not see that in the granite industry and feel that OSHA should have some control for this to be done. OSHA may say they have to start somewhere and that is true. What I wish to point out to this committee is the problem of the failure to have in industry wide program when that industry is concentrated in one place, like the granite industry is in Elbert County.

I want to talk about another thing that causes me concern about what OSHA does. This deals with what should be done about dust in the granite industry. I understand that OSHA's opinion about dust is controlled by a regulation. If so, the regulation in my opinion is wrong. OSHA says the granite industry must guard against dust other than by use of forced air respirators. These have long been used and I have used them. OSHA says we must stop using the respirators and go to some other method, but to do away with the respirators will reduce to the granite industry the ability to put out a particular product.

The best work in the granite industry is done by using respirators. To do what OSHA wants will simply reduce a product in the industry of a certain quality. OSHA thinks if everybody makes a lesser product then no one is hurt. Using respirators lets a man make a product he cannot make without it. I think it is wrong for OSHA to require the industry to get rid of respirators when no complaints have been made to me about them. I know the air men breathe through the respirators is better than what OSHA wants by taking respirators away. The industry should operate under a regulation that allows for the making of different quality products. If OSHA has their way, there will pass from the industry the chance of putting into the marketplace products above the average.

OSHA wants to make all products average. To me, something is wrong when a regulation will eliminate from the industry a chance of turning out a product above the average and at the same time the air men breathe is not better and, if anything, is not as good in my opinion. I know by my experience the granite industry can turn out a better product with the respirator. Something should be done about a regulation that works that way.

Labor is interested in good working conditions. It is also interested in turning out a good product. I want both. OSHA does not seem to be concerned about the good product. I hope the committee can do something to change the way OSHA looks at things.

One last thing I want to talk about concerns what is a failure in the law. I understand when a union representative goes to a granite plant, the law affords him no type of protection from the abuse or threats of an employer. He cannot do his job if an employer stands in the way with abuses and threats of one kind or another. At times, I have run into this and have had some personal experience. I would hope the committee could do something to change the law to give the union representative protection.

I wish to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me come and tell you about some things that I hope would help us all. I will be glad to answer any questions that you may have.

Senator NUNN. Thank you very much, Mr. Norman.

About the respirator: You are saying that basically the respirator is necessary in order to make certain quality products. Yet OSHA is saying they will not allow the respirator to be used. You are also saying not using the respirator causes more harm to employees in terms of the air they are breathing. Is that correct?

Mr. NORMAN. Senator Nunn, that is right.

I have used the respirator myself and I know that when you try to shape-carve a monument through a curtain, that is what OSHA wants us to do, you cannot do as good a job as you can when you are in the room with a respirator on.

OSHA tells us we cannot go into the sandblast room with a respirator on—that we have to shape-carve outside of the room through the curtain without the respirator. An artist could not paint a picture through a curtain. This is the same thing, the sandblast man is an artist.

Senator NUNN. I understand that.

Mr. NORMAN. I know from personal experience that he cannot turn out a good product unless you let him get inside the sandblast room with the monument. The air outside the sandblast room, where the man would be blowing through a curtain, is not as clean as the air being filtered through a respirator-the Bureau of Mine respirator, which has been approved. We have been using them for 30 years, I believe.

The granite industry has worked all this time with a respirator and they have been upgraded as they come on the market. OSHA complains about the noise. You are going to have noise when you have 100 to 150 pounds of pressure blowing against the stone to make it cut. You have to have pressure to make the sand cut the stone.

I am not here particularly to defend the Harmony Blue Granite Co. but I do want to say that in my 10 years as international representative they have proven to me that they will do everything possible to update the working conditions of the people in their plants. Harmony Blue has one of the most modern plants in Elberton, Ga. They have been inspected three times. We have people with plants falling apart and they have never been inspected. I will also take up for the employers. They have to be given an even break.

