in August 1950, that it had organized about 3,000 Asiatics, including Vietnamese, Chinese, and Indians, in commerce, industry, the liberal professions, and agriculture.

The Indochinese branch of the Communist-led CGT, formed at a congress held at Hanoi in October 1945, was organized by two groups: (a) French Communist sympathizers, formerly members of the CGT in France and collaborators with the left-wing resistance movement, and (b) Indochinese who had formerly had some contact with the French labor movement. The CGT, however, was able to attain a membership of only a few hundred. At the second CGT congress, held in June 1946 in Hanoi, the organization came under control of the Association of Workers for National Salvation, and merged with the newly established Viet Minh trade-union movement. In the Frenchcontrolled sections of South Vietnam, particularly in the Saigon-Cholon area, the CGT has organized some groups aligned with the French parent union. These groups cooperate closely with the Viet Minh trade-union movement in calling strikes and committing acts of sabotage. CGT membership at the end of 1949 was estimated by the Labor Inspectorate at 400.

In March 1949, the CGT's effort to attain official recognition, similar to that enjoyed by the CGT-FO and the Christian trade-unions, was unsuccessful. Its application for admission to the wage commission of the Labor Inspectorate was rejected.

Unaffiliated trade unions in Vietnam are the Mutual Association of French Employees of Commerce and Industry of Cochinchina with 1,600 members; the Society of Mutual Assistance of Cochinchinese Employees of Commerce and Industry, with 250 members; and two groups whose membership is not known-Employees of Commerce, Industry, Agriculture, and Liberal Professions and a union of writers and journalists of South Vietnam. The Employees of Commerce, Industry, Agriculture, and Professions received some official recognition in 1950, when a member of its directing committee was selected as workers' delegate to the ILO Conference in Geneva, and also invited by the Government to represent workers' interests at the Labor Inspectorate.

Considerable trade-union activity has also been reported among the Chinese, who were said to have had more than 70 trade-unions before World War

II. Most of these were concentrated in the Saigon-Cholon area. Since 1948, reports indicate that these unions have been infiltrated by Communist agents, who have caused the French authorities some concern. Little more is known about these unions because of the secretive nature of their operations.

Viet Minh Trade-Unions 7

The immediate forerunner of the present Viet Minh trade-union movement was the Association of Workers for the National Salvation of Vietnam. It was founded in 1941 as the trade-union branch of the Viet Minh League for Vietnam's Independence-a left-wing anti-Japanese resistance groupand was predominantly political and nationalistic in character. Its membership included not only workers but also employers and other individuals in favor of Vietnamese independence.

As soon as the Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed, following the Japanese surrender, the Association of Workers decided to bring their trade-union movement into the open and to extend it throughout the country. This was to be done under a decree on freedom of association for trade-unions, issued on July 5, 1945, during the Japanese occupation. The decree provided that persons engaged in the same occupations, those in commercial enterprises producing related products, and those in professions might associate in local unions without specific authorization from the Government, if their founders were of good character and if they filed with the Government certain documents-for instance their constitution and a list of the charter members. Such unions were granted juridical status, with the right to purchase, contract, bring civil suit, and form federations by banding together with similar local unions.

A preparatory committee composed of officials of the association proposed, in March 1946, the establishment of a federation of labor to be organized along the lines of the Communist-led French CGT. Accordingly (in May 1946), the Tong Cong Doan Vietnam (TCD) or General Confederation of Trade Unions of Vietnam was formally constituted. This organization is also frequently referred to as Tong Lau Doan (TLD) or General Confederation of Labor.

The supreme body of the TLD is the National

Trade Union Congress (also referred to as the All Vietnam Trade Union Conference), composed of representatives of local and regional trade-union councils and national federations. Although the congress is supposed to meet every 2 years, its first meeting was not held until January 1950.

The Central Executive Committee, or Vietnam Trade Union Council, which meets every 6 months, is the policy-making group of the TLD between congresses.

For permanent administration of the TLD, there is a standing committee, or permanent executive bureau. With the exception of the chairman, who is also chairman of the TLD, these officials are elected by the Central Executive Committee from its own members.

An inspection committee or control commission for the enforcement of TLD policies is composed of five members elected by the congress from those who are not members of the Central Executive Committee.

According to the WFTU Milan report of 1949 the local TLD unions are grouped into federations of similar character and into regional trade-union councils. Each unit has its functions outlined by the TLD and is autonomous only within the narrow limits prescribed by the TLD. Workers pay fixed monthly dues of 60 Indochinese cents (about 3 cents in U. S. currency), divided evenly among the industry federation, the regional trade-union council, and the TLD. It is not known how local unions are financed. According to the usual Communist pattern, local unions must apply to the parent organization for the funds they require.

At the end of 1948, the TLD claimed a membership of 255,000, of which 20 percent were said to be factory workers. In August 1949, it reported to the WFTU a membership of 258,000 workers.

