Page images
PDF
EPUB

DISCUSSION OF ORDER RELATING TO MANUFACTURE OF LOW-PRICED CLOTHING

Mr. CASE. Which division, if any, was responsible for a recent order that had to do with changing the quality of grade of certain textile products, which produced quite a furor over here about 2 months ago?

Dr. ELLIOTT. Are you speaking, sir, of the M-388 order?
Mr. CASE. I do not know it by that number.

Dr. ELLIOTT. That did not change the quality of the grade, but it did put a priority on to prevent a further up-grading in prices.

Mr. CASE. It was advertised to produce some children's underwear and also work clothing, but it produced quite a protest on the part of the cotton people and the woolen people.

Dr. ELLIOTT. It certainly did.

Mr. CASE. And they said it was changing the operations of the factories and in practice was not going to succeed.

Dr. ELLIOTT. Of course we do not issue those orders.

Mr. TABER. For instance, it provided that a clothing manufacturer could get cloth to manufacture whole suits, but he could not get cloth to manufacture extra pants. Is that about it?

Dr. ELLIOTT. No; that is not quite right. There were provisions for some extra pants, but not for extra pants in all price ranges. Mr. TABER. The cheaper ones you could not get, because the cheaper-pants makers were going to be out of cloth entirely?

Dr. ELLIOTT. The cheaper ones were the ones that were protected by priorities.

Mr. TABER. That is not what I found.

Mr. CASE. Was that the entire Textile and Leather Division, or was that the Wholesale and Retail Trade Division?

Dr. ELLIOTT. That was the Textile Bureau of the War Production Board, which is the Industry Division. However, in the working out of the order we will accept our share of the responsibility, because we had to determine in that order what types of garments were most essential for the civilian population that would keep them decently clothed. We also put in special programs on children's clothing. Mr. CASE. How long has that order been in effect?

Dr. ELLIOTT. It has just gone into effect. The cotton part of it had been in effect, but was set aside since last summer under M-385. It had not had as large a percentage of set-asides, but it was that to which the industry objected..

Mr. CASE. It has not been in operation long enough to know what is going to happen.

Do you expect that that is one of the orders that will be lifted on VE-day?

Dr. ELLIOT. No. I am afraid not, because the picture for textiles gets gloomier and gloomier as the Army's requests go up. They will go up until the fourth quarter and remain high in woolens. Rayon is not a very serious factor, and perhaps that part of the order can be dealt with sooner. I hope so.

Mr. CASE. Do you contemplate keeping that order under constant study with the possibility of revision?

Dr. ELLIOTT. If at any time we can get production back up to what it was in 1942, and if we could get the military requirements even moderately reduced, and the export requirements stabilized

instead of having to increase, I think we could repeal the order, and would be very happy to do so.

Mr. CASE. Would that materially reduce the personnel that you require in any of your divisions?

Dr. ELLIOTT. I think it would considerably reduce the Textile Bureau personnel. But I say, as far as I can see it now, from the requirements with which we are confronted and the production figures, unless there is a changed attitude on the part of industry toward prices, and so forth.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. I suppose we have all had dozens of letters. I received one this morning which says that the confusion and impracticability of this order is creating a chaotic condition and upsetting all systems in the entire industry.

Mr. TABER. I know a man up home that makes pants. I do not believe he ever made any that sold for more than $3 or $3.50. He told me that he could not get any more cloth. Maybe you would call them high-priced pants?

Dr. ELLIOTT. No; I would not. We are trying to keep him in the amount of cloth that he has been able to get before. The difficulty before was that the high-priced fellows were getting cloth, and it was gradually going out of the hands of the medium-priced and low-priced fellows. However, it is bound to cause grief in the industry.

Mr. CASE. How about those that were producing medium grade or above medium grade?

Dr. ELLIOTT. It protects them. It covers about 80 percent of the production; that is, the priorities did. It leaves the people with only that percentage that they traditionally had left in the market, without giving a big disproportionate share with an increase in the price of cloth and an increase in tne hign-priced clothing that people in the lower income groups could not buy.

