They predict their production, they predict how many yards of dirt they are going to move with certain specific equipment, and they know those particular operators will, from experience, be able to

move that.

Now, when you say they can't go out of the county, and they can't use a 30-percent prevailing wage as a base in the county, and they can't judge what is a similar project, you make the differentiation here between a building construction and a heavy construction job. You know, I believe, from experience, that contractors who contract for both so-called building construction and heavy construction pay their carpenters and tradesmen exactly the same on whichever job they are operating on, whether they are putting up a Government building for $25 million, a Federal building, or whether they are doing a dam construction job.

They don't pay a different wage because of the type of the contract, because the work performed is exactly the same. Whether you are building a form for a dam or whether you are building, roughing in a building, carpenter work is exactly the same.

When you get to the finish work, you may have a difference, but you have a differentiation in pay.

Mr. BORTH. I tend to agree with you.

Mr. DENT. And if you eliminate these three criteria that you use now, what would you substitute?

Mr. BORTH. Commonsense is all.

Mr. DENT. Well, then, you don't need the Davis-Bacon bill, because it was a failure of commonsense that created the act.

Mr. BORTH. Of course, I would agree with that statement right off.

Mr. DENT. If commonsense could suffice, we wouldn't need any of the bills. We wouldn't need the poverty bill. We wouldn't need the retraining bill. Employers would be expected as they were at the turn of the century, when we turned from an agrarian State into an industrial State-employers trained their own people.

They took the blacksmith that was no longer needed and made him a machinist. They didn't come to the Government to do it, because at that time, they had commonsense, but commonsense is no longer a part of the industrial scene of the country.

The Government will retrain their workers. They come in and they say to the Government, "These people no longer know how to do the work, and either you are going to give us some people to do the work, or we are not going to hire them."

These people, who do train their own men, are going to be told, "You can't take your trained men. You have got to go out and take untrained men, and the Government is going to train them for you, so you can hire them in a new job.”

I am just trying to find out where we go. I think Mr. Borth knows

what I mean.

Mr. BORTH. I understand what you are trying to say, Congressman, and the message is, as they would say, coming through very clear. All I am trying to say, and I will be just as frank as you are, is that I have no desire, any more than you have, to depress wages or do ar ything of that kind.

All I am trying again to get across in this hearing today is that all we say is that to do it fairly, and if you have to go beyond the county, I can't say you couldn't make a rule.

You could never pass legislation, saying, "You can't do this beyond the county. You can't do this." There are always exceptions to everything.

Mr. DENT. All right. Now, Mr. Borth, let's go further right there. Mr. BORTH. All I am saying is, I will go along with you on one point, and I am glad you said it, I didn't; but I agree with you, and that is, a carpenter is a carpenter, and that is one thing that in previous hearings I couldn't get across, and you made it for me.

I say that when they go into a job, you can't tell me that in Boise, Idaho, or Basin, Wyo., that they aren't carpenters, and when a job goes in there, you can't tell me that they can't hire carpenters.

All I am trying to say is that they shouldn't bring in rates and inflate the rates.

That is all I am trying to point out.

Mr. DENT. Then, in order to put your recommendations into law, then we have to bar not only considering a contract as a base for determining the wage in another county as against the county the contract is going in, but we must bar the contractor from outside of the county from coming in.

Now, if you want to get provincial, I notice you use the words "artificially imported." Now, you know, I am against imports, and your organization isn't, but here you call a carpenter from Pittsburgh an import. You don't say a darned word about a Volkswagen.

I mean, you see, it is labor, whether it is in the products, or in the man coming in. I see no difference in importing a laborer from Pittsburgh or importing the product of that laborer from Pittsburgh. They both have the same effect of taking the job away from the fellow who is in the local district.

Mr. BORTH. If they need the man.

Mr. DENT. Now, if a contractor from a neighboring low-waged county can move in and bid a job in another county, then why can't we move over to another county to get a determination on the wage paid in that area?