The reliability of these figures is doubtful. National centers among the Communist unions usually inflate membership figures for publicity purposes, and the WFTU apparently does not actually have figures on paid-up membership since it does not receive per capita fees from the affiliated unions.

A preparatory congress, convened in July 1949 by the TLD Executive Committee, decided to or

ganize all civil servants and government employees into a civil servants union within the TLD, and to expedite formation of civil servants' unions according to branches of activity, e. g., education, public health, agriculture, etc.8 (A number of local civil servants' unions, such as the Association of the Public Officials of South Vietnam, were formed since August 1945, in various parts of the country. These affiliated directly with the TLD, rather than through a national union of civil servants.) This preparatory congress also called upon the civil servants of the Bao Dai Government to disrupt and sabotage the French Administration.

Activities of the TLD are closely coordinated with the political objectives of the Viet Minh through Hoang Quoc, who is both chairman of the TLD and general secretary of the Viet Minh Party. Currently, under civil war conditions, the TLD is engaged primarily in mobilizing the workers to support the Viet Minh war effort and in attempting to interrupt production by precipitating strikes in the French-occupied areas. While the Viet Minh radio reports success in its campaign to promote labor disputes in the area controlled by Bao Dai, official statistics of the Bao Dai Government show but few labor disputes or work stoppages.

In Viet Minh territory, the TLD has operated much as do trade-unions in the so-called "people's democracies" in order to boost production. Workers who greatly exceed their production quotas are given the honorary title of "hero of production." The TLD, as reported by the foreign radio broadcasts of the Ho government, indoctrinates its members with Communist principles, teaches them to read and write, publishes a periodical called Lao Dong, and organizes partisan groups ofworkers who give part of their time to military duties; and promotes "spare time" public works projects.

The TLD in May 1946 declared itself to be in complete agreement with the WFTU's principles and constitution. However, it was January 1, 1949, before the WFTU executive committee decided to recognize and register affiliation of the TLD. The Vietnam confederation sent Nguyen Tuy Tinh, a member of the railway union and the TLD, as international representative to the Milan WFTU congress in June 1949. At the congress

he was elected a permanent member of the WFTU general council, and a delegate to the Peiping conference in November 1949.

-ALICE W. SHURCLIFF Division of Foreign Labor Conditions

1 Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, which are Associated States in the French Union, also form the Indochinese Federation.

• Based primarily upon unpublished U. S. Foreign Service reports. 3 Vietnam was accepted as a member of the ILO at this conference. Similar to the FO trade-unions existing in each "department" in France. The former colony of Cochinchina is now the southern region of Vietnam, and is officially called "South Vietnam."

• For an account of the CFTC, see Monthly Labor Review, July 1949 (p. 8). 7 Available information on the Viet Minh trade-union movement stems largely from Viet Minh and Communist dominated sources, which slant their releases to further their own ends. While every attempt has been made in this article to eliminate from such releases incorrect or slanted information, it must be recognized that the material presented has not been verified by impartial observers and may not be accurate in all details. The main sources of information here presented are World Federation of Trade Unions, Report of Activity, 1945-1949, Milan 1949, pp. 204-206; Vietnam News Agency (Ho Government), Foreign Radio Broadcasts during 1948, 1949, and 1950; and Bulletins of the Vietnamese-American Friendship Association, New York, 1949 and 1950.

• Broadcast of the Vietnam News Agency (Ho Government), June 24, 1950.

75-Cent Minimum Wage: Effects on Fertilizer Industry1

THE MODERATE EFFECT of the 75-cent minimum hourly wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act 2 on earnings of workers in the fertilizer industry was almost entirely concentrated in the Southern States, where large numbers of workers had been employed below that rate, an industry survey shows. This study is one of a series undertaken by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in order to evaluate the influence of the new minimum. Although the law is directly applicable to establishments engaged in interstate commerce, its terms have also influenced the wages of workers in intrastate plants.

Difficulties in isolating factors other than the 75-cent minimum-merit, length of service, general wage changes, and labor turn-over-make it impracticable to determine the complete effect of the higher minimum on average earnings in the industry. However, the Bureau estimates that the minimum accounted for approximately half of the 5-cent advance in hourly earnings in the

fertilizer industry between its two survey dates, spring of 1949 and spring of 1950.

Earnings of workers who received less than 75 cents an hour were primarily affected by the advance in the minimum to that level. These earnings in many instances were increased only to 75 cents, which substantially enlarged the grouping of earnings at that wage level.

In addition to raising lower paid workers, the minimum wage law indirectly affected the earnings of some higher paid workers. Employers evidently increased the pay scale of these workers in order to preserve some of the occupational differentials that had existed before the earnings of the lower paid workers were increased. Further adjustments of this type may occur over a longer period of time than was covered by the survey. In combination the minimum wage law and general wage changes are factors which accounted for most of the increase in the average hourly earnings of workers in the fertilizer industry. The remainder of the increase can be attributed to the competitive nature of the labor market and to certain characteristics of the industry-such as its extreme seasonality-which exert influences on the wage structure that are difficult to evaluate..