Mr. CASE. Did you take into consideration at all that one pair of $7 pants might outwear two pairs of $3.50 pants?

Dr. ELLIOTT. We did. We put the figure at $6.50. We have had very careful advice and controls. You cannot please everybody. We have tried to do the best we could. We had the advice of Kenneth Marriner, a very sound man who does not believe in regimenting industry unless he has to. He felt that he had to protect children and working men and others.

(Informal discussion off the record.)

I would like to emphasize, in closing, that I have been down here 5 years and I am just as eager to close this shop up as anybody else, and perhaps a little bit too much so. The only thing we have to think about is to try to keep people from industry who know enough about these things to handle them decently. That is exceedingly difficult, as you know. We have pared the Budget down to a point where, if we can keep that type of persons it will carry us, but if we have to carry a lot of other people it will be difficult.

MANPOWER REQUIREMENTS

Mr. CANNON. I see that you propose to hold your present organization without any material change through 1946?

Mr. ZISKIND. Yes, sir.

[ocr errors]

a shortage of carbon black at the time that caused this cut-back in tire production.

Those are merely some of the complexities of the situation, and they indicate some of the difficulties with which we have to deal.

Mr. CASE. When you say that you help to explain the War Manpower Commission's policies to the War Production Board, what do you mean?

Mr. ZISKIND. The War Manpower Commission has a series of programs. To name a few, it has an employment stabilization program with a system of certificates of availability; it has an employment ceiling program, a controlled referral program, and recently it had a forced release program. Its programs all affect employment and production. The production people in W. P. B. need to understand those things in order to regulate their own affairs. So part of the function of our office is to help explain those things in terms of W. P. B. functions.

COLLECTING AND ANALYZING DATA TO DEFINE CHANGING LABOR SITUATION

Mr. CASE. You stated that you accepted the War Manpower Commission's figures and statistics. Yet the statement here lists as the first of your activities collecting and analyzing data so as to define the changing labor situation more accurately. In other words, the figures that are submitted to you are not entirely accurate?

Mr. ZISKIND. The labor data come not only from the War Manpower Commission but also from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Agriculture, and the Bureau of the Census. When we say "collect data," we mean gather the primary materials prepared by those agencies. We do not do the primary research out in the field ourselves, but in order to appraise accurately the manpower situation throughout the country we must gather together statistics from all these agencies.

Mr. CASE. You mean that there are so many agencies collecting figures on the manpower situation that you put them all together and determine what the fair average is or which one is right?

Mr. ZISKIND. No; it is not quite that. Let me be specific. In order to determine what the unemployment situation is in this country, we must go to several sources. We do not have any detailed surveys of actual unemployment in the cities or States of this country. It is necessary to look at the unemployment compensation claims and to analyze their trend. It is also necessary to look at the registrations or applications with the employment service office. It is necessary also to look at the employment reports compiled by employers for the War Manpower Commission. It is only by looking at all of those different sets of data that you can get a proper understanding of what is happening with unemployment in this country. Unfortunately, there is no one survey of unemployment in this country. I understand that the Bureau of the Census, which wanted to make one had its appropriation reduced by this committee.

Mr. CASE. That is what I was getting at. There is an estimate before this Congress at the present time for an industrial survey. If that should be provided, would that take the place of the work which you are doing?

Mr. ZISKIND. It would simplify our work considerably.

Mr. CASE. If we continue with this work, will it be necessary to do the other?

Mr. ZISKIND. Oh, yes. That is fundamental to any understanding of what is happening to unemployment in the country.

Mr. CASE. If that money should be provided, you would not have quite so much work to do?

Mr. ZISKIND. We would save a great many man-hours of work which we might spend on other problems.

Mr. TABER. You could find other problems?

Mr. ZISKIND. There are other problems which we are not staffed to deal with.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. These statistics flow to you from the thousand and one Manpower Commission offices all over the country?

Mr. ZISKIND. They come to us, not from their field offices-they come to us from their headquarters office.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. How often do you get them?