Mr. BORTH. For the simple reason, and the only point is that if there are people, adequate people in that county now who are capable of doing that work, I can't see why you should be bringing people from Pittsburgh into that county.

Mr. DENT. Well, then, you want an amendment to the bill that you can't bring labor from one area to another so long as there is labor in that area capable of doing the work.

Mr. BORTH. In those classifications.

Mr. DENT. But in those classifications.

Mr. BORTH. Sure. I mean, that makes commonsense, doesn't it? Mr. DENT. Very bluntly, then, you are saying that if there is a contractor from Virginia who bids on a road job in Pennsylvania, he has to take the labor in Pennsylvania. If you do that, there will be no outside contractors coming into Pennsylvania, because the only reason they come from Virginia is because they can bring their labor

with them.

Mr. BORTH. Well, I wish I was more of an expert to argue that particular point with you, because I question seriously, based on a

lack of knowledge, that they would not bid on the job because they can't bring their labor with them. Because I just do not believe that we have a bunch of nomads here who go across this country, and that is the only way construction companies bid, because construction companies can't pay the exorbitant rates of bringing the people across this country and moving them from here to here to here.

You can't tell me that the common labor and the semiskilled help isn't local help. They can't possibly do that.

Mr. DENT. You would have so few buildings built in the United States if construction workers couldn't move from State to State and area to area.

Mr. BORTH. On some of those highly skilled, I go along with you. I am talking about the masses, not the exception.

Mr. DENT. You are talking about common labor.

Mr. BORTH. Right, on the semiskilled jobs. Carpenters.

Mr. DENT. A carpenter is not a semiskilled man.

Mr. BORTH. I know, but there are grades of carpenters. Everyone isn't a skilled carpenter. I mean, you have got different grades in every classification.

Mr. DENT. When they set the wages in a Government contract, they set them on the degree of skill of the different craftsmen. Mr. BORTH. Right. Right.

Mr. DENT. So, there is no problem there between a trained and semitrained man. I don't think you can put these three recommendations in unless you make the law in effect bar anybody from coming into a county, and don't allow anybody out.

Thank you.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Mr. Pucinski.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Mr. Borth, I think that the hopeful tone of your statement here this morning would lead one to believe that the chamber is joining President Johnson in the mainstream of moderation, and I am impressed with your statement. While we don't agree with you on some of these things, this is a far cry from some of the statements I have seen the chamber make before.

I am particularly impressed with your statements to the chairman that you apparently are perfectly willing to see how these administrative changes are going to work, be willing to give them a year, or whatever time they need to prove or disprove the fact that these are sufficiently effective. Am I reasonably correct in that assumption? Mr. BORTH. Overall, yes. I work very closely with them, and I know most of the people down there, and they are all gentlemen that are trying to do a job, the same as anybody else. The only place I ever disagree with them is in their methods, methodology, every now and then, and if it does not need legislation, my only point is this-and I said it in the very first part of my statement-I sometimes think that the administrative agencies of our Government, though, go beyond what Congress intended, and that is why I have advocated this watchdog committee, and I still hope that I live to see the day when we don't throw everything into the courts. The lawyers won't like this, but seriously, for the life of me, I can't see why the Congress of the United States passes a law, that then the administering agencies take that law and interpret it the way they think Congress intended, and then we get into the next step, where the lawyers come

into the act, and try to interpret what did Congress say versus what did the interpreter.

All I say is, with this watchdog committee, why can't you sit down with the Department of Labor, Department of Interior, Department of Commerce, whatever it is, and go over and say, "Here is what we meant. We were on that conference committee. We know what Congress intended, and you write the interpretative bulletins in this way"?

Mr. PUCINSKI. I think this is an excellent suggestion. As you prob ably know, this subcommittee has been doing a great deal of that. We have had the administrator of the Wage and Hour Division in any number of times to ask him how he is interpreting and effectuating the various amendments that this committee has reported out in the last few years. In those instances where we thought he was interpreting them incorrectly, we have so advised him, and changes have been made. I think that your point here for continued supervision of legislation perhaps could be the greatest contribution that Congress can make.

