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Senator PURTELL. I hope I may be on it next year.

Mr. KLEINSCHMIDT. I certainly hope you will come back here. We have a problem. Our company was sold by Cheney Bros. for $5 million to J. P. Stevens, Inc. Why it was sold for $5 million, believe me, I don't know. Because up to date, J. P. Stevens, through liquidating of certain operations in our plant, through the sale of certain properties which he acquired through the buying of the plant, and so forth, he has realized to date, already, over $912 million. So we are looking for the investigating committee to find out who was getting the money and why.

We have had a great many jobs in our place liquidated for the simple fact that the imports have been coming in, selling at a great deal cheaper than what our manufacturers can manufacture it for. Up in our place right now, we get in materials already woven, ready to be put out on the market from Italy, Germany, Belgium. They buy these goods at a great deal less than what we can manufacture them for; therefore, they make a great deal more money on them.

We think that, and we certainly hope that this committee does something about it. We certainly hope that something shall be done, so that these materials can be manufactured once again in our plant and a profit can be realized on them. At the time the plant was sold, there were 1,600 workers in our plant. It is now down to approximately 300 workers, a lot of them skilled, very skilled. We certainly hope that something can be done to induce the younger generation to get in and take over. These older fellows that are in there now, and a great many of them, believe me, gentlemen, are ready for retirement. But the company asked them to stay because of their skills, because they cannot induce the younger generation to take over and learn these skills, which they should learn. We have men anywhere from 65 to 80 that are weavers, loom fixers, and so forth. No one can take their place. Even in this age, where there is supposed to be a great unemployment problem, it is rough to get people into the textile industry as a whole.

I certainly hope that something will be done so that our industry can get back to the point where we can have a job in years to come.

Senator PURTELL. I was at one of your Christmas parties and I made that observation that you just stated concerning the relatively small number of young people there, since they are not attracted to the industry, because they feel there is no future in it.

Mr. KLEINSCHMIDT. That is true.

Senator PURTELL. I could see, too, the great number of older people you had. At that time, which was 2 years ago, I think you had more than 600 employed; did you not?

Mr. KLEINSCHMIDT. Yes, we had approximately around 600 then.
Senator PURTELL. And you have since dropped to 300?

Mr. KLEINSCHMIDT. Yes, sir.

Senator PURTELL. Do you think that is due to the importation of goods, in competition with what you make?

Mr. KLEINSCHMIDT. Yes. As I say, they are importing foreign goods right now that we used to weave, finish, and process through, down in our own plant. They can buy them cheaper, already woven, put them out on the market and make a sizable amount of profit. So they have done away with that particular operation in our plant, taking care of a great many workers, not only in that operation. If you take away in one operation, you take away through each and

every particular operation in the plant, such as dyeing, finishing, inspection, and so forth.

Senator PURTELL. Is it fear in the hearts of your workers over if this is going to continue there will be less and less jobs because of this foreign import?

Mr. GALLAGHER. If not for foreign imports, Senator, I don't think anybody is too optimistic that employment in this plant will grow. It will be lucky if it holds at 200.

Senator PURTELL. Is that because of competition?

Mr. GALLAGHER. What has happened is that the company now is weaving velvet for the most part. They have some Jacquards, where they used to weave a lot of broad goods of all kinds. Now, velvet is the basis of what remains and we are fearful that it will get less. Senator PURTELL. Mr. Cotnoir?

Mr. COTNOIR. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: It is awful to see some of these people out of work and try to help them get work. Some of them have to travel 40 and 50 miles, one way, never mind both ways. Some of them are drawing unemployment and it is running out. I don't know what is going to become of them when the unemployment compensation is completely out. As far as the young people getting into the industry, in fact, there isn't any. In fact, I remember during the Second World War, I was a fixer in Ashland in Jewett City. We were making parachute cloth. We had a quartermaster, top brass, come over plead with us to-I make sure it was good, because it might save the life of a parachute jumper or a navigator.

If things continue as they are now, I don't see how you are going to get any parachute cloth, if you haven't got it stocked up. Definitely the younger generation are not interested in jobs in textiles because there is no future in it.