Mr. ZISKIND. They issue their reports at a variety of times. They have a biweekly report and a monthly report on the general employment situation; they also have a half-yearly or quarterly outlook report. They have quite a variety of reports which go out at different periods. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. How often do you get them from the Bureau of Labor Statistics?

Mr. ZISKIND. They also have their series which are published periodically. We get these materials whenever we have a need for them; and some of our people are in almost daily contact with those agencies.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. How often do you get them from Agriculture? Mr. ZISKIND. Probably not as often as from the Manpower Commission, but we get them from Agriculture fairly often. We represent the War Production Board on the W. M. C. Committee on Essential Activities, and the Department of Agriculture is represented on that. It presents its problems to that committee, and we review the problems from the standpoint of W. P. B. The committee used to meet every day. It now meets about every 2 weeks. Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. That is all.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Ziskind.

FIELD OPERATIONS

REDUCTION FOR 1946

Mr. Folger, with reference to items Nos. 14 and 15, page 15 of the justification, you propose a reduction of about one-fourth in your estimates for 1946. This reduction is not possible until the middle of the year?

Mr. FOLGER. That is what we estimate; yes, sir.

Mr. CANNON. Your reduction will come on a particular date, or will it be distributed through the year?

Mr. FOLGER. It will be gradual. But the heaviest reduction will come in the second half of the year. We anticipate that we will get down to a skeleton force in the second half of the year.

Mr. CANNON. What will you have at the end of the second year? Mr. TABER. That page is a little bit deceiving. There seem to be some figures twisted in lines 14 and 15.

Mr. CAWLEY. Just reverse them, Mr. Taber. In the Vice Chairman for Field Operations Office, we estimate 145 employees on the roll as of June 30, 1945; and on June 30, 1946, approximately 40. For the field service it is estimated that on June 30, 1945, there will be approximately 5,300, as compared with approximately 2,000 on June 30, 1946. Mr. CANNON. That is getting results with fair promptness. Would you be in position to discontinue entirely if the condition of the war warranted it?

Mr. FOLGER. We would expect that we would probably have to have a minimum, up to the end of the Japanese war, of 2,000.

Mr. CANNON. Suppose the war should terminate unexpectedly: would you be in position to discontinue promptly?

Mr. FOLGER. We would be in position to discontinue at the end of 60 to 90 days, at the outside.

Mr. CANNON. Are there any questions, gentlemen?

Mr. TABER. You have more on the 30th of June than you had on the 1st of March?

Mr. FOLGER. That is right, sir.

Mr. TABER. Why?

Mr. FOLGER. The load has been going up steadily since the first of the year.

Mr. TABER. Why should it have gone up the last 3 months?

Mr. FOLGER. It goes up whenever there are changing conditions in priorities. We anticipate that our load immediately after VE-day will be higher than at any other time, because you have a terrific nunber of people coming in for information and a terrific increase in the work. It has a relationship to the changes in orders on the book.

Mr. TABER. You have got more now than you had, on an average. all through the year. You are up to your peak instead of dropping

off any.

Mr. FOLGER. We have been as high as 6,600 people. It is steadily reducing.

Mr. TABER. You have not been reducing this year, have you?

Mr. FOLGER. Since June 30.

Mr. TABER. How many do you have on June 30?

Mr. FOLGER. There were 5,649, June 30, 1944.

Mr. TABER. But you have not been reducing very much. You have been increasing since the 1st of March?

Mr. FOLGER. That is right, sir.

RELATION OF WORK IN FIELD TO NUMBER OF APPLICATIONS

Mr. BELSLEY. The work in the field is partly related to the number of applications-not completely, but partly to the number of applications received. The number of applications reached a low in January of 1944 and from that time has been steadily increasing again.

Mr. TABER. The capacity of your outfit to handle them ought to be a little bit better with more experience, so that you could cover a great many more per employee.

Mr. BELSLEY. It is now at a point where it was in August 1943 and is still going up. We anticipate an increase with the lifting of controls until industry learns what the controls mean and gets accustomed to them; so that for the next 4 to 5 months we contemplate that the work load will increase and then taper off rather sharply.

« PreviousContinue »