agencies receive from the firms that they were sending the employees to, and what the actual worker receives.

For one instance, one of the checks at the end of the day I got was gross pay of approximately $12.80, and the take-home pay I got was $9. The deductions were the regular deductions which were usually only marked "deductions" and never any delineation between or specified where the deductions were made. It was anybody's guess where the deductions went after they were taken out.

Also, in instances where I knew specifically what the firm was paying the agency for our services, and an example was, I worked for Chrysler Motor Co., the warehouse manager said he was paying day labor agency $4.50 an hour for the work, and at the end of the day before deductions I received $1.70 for this. The discrepancy between these two, I think, is horribly high. I think that is one of the things that the bill wants to eliminate.

For an example to point out how bad this was, the three of us in Detroit worked 5 days a week, and with all of the hours we worked, we worked 120 hours, when we pooled all of the money in all of our checks, we only had $114 for 120 hours of work.

Also, another instance, where I worked for a company that sent me out on a job and guaranteed a fellow worker and myself $10 for unloading a freight car of 100-pound bags of sugar, they guaranteed us $10 for the work and when we got there we found it was $10 for both of us, for us to divide it up, which means I got $5 take-home for an 8-hour day of unloading 100-pound bags of sugar, which figures out to about 60 cents an hour for that work.

The second major abuse we found was that there was no guarantee of work once you get there. The only reason we got work at all was because we were white and young and strong and able to do the work. They usually wanted to send out the best and the youngest person to give the firm the idea that their workers are good workers and so they will hire them back.

So usually the worker who probably needed the money the most was the one that didn't get sent out. If you were black, you usually had no chance at all. I can verify places where they actually wrote on the time sheet, "Do not send any colored," the actual firm wrote that. So, you know, usually the black was about 50/50 in Detroit; they were there but we found almost in every chance they would always send out the white person first.

Then the time you sat there, you may sit there in the morning: You would get up at 5 in the morning and sit there, and you may get sent out or not get sent out; and you sit an average of 2 to 4 hours, and if you are lucky you are sent out, and if not, you waste the whole day.

There were many men there begging for the job, and there was an instance of a worker having a wife and family at home, where he needed a job so bad he bribed the dispatcher and gave him a couple of dollars under the teller's window in order to get the job over the other men.

A third thing was the difference in the Federal income taxes. As I pointed out before, the deductions that were made on everyday paychecks were usually not delineated. We had no idea where these deductions went to.

One company did delineate them and we added up what on a dayto-day basis it would be on the pay stub, and what it came out to on a day-to-day basis didn't even come close to what the W-2 form showed, when we would see it at the end of the year, and there was a big discrepancy between these two figures, and usually the W-2 form was a lot lower than the ones we received.

A fourth one we found was there was no guarantee you would even get 8 hours of work. Sometimes you would go out but you had no idea how long you would work, so you may go out in the morning and the firm only needs you for 3 hours, so you only work 3 hours and they would send you back.

After working 3 hours, you usually had no chance at all to go back and get another job, because it was too late in the day and most of the companies already had their men. So some days, even if you were sent out, you had no guarantee of how many hours you would work. So sometimes you would only come out with 2 hours' worth of pay, but it would ruin your chance of getting a job for the rest of the day, because all of the companies had already been covered.

Again, we found in every instance except one company, they had a 90-day clause, so this does exist.

Also, Mr. Cahoon here was asked to come on full time at one of the companies he worked for, but Mr. Cahoon pointed out that on the time sheets, the 90-day clause was there, so thus the employer was not able to hire Mr. Cahoon on a full-time basis, which he would have liked to do, so again that is a specific instance where the 90-day clause kept the worker from receiving a permanent job.

Another instance was the workman's compensation. Never at any time were the three of us ever informed we were entitled to workman's compensation, and there was a specific instance where Mr. Cahoon was injured on the job-his pay stopped the minute he was injured. He did not receive pay for the rest of the day. Also, he was never told about any insurance or any coverage that he might have for the injuries that he received during the job.