Senator PURTELL. I was interested in hearing some of the employers testifying today, and you heard them, that they recognize that the wage level is not what they would like to have it, but the situation in the industry is such that it is beyond their ability, as I think you recognize, to do much about it. Therefore you have two deterrents to getting into your business. A young fellow says: No. 1, it doesn't pay too much; and No. 2, how long is it going to be in business?

Mr. COTNOIR. That is right. They are both tied in together. In fact, I remember one plant where we had retired people. The company asked us permission to have them come back and even work part time in order to fill the orders they had on hand. Some of them returned, others were too old and couldn't.

Senator PURTELL. Well, I am sure the testimony given here by you people close to the picture will have quite an impact on this committee, and the full committee when we get back. Also we hope it has an impact on the Senate of the United States, because we are getting down now to rockbottom. We are getting down where the fellow that is hurt is telling us about it, the individual as well as the owner of the plant.

Mr. Gallagher, have you any more to add?

Mr. GALLAGHER. I would just make this observation. To a large extent the textile industry, particularly in cotton, was a family industry, where both husband and wife worked. When you hear of mills like Wauregan and others closing, it isn't one member of the family who is affected. In many instances two or more are affected.

Senator PURTELL. No other source of income at all. In Hartford we have some of the girls and boys working in the insurance companies or something, so you have some source of income when times are bad in the plants. But you are right there, and when they are out, they are all out.

Any questions?

Senator THURMOND. I don't believe so; thank you very much, you gentlemen.

Senator PURTELL. Senator Cotton?

Senator COTTON. I simply want to say to these gentlemen that you need not worry but what I am deeply impressed by what each of you has said. I happen to come from a textile town. I have watched the mills go down in my town. I have seen young fellows getting jobs out of town, and riding out of town in the automobile and coming back at night, and then moving out, leaving. That is the reason that, after many conferences with Senator Purtell and others on the committee, that I introduced a resolution to create this subcommittee. That is the reason I got up at 5 o'clock this morning and drove to Connecticut, where nobody certainly can vote for or against me, because I feel that it is the unfinished business of this generation to do something about this particular industrial problem.

I have people at home in exactly the same situation that this gentleman is in here, and I feel as he feels, and this committee is notand I am sure Senator Purtell will agree with me, and Senator Thurmond-the purpose of this committee isn't to go around the country and then make a report and have it filed away in the archives. We want to go back and do something about it; and we appreciate the information you are giving us, much of it we, ourselves, have realized, but when you give it to us publicly here, you also educate the public to the need of this thing and that helps us, too, because it is the public opinion that will make Congress act.

Dr. MIERNYK. No questions.

Mr. BAYNTON. No questions.

Senator PURTELL. Thank you gentlemen, for coming up and giving a day of your time on these hearings. I can assure you it is time well spent.

The next witness is Mrs. Anna Sullivan, manager of the Western Massachusetts Joint Board of the Texile Workers' Union of America. How do you do, Mrs. Sullivan?

STATEMENT OF MRS. ANNA SULLIVAN, MANAGER, WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS JOINT BOARD, TEXTILE WORKERS UNION OF AMERICA, HOLYOKE, MASS.; ACCOMPANIED BY MRS. IRENE RAYMOND, HOLYOKE, MASS.; MRS. EMMA SOWA, HOLYOKE, MASS.; MRS. RHEA TURCOTTE, HOLYOKE; EMILE DAUPHINAIS, LUDLOW, MASS.; AND MISS MARY VAZ, LUDLOW, MASS.

Mrs. SULLIVAN. Now, you have listened to much data, but what I would like to give you is a picture of what the textile worker is going through.

These are workers who have been faithful and, above all, good Americans. In western Massachusetts the section in which I live and work was, at one time, known as a textile center. With the ex

ception of Springfield, most of the cities and towns in the area depended upon textile for livelihood.

However, in the days of the depression, this changed very rapidly. Not until the late thirties did a good many of these workers get placed back into jobs.