Competition is keen in the granite industry. Every mullberry tree has a small granite plant under it. I am not fabricating something to you. Come down there and I will show you. They have one, two or three men working. They load these monuments on trucks and deliver them all over the country. These people do not pay workmen's compensation, unemployment insurance, or hospitalization and life insurance.

Harmony Blue Granite Co. cannot get by without paying all of these benefits. The Government is inspecting the people apparently that they think have got the money to do these things.

Now, is it a regulation for the safety of the employees or for the company that has the money to pay the citations. The people out in the small plants, these employees are getting the same exposure and more so than the men in the plant with the proper facilities, yet they go past these plants and do not inspect them.

I want to see like I tell you here, evenhanded across-the-board inspections. Small companies inspected as well as the large companies. I would like to see everyone treated the same. If OSHA is going to inspect the granite industry it should be inspected industry wide. They should require everyone to do the same thing.

Senator NUNN. Mr. Norman, do you think when a violation is not a serious violation in terms of endangering somebody's health or life on an immediate basis, the employer should be given a reasonable opportunity to correct it before a citation is issued?

Mr. NORMAN. Senator Nunn, definitely so.

I wouldn't go rabbit hunting and shoot a rabbit in bed. I would give him a chance.

What OSHA is doing is inspecting the plants, citing the company on the first inspection without a chance to correct the violation.

I do not know of a plant in Elberton that was inspected that they did not cite them for some small amount. We have some very modern plants and some are very bad.

They have picked out the modern plants to inspect and have cited them.

I am not against citing them, but

Senator NUNN. You think they ought to be given a reasonable chance?

Mr. NORMAN. I think so.

Senator NUNN. I know Congressman Levitas has a question.

Congressman LEVITAS. I want to commend both of you on excellent testimony.

Mr. Norman, I wish there were a lot of people in Washington who could hear what you had to say today.

I think you put your finger right on it. In effect, what you are saying using OSHA as an example, that here a well intentioned piece of legislation that sets out to improve something, and to do good by means in which it could be applied, that it certainly is causing serious problems, and that it is being applied inconsistently, and that it is self-defeating, is that what you are saying?

Mr. NORMAN. Yes, that is correct.

I mentioned something about protection.

I have had my life threatened with a hammer from an employer, accusing me of reporting him, which I had not done.

I did not even know he had been inspected. When I called OSHA, I had given them a call about this kind of situation. They told me. to write them a full report. I did. They wrote me back, and they said he had not even been inspected, and they later, they called me, and I talked to him, and I asked him about this, and they said, well there is not anything they can do about it, there was no regulation in the law that would protect me, here I am supposed to go into the plant, and inspect it every week or two, and if I have the complaint, I am supposed to do something about it, yes if I report a man, or I am threatened, and this one occasion I could have been killed.

The man did all kinds of things. That is not pleasant to me, to try to look at something like that.

The problem was, I gathered, the OSHA man had immediately asked where he could get in touch with me when he made this inspec

tion, intimating to the man that I was the person reporting him, and he was going to report back to me.

In this report here I wrote, I asked them if they cannot do anything else, just leave me out of it, because they were doing nothing but causing me problems.

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Congressman LEVITAS. He endangered your life more than the safety inspector had helped?

Mr. NORMAN. That is right.

Congressman LEVITAS. Mr. McGarity, this forced air respirator, Mr. Norman indicated that OSHA's position is as a result of a regulation, and yet he also indicates, and he has got first hand experience that he gets cleaner air through the respirator than he does without the respirator.

Do you know whether OSHA did any studies, any research, any scientific testing, to justify a regulation, that eliminated this respirator?

Mr. MCGARITY. No, sir. I do not know how they came about the regulations.

We know the respirator is approved, and when they came to our place and made the test, all of the tests were made on the man's lapel, it was not of the air that he was breathing, it was the air of his lapel which was exposed, and it was not at his nose.