Also, there was an abuse in the false advertising which various agencies use in order to get men for their labor pool. They will advertise in their window 50 men needed; or in the newspaper, 25 men needed for a particular job, and when the men would show up in the morning for the job, usually all they meant was: We want 25 people, to pick out the best-so they usually would pick five or 10 men, maybe, out of 50 people waiting in line.

So again, because of false advertisement, other men that could have gone to other agencies were forced to come to these agencies because of the false advertisements, and thus they would lose out on a job because of the false advertising.

Another abuse was, in the beginning they would give misleading information to the applicant by assuring you would be employed that day, and sit down and wait, and by calling you.

Usually, for the first couple of weeks, you never got a job, until you became a regular, and then when they saw your face enough, you went out. But even for the first couple of weeks you would not get a job, and you had to sit around for a couple of weeks for them to know you are going to be around pretty long.

So most men, even in the beginning, did not have any chance of finding employment in the beginning, until they had sat around the place long enough for them to get known.

Another abuse was that the men, because of the area, did not have bank accounts, and a lot of them didn't have identification for some reason or other, so they were forced to cash their checks at a bar, where the arrangement was made by the day laborer agencies, and the men did not like the practice, because what would usually happen was, they would set up a beer for you when you came in and would take it out of your paycheck whether you liked it or not, and charge you a fee for cashing the check.

You can see how this would be for a person who was an alcoholic who possibly was working where it would be a temptation for him to go into a bar to cash his paycheck, so that when he came home from the bar he had nothing in a lot of instances, because of forcing him to cash that check in a bar.

I mentioned before there were approximately 20 to 25 agencies in Detroit, and we estimate they probably employ approximately 3,000 day laborers, so we can point out this is not a small operation, this is a big operation, and it is employing many men, even in just the city of Detroit.

Another thing that Representative Mikva's bill would provide, try to provide portal-to-portal pay. What usually happens is they would advance pay to us off of our paycheck to pay for you getting to your job, and also you would have to have an advance to get your lunch, or you went without your lunch.

So what it would end up, with the advance you had to pay out of your money to get to the job, by the time you got home in the evening, if you worked 8 hours, with the $1.60 rate with all deductions, you would come home with 90 cents an hour and sometimes the take-home pay would be only $5 for working a whole day. And I think that comes out to about that when we added the checks together and we only had $114 for three men working 120 hours.

Finally, after 3 months, because of the financial and economic situation in the city because of the GM strike, we were not able to, even though we were regulars, to get any employment. So we found ourselves not even getting sent out any more, so we could not exist on what we were receiving any more. So we had to quit the project because we could not live on it, living in a community where we pooled resources and we still couldn't live on it.

There were many men I worked with, with families at home, that had kids at home, that were actually trying to live on this wage, and for various reasons they could not find employment. A lot of them were caught up in the vicious cycle, that if they took a day off to go hunting, say, for a regular job, well, then, the day laborer agency would figure you are not too regular, and wouldn't send you out, so you had to come there on a pretty regular basis before they would start sending you out.

So, to sum up, what we found was that the worker was at the complete mercy of the agency and has nobody to go to for redress of grievances at all. There is nobody that he can possibly tell these abuses to or do anything about them, because, you see, he is interested in

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getting enough money to put food on his table, and even what little money that they did receive, this was enough for them at least.

So what would happen, at least, was that these men would work for anything, any wage, they were at the complete mercy of the day labor agencies.

That about sums up my testimony.

Mr. CLAY. Did anyone else want to supplement his statement?
Mr. WRIGHT. I would like to add an experience of my own.

My name is Prince Wright. And I am with SOME-"So Others Might Eat"-I am the alcoholism coordinator. We give special services and assistance to the homeless man. In other words, we are the voice of the homeless. Homelessness is a result of some of the problems mentioned here, which I have personally experienced, because I worked for all of the day laborer agencies in the Washington area.

