 levels.

Agricultural prices were to be raised about 50 percent above the levels prevailing at the end of June 1947-10 percent in addition to the 40percent increase of July. Industrial price increases were to be self-administered by each firm

in accordance with a complex formula. Wage increases varied from approximately 35 to 50 percent above previous levels, the increase being greater for the lower paid workers. Income and wage taxes on the increased pay were reduced to about the same percentages as had been paid on the lower incomes.

In actual operation this program encountered certain difficulties. In mid-September, 6 weeks after the inauguration of the price-wage agreement, the price situation was still not clear for many key products; there were, for example, no definite prices on textiles and shoes. Furthermore, the actual increase in prices was greater than anticipated. Although the aim of the program was to stabilize both prices and wages at 300 percent of April 1945 levels, by mid-October the Austrian Institute of Economic Research index of living costs (legal prices) was 14.5 percent higher than its index of net hourly earnings (both indexes are on an April 1945 base).

The interim agreement, which expired at the end of October, was followed by legislation providing for the long discussed second currency reform. Early in December the Allied Council approved the law and there is no doubt that a new phase in the development of the postwar Austrian economy began.

National Conference on
Labor Legislation

ENLARGED CONSIDERATION of international labor standards differentiated the program of the Fourteenth National Conference on Labor Legislation from its predecessors. Called by the Secretary of Labor, in Washington, December 9 and 10, 1947, the Conference was attended by delegates from 43 States, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. The official delegates included State labor commissioners and officials, and representatives of organized labor.

The Secretary of Labor, in his welcoming address, summarized recent trends in State labor legislation. On the one hand, he noted advances, particularly in the fields of child labor and workmen's compensation. On the other, he called attention to the volume of State laws enacted in 1947 which were directed at labor.

Some 30 State legislatures * * * passed legislation affecting labor unions in what might euphemistically be called a restrictive sense. For example, 14 States passed anticlosed shop laws; 12 passed laws restricting picketing and other strike activities; 11 outlawed secondary boycotts; and an identical number regulated labor relations in public utilities. Other State laws regulated, limited, or prohibited jurisdictional strikes, strikes of public employees, the number of pickets, and the check-off of union dues. There were still other laws relating to union liability and to compulsory registration.

The Secretary stressed the relationship of State labor laws and administration to world labor standards as embodied in the labor "conventions" or treaties adopted by the International Labor Organization, now a specialized agency of the United Nations.' Implementing world labor standards in this country involves primarily consideration and action on State standards. The Secretary pointed out that certain ILO standards, appro

1 The United States is a member of both the ILO and the United Nations.

priate for State consideration and action, had been placed, for the first time, on the agenda of the Conference.

Four speakers, all of whom had served, or were serving, as official representatives or advisors at conferences of the ILO, presented various phases. underlying the increased official emphasis on world labor standards. Among these were Under Secretary of Labor David A Morse. The employer's interest was presented by J. David Zellerbach, United States employer representative on the Governing Body of the ILO, and president of the Crown Zellerbach Corp. The State's interest and action on international labor conventions were discussed by Forrest H. Shuford, Commissioner of Labor of North Carolina. Senator Elbert D. Thomas 2 of Utah indicated the democratic significance of the ILO.

During World War II, United States support and influence were extremely important in enabling the International Labor Organization to continue its work and enter into the postwar era as the only official international agency which includes in its policy-making body representatives of workers and employers on a par with those of governments, the only organization of governments created after World War I which is still functioning, and the only one dedicated to promote social justice as an essential to the maintenance of peace.

On the basis of six committee reports, the Conference made recommendations for improving labor standards in the following fields: International labor standards; safety and health and workmen's compensation; strengthening State labor departments; wages and hours, minimum wages, and industrial home work; child labor and youth employment; and State industrial relations.

Resolutions were adopted on State bureaus of labor statistics as integral parts of State departments of labor; in support of a labor extension service in the U. S. Department of Labor; on mi

Absent because of illness; paper distributed to delegates.

gratory workers; and on the right to organize, whereby the Conference urged the enactment of State legislation protecting the right of employees to join unions of their own choice, free from interference, coercion, and intimidation by employers. International Labor Standards

Amendments to the ILO constitution have been proposed which recognize the role of the States in building labor standards under a Federal-State system of government, as in the United States, ' and which provide for reports on their laws and practices. The amended constitution has been ratified by the United States Senate and favorably reported by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Recognizing the need for State participation in ILO activities, the Conference advocated the establishment, in simple form, of a program of information on the activities of the ILO and the relation of its standards to State laws.

Safety and Health; Workmen's Compensation

Safety and Health. In any program to reduce appreciably the more than 2 million annual disabling and fatal industrial accidents in the United States, the Conference recognized that small establishments are pivotal. It asked the States for (1) a basic State labor law making employers responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces and requiring them to do everything reasonably necessary to prevent injury to employees; (2) leadership and assistance to management and labor in the development of accident prevention programs; (3) competent enforcement personnel, free from political influence, who would also assist in promoting and developing industrial safety programs participated in by both labor and management.

Continuing technical advisory services by the U. S. Department of Labor to the individual States and to organized labor were recommended in five fields: (1) Development of State-wide safety programs and (2) of uniform safety codes for each type of industry; (3) adequate training for State factory inspectors to assist in reducing the accident rate in small establishments; (4) development of technical safety data for the promotion of joint management and labor safety programs; (5) prepa

ration of engineering safety data for use by laborlaw administrative agencies.

Expansion was also recommended of the current services of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to the States in the preparation of comprehensive statistics covering accident causes and frequency.

Other recommendations were that labor organizations at all levels cooperate and lend support in reducing industrial accidents and give consideration to the establishment of union safety programs; and that State labor departments be delegated authority and responsibility, by law, for the drafting and promulgation of uniform safety codes, rules, and regulations.

The Conference reaffirmed its position that the protection of the safety and health of workers in industry is a labor department function.

Workmen's Compensation. The Conference reported that more than half of the country's workers are as yet unprotected by workmen's compensation, and that in most of the States where they are covered, the present scales of benefits are below a subsistence level on the basis of present living costs. It therefore urged a review of the benefit schedules and levels, as well as administrative practices and procedures, in each State. The following basic standards were offered as a minimum objective: (1) Compulsory coverage of all workers, with special emphasis on the necessity for inclusion of farm, domestic, and migratory workers; (2) full and general coverage of occupational diseases, without distinction as to the type of disease covered; (3) unlimited medical benefits, under supervision that shall ensure the best possible standards of treatment of injured workers; (4) establishment of second-injury funds States not having such laws; and (5) double compensation to injured minors illegally employed.

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The need for increased benefits was singled out as the problem of greatest urgency. A drastic increase in the maximum weekly payment would be required in most States, and also, in many, an increase in the maximum percentage of wages that can be paid as compensation.

The Conference also urged that special emphasis be given during the coming year to the establishment of vocational rehabilitation clinics or centers, stressed the importance of coordinating the activities of workmen's compensation com