It would be my hope that every committee would adopt as a standing policy that the agencies must report at least once a year as to what they are doing, that is, how they are administering the acts.

You will notice, for instance, that the full committee adopted the various principles that you are suggesting here on the poverty bill, that we reported out of this committee, in that while we authorized the bill for 3 years, we authorized an appropriation for only 1 year, because we want them back here next April, to tell us exactly what they have done, and how effectively, and if not effectively, where are the faults, so that the Congress will have a running survey of how these laws are being interpreted by the agencies, I want to congratulate you for that suggestion.

I think it is an excellent suggestion, and I notice that in those areas. where congressional committees have done this, you have had a good administration of the law. Where committees write the law and then forget about it, you have had bad administration.

And I might say another example was the juvenile delinquency bill that we passed here in this committee. It faltered for, oh, a year and a half, 2 years, until this committee brought these people in, and made them account for what they are doing with its bill, and I notice there is some action there now.

One thing that I would like to ask you, would it be your judgment that-and this was done, of course, over your objections, but that notwithstanding with the inclusion of fringe benefits in wage determination and Davis-Bacon determinations would it be your judgment that you are going to have less friction, now that it is a law, that you will have more realistic determinations, and therefore, perhaps eliminate much of the friction that has previously existed in these wage determinations?

Would this reduce the load of the Wage Board?

Mr. BORTH. Well, temporarily. I think it will increase it, because I think until you get the fringe benefits law into actual practice, and they iron out all the complications that are going to be involved in determining what the prevailing fringe benefits are, I think you are going to find the Wage Appeals Board business pick up tremendously

for a while, until they get some ground rules laid. There are no ground rules, and you people recognized this in your hearings, when you asked Mr. Donahue several questions I remember very well, "How do you go about this?"

And he didn't even know, and this is how I think it is going to be, and anybody that is in the employee benefit field knows it is going to be complicated as the devil, and until you sit down and work out the ground rules, I think they will have more business.

Mr. PUCINSKI. In your statement on page 2, you say that it seems strange that there have been no legislative amendments to DavisBacon for more than 30 years, and then suddenly administrative changes are made. I might question the word "suddenly," only to the extent that this subcommittee and I am very happy to say that I was right there in the forefront with the rest of the members-suggested that some intermediate appellate procedure be established within the Department to give these aggrieved parties some place to go besides the Administrator himself. I think that the Department just saw the handwriting on the wall.

They realized that this committee was rather firm in its determination that there must be some administrative procedure, and so quite properly, they set up this Administrative Review Board, rather than clutter up the courts, and I am very happy to see that you are willing to give this thing a chance to see whether it is going to work.

I think that many of the members of the committee would join you in due time, if this review procedure does not work. Certainly we are going to want to look at some other suggestions, in order to reduce any inequities.

Mr. BORTH. I think in all fairness to Mr. Donahue, he did take advantage of the brains of this committee, and listened to the testimony of the witnesses, and then had the benefit of the report of your committee, and I think you will find a lot of the things that he put into effect were taken right out of this book, this committee print, so it shows that he was willing to admit either that he was wrong or that he was progressive in his thinking and was willing to make some changes, constructive changes.

The only difference, as I was saying earlier, was that your chairman and the subcommittee had suggested it be done by statute, whereas he wants to do it administratively, and I will complain, yes, mildly, that this is not the correct way. I think it is an erosion of your responsibility, but let's sit back now, it has been done, I know you are not in the mood to change it, and I am willing to sit back providing that we could agree here that within a year, or two at the most, that you people would again call Mr. Donahue, his successor if there is one, and let's go over and see how they are working.

Let's see what is happening to these changes.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Collective bargaining never worked so fast, but that is an agreement.

Mr. PUCINSKI. In October of 1962, in the early part of October 1962, I think I recall correctly the chamber was extremely critical of the 8or 10-point program that the department at that time announced it was going to implement in the administration of Davis-Bacon. You recall you had issued a very strong statement in opposition, and perhaps if the good sense that prevails today had prevailed 2 years ago,