I lived here most of my adult life, and some of my personal experience has been the same as my friend here. I know of an example at Fort Belvoir where Manpower, Inc., had a contract for a year or 2. I filed for employment with the personnel department to get a job, and they refused for the simple reason that I was working for Manpower-and this was a period of 1 year, not the 90-day period that they have stated here. My application is on file at Fort Belvoir now.

Another incident, and I have had to do the same as some of these men here, was to pay the dispatcher or give some material thing, such as a half a pint of whiskey or something, to get sent out on the job.

Another thing I encountered here with the labor pool, was that I refused to cross a picket line. I didn't know about this until I arrived on the site, and found that they were picketing. This was at Southern Bakery. When I saw this, being a union member at one time, I refused to cross the line. Because of this, I was put on the blackball list and they refused to give me employment after that.

Mr. CLAY. After you refused to cross the picket line?

Mr. WRIGHT. Yes, after I refused to cross the picket line, they refused me employment so I just moved on into another labor agency. Each of these agencies, in its own way, has its way of getting to the individual. He suffers as a result.

As far as the checks and the payments are concerned, I have signed pay vouchers where I didn't receive any voucher myself. I have also signed vouchers without the amount being filled in. I have kept accounts of what I was paid during a period of a week, and the amount paid was always less than I had signed for. I would always get into arguments about this type of thing.

I had kept a record of my hours worked and the record which was. sent to employees, or employers, rather. They were always less than the amount of hours I had completed in my work. This, in turn, brought about hostilities between me and the labor agencies that I worked for at that time.

To be able to cash my checks, I was always sent to a liquor store. I found that the people who were employed by these agencies, due to the conditions under which they had to live, most of them resorted to alcoholic drinking. In order to get their checks cashed, they would have to buy from the liquor store, and if not, they would have to pay a minimum fee of approximately 50 to 95 cents to cash a $9 check.

When we would gripe about paying a fee, they would say, "Well, this check is from an out-of-town source," and consequently, we would have to pay without any other grievance.

The organization that I now work for, SOME, Inc., feeds approximately 150 to 200 men a day. All of these men, as a result of these different labor agencies, bring their grievances to me now. The same situation exists right here in the District, and it is more prevalent now than it was at the time when I was working as a day laborer.

I am in agreement with the Representative who presented this law as far as the day laborers are concerned.

Mr. CLAY. Do you have any estimate as to how many day workers are involved in the Washington area? He had estimated 3,000 in the Detroit area.

Mr. WRIGHT. I would say from 3,000 to 5,000. As I said before, I work daily with the homeless and I found that most of the men have this problem now.

Mr. CLAY. How many temporary hiring services do we have in the

area?

Mr. WRIGHT. I would say right offhand, I am not too familiar with the new ones, but there have been eight I know of and worked for. Mr. CLAY. And all of them use the same practices?

Mr. WRIGHT. The same practices and same methods.

I feel this way. I know they set up their agencies in the conspicuous poor areas where they can draw from the poor people. They control this type of labor, because a man has to support himself in some form. As they expect, most of the men are not able to keep a steady position. They have more or less grown out of work habits, because of their condition due to drinking, their mental capabilities, and other conditions.

Mr. CLAY. I was very interested in your statement about kickback to the dispatchers. Is that pretty common among the seven or eight agencies?

Mr. WRIGHT. Yes, this is a common thing, because if you get in with the guy that is in dispatching, you know you are going to get a day's work. This is something that is done. It is practiced in all of the agencies.

Mr. CLAY. In addition to you kicking back, you have seen others give money or whiskey or some other type of inducement in order to be sent out?

Mr. WRIGHT. That is correct.

Mr. CLAY. Did you experience the same thing in the Detroit area? Mr. STECHSCHULTE. As I testified before, there was an instance in which I actually watched a man give a dispatcher a dollar because he needed a job so bad because he had a wife and children at home and he needed a job so badly and he didn't know what to do so he gave him a dollar.

Mr. CLAY. Did you also see these workers being used to break strikes in Detroit?

Mr. STECHSCHULTE. In the 3 months we worked, it never happened but I know there were workers that I asked about that worked before, and there were workers I worked with that said they had been used before to try to break strikes; so all I