The extent of unionization, location of plants, and the type of operation are factors affecting wages in the industry. Since they remained constant between 1949 and 1950, however, their contribution to the over-all increase in average hourly earnings was negligible.

Changes in Average Earnings

3

Straight-time average hourly earnings of workers employed in the fertilizer industry increased from 92 cents in the spring of 1949 to 97 cents in the spring of 1950. Regionally, the increases in earnings varied from 1 cent in New England to 8 cents in the Middle Atlantic States. In the Southeast, where about 40 percent of the workers are employed, earnings increased 6 cents per hour. It is difficult to trace the origin of all these increases. Production is seasonal; firms customarily lay off large proportions of workers after the season and rehire the same or new workers during the next season. Presumably the hiring rates of new workers are affected by other influences in addition to changes in the Fair Labor Standards Act. As far as can be ascertained only

1% cents of the 5-cent increase can be attributed to general wage changes in the industry which were granted before the effective date of the new minimum. Some of these increases may have been granted in anticipation of the higher minimum rate, but the extent to which this was a factor cannot be measured.

Most of the increases in earnings in all regions, except the Border States, Southeast, and Southwest were the result of general wage changes largely unrelated to the higher minimum rate, as well as the payment of higher rates on a selection Percentage Distribution of Fertilizer Workers, Southeast Region, Spring 1949 and 1950

basis to newly hired employees. In the three above-named regions, however, there is little evidence of general wage adjustments in 1949. Actually, employment conditions in the Southeast were rather depressed in the latter part of 1949 and early 1950. Thus, the 6-cent increase reported for the region probably results mainly from the increased minimum wage.

Data were also obtained separately for firms engaged in interstate and intrastate commerce.1 Earnings in both segments on a Nation-wide basis increased by the same amount between the two payroll dates studied. Regionally, however, there was considerable variation between the two types of firms. Intrastate establishments showed smaller increases in the Southeast and Middle Atlantic regions. Elsewhere interstate firms' earnings increased less than those in intrastate business.

Effect on Earnings at Lower Pay Levels

Nearly a fourth of the workers in the Nation's fertilizer industry averaged less than 75 cents an hour in the spring of 1949; a year later, only about 5 percent of the workers received average rates below this amount (table 1). One of the marked immediate effects of the new 75-cent minimum wage, therefore, was a concentration of earnings about the 75-cent rate. In 1949 the earnings of only about 10 percent of the workers were within the 75 to 772-cent range; in the spring of 1950, however, the earnings of nearly a fourth of the workers were concentrated in this interval.

Since other regions employed relatively few workers earning less than 75 cents an hour in the 1949 period, this concentration was primarily limited to the Southeast, Southwest, and Border regions. In the Southeast, for example, nearly 45 percent of the workers earned less than 75 cents an hour in 1949; while the earnings of only about 10 percent of the workers in 1950 were below this amount. The increased concentration of earnings within the 75 to 77%1⁄2-cent interval in this region was quite pronounced, increasing from about 17 percent in 1949 to nearly 43 percent in 1950.

Of the 7 States comprising the Southeastern region, Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi were most affected by the law. Over two-thirds of the fertilizer workers in Alabama earned less than 75 cents in 1949. In 1950, only about 10 percent were earning amounts lower than this amount

with about 55 percent grouped at the 75-cent interval.

Over 41 percent of the workers in Mississippi and approximately 56 percent of the workers in Georgia earned less than 75 cents in 1949. After the effective date of the minimum, only 1 percent of the workers in Mississippi and over 15 percent of the workers in Georgia remained below 75 cents.

Although workers engaged in intrastate commerce are exempt from the provisions of Federal minimum wage legislation, a substantial number of plants in intrastate commerce made wage adjustments on or within a few days of the effective date of the new minimum. Evidently the law was an influencing factor in these increases. Earnings of lower-paid workers were most affected by these wage adjustments.

Nearly half the workers in intrastate plants received hourly averages below 75 cents in 1949; in 1950 the proportion had been reduced to about 30 percent. Where the effects of the minimum were most pronounced-in the Southeast regionintrastate plant workers earning less than 75 cents an hour were reduced from over 83 percent in 1949

to about 56 percent in 1950 (see chart). About 7.5 percent of the workers in 1949 averaged between 75 and 77%1⁄2 cents an hour as compared with over 32 percent in 1950.

Influence on Earnings at Higher Levels of Pay

As employers increased the rates of subminimum workers in conformance with the law, it became necessary to increase rates of workers already earning 75 cents or more. While it was difficult to determine the complete effect of these increases, in areas most affected by the law, workers earning more than 75 cents in 1949 had increases in excess of those that can be attributed to general wage increases made without reference to the higher minimum wage (see table 2). It can be inferred that the minimum wage law was indirectly responsible for most of this increase.

In the Southeastern States, for example, increases to workers in higher paying occupations such as working foreman, chambermen, and maintenance mechanics amounted to from 3 to 4 cents between the two periods-substantially in excess