Most of these textile workers have been skilled workers; a weaver is a skilled person, a loom fixer is a skilled person. These are jobs that have all been essential to the textile industry. Our union was making some strides and some gains when the Second World War broke out but these workers were frozen to their jobs, frozen by our Government with wages at less than 50 cents an hour at that time. Uniforms, sleeping bags, parachutes, all of this was very badly needed to equip the Army. I can assure you we recruited every worker we could get into these plants and I think a good job was done by them. Then after the war, they became the forgotten people again. We had liquidation, mergers, and just plain plant closings. We lost mill after mill. Two plants of the American Thread were the first in Holyoke to close, throwing about 500 people out of work; Warren Thread in Westfield, D. McIntosh, of Holyoke, Hadly mills of Holyoke, and Holyoke Textile, and within the last year, the Berkshire Hathaway in addition to William Skinners & Sons. Ludlow Manufacturing in 1952 employed about 1,400 people. They now employless than 150.

William Skinners closed their Bond Street mill, which was a weaving shop, which threw some 250 weavers and loom fixers out of work. Now, what happens to these workers, men and women who have devoted their lives, who had to work to bring up their families? In the year of 1941, when they were frozen to these jobs, just a mere 17 years ago, they were then in their thirties and forties. The Textile Workers Union of America has been alert to the industry's problems through the past postwar years; we have appealed to various groups for action. We have tried to have our Government understand and help. They have sympathized but we have not received any help. These workers have gone through all kinds of workload changes to try to retain their jobs. And in the end, they have just been liquidated.

I could bring you today hundreds of workers in the same position that these workers who are here are in. We could fill this hall with them, and tell you how they go from plant to plant trying to get a job. They can't even get an application blank. Also, many of the plants today require that you must be a high-school graduate. These men and women went to work when they were 14, the same as I did, and they don't have a high-school graduation, they have no diploma. It was our money that our Government spent to rebuild Japan. We are told that this must be done even though it means the end of the textile industry in this country.

If this is so, then why should not our Government have planned some substitute means of employment to take care of these displaced people?

Tariff changes and reductions have meant less and less work and greater unemployment to the workers of America. How do you think the workers feel who are laid off and can't find any job, who know that where they have been employed, that these companies are buying

hundreds of thousands of yards of finished material, from Japan, sending it to the dyeing and finishing industry here and it is sold on the market as goods made in the United States.

The Government could, and did do something in 1941 when they needed these workers. Why can't they act now? If we are to support the people that make these plans for world peace and reconstruction, then why can't the workers who are displaced in the United States be taken care of?

One thing I think that should have been planned, where you were going to displace textile. Why couldn't those workers be carried on unemployment insurance until new industry was put in or jobs were found for these people? Textiles has proven that it was very badly needed to this country. We have proved that we needed it in the war and textiles was an important industry to this Nation. We should have a plan to take care of the American worker first, by retraining these displaced workers and, if necessary, subsidize this industry.

We first should reduce the work hours, to give more employment to the people who are unemployed. Let us reduce the work hours, meaning that they would receive the same amount of pay.

But our Government has neglected the textile worker. Every industry in this country is important to the town and the communities to which they are located. The industries should be protected. We need and should have the protection and the care that the Wagner Act provided that was, if a plant moved then the worker was given the opportunity to move with his job.

We need and should have changes in the Taft-Hartley Act, that would give us the right to have collective bargaining in every State. The right-to-work laws that are enacted in a good many States seem innocent but actually enable the employer to evade dealing with his workers.

Out of the days of depression came a song that we in the textile union used to sing:

To work, too old to work, too young to die.

And I never thought that those words would come back again to haunt us within 17 short years. We have thousands of textile workers who are not old enough for social security, their unemployment is depleted, and yet they are too old for a job. We look and we hope and we pray that your committee, Mr. Chairman, may help this industry to regain our American rights and to put our workers back to work.

Thank you.

I would like to now have Mr. Dauphinais state his case.

Senator PURTELL. All right.

Mr. DAUPHINAIS. Mr. Chairman, when I was 22 years of age, I was asked to leave one job and go to work for the Ludlow Manufacturing Co.; that was in 1918. I worked for them in the mill maintenance for a period of 9 to 10 years. After that mill closed down and was moved to Indiana, I was then transferred to the mechanical department in another mill in 1928. I remained in that department until 1937, and after 39 years and a half of work, I was told that I would have to be laid off, my services were no longer required. I had attained the age of 63 years and 3 months.

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