Congressman LEVITAS. The National Institute of Occupational Safety, they are supposed to be doing research before they issue these regulations, and apparently they have not done so.

They are also supposed to train the inspectors, and they have not done so either.

Mr. NORMAN. Over a year ago, they came to the town and spent several days in Elberton making testing, but OSHA knows nothing of this.

Congressman LEVITAS. Just one last question, that is really not funny, but it is pathetic, but it is just another example of the kind of thing you point out.

Do you have a pension program for your employees?

Mr. MCGARITY. Yes.

Congressman LEVITAS. Are you subject to the requirements of ARISA?

Mr. MCGARITY. Yes, sir.

Congressman LEVITAS. Have you found any difficulty in complying with that?

Mr. NORMAN. It is a union pension plan, and it has been completely redone as a result of all of this.

Congressman LEVITAS. Thank you very much.

Senator NUNN. I thank both of you. You have been a great help. We appreciate it very much.

I am glad to see employers and employees working together so well. I think that is very important. We are all in our economy, and I am glad both of you came to give us the benefits of your thinking. Mr. NORMAN. Thank you.

Senator NUNN. Our next witnesses are Morris Bryan, Jr., Jefferson Mills, Jefferson, Ga.; Mr. Floyd C. Newton, Jr., Dundee Mills, Griffin, Ga.; and L. K. Fitzgerald, Deering-Milliken Services Corp., Spartanburg, S.C.

Mr. Bryan, Mr. Newton and Mr. Fitzgerald, we are delighted to have all of you, Mr. Bryan. we will turn it over to you, and let you proceed in any way you see fit.

TESTIMONY OF MORRIS M. BRYAN, JR., JEFFERSON MILLS, INC., JEFFERSON, GA.

Mr. BRYAN. Thank you, Senator.

We do greatly appreciate the oportunity of being here. We particularly are interested in your proposed legislation. We think this is extremely commendable, and it is courageous in this day and time, we appreciate it very much.

We think it is significant that two of our younger members in Congress have taken such a tremendous lead in this respect.

We are speaking on behalf of the American Textile Manufacturers Institute. The Institute represents the majority of the textile producers in the United States.

My colleagues are Mr. Floyd. Newton, and Mr. L. K. Fitzgerald. Floyd will talke about the EPA, and its impact in the pollution field, and Mr. Fitzgerald is quite an expert on noise and dust as it affects the textile industry.

I will comment briefly later about flammability, and its impact on the American consumer, as well as on our industry.

Senator, I hope my presentation will not be too unsophisticated, but you know, we get so damned confused with all these regulations, that we have found it necessary to go back and just sort of wipe everything clean, and start out with a basic set of fundamentals.

Representative Levitas, you mentioned a fundamental a minute ago, in mentioning Adam Smith. A group of us have really studied, and we have come up with something that we can hang our hat on, and as long as we keep this fundamental in front of us, we are not going to be in too bad a shape. If you do not mind, I would like to share it with you. It is a little bit corny, but it is something we can remember, and it has been very helpful to us, and it goes like this.

We asked ourselves, what is the wealth of the United States of America that we keep talking about, as being what made us great. Without going through a lot of things, we come up with the fact that the wealth of this Nation has to be one thing, one thing only, "its ability to produce," and its ability to produce in world competition. Oddly enough, Karl Marx in his Manifesto, Adam Smith in his "Wealth of Nations", both said that our wealth is what we produce. The only real economic wealth the nation has is that which it produces. The primary sources of economic wealth-farming, mining, fishing, and manufacturing-provide all the basic economic wealth of this Nation. This wealth in turn supports all the services including government, transportation, education, medicine, arts, athletics, and even religion. From the basic sources of wealth comes compliance with OSHA, EPA, and other regulatory rules and laws.

When one studies the three laborious volumes written by Gibbon concerning the Fall of the Roman Empire, several factors are domi

nant:

A. The fall began when Romans learned they could vote themselves money through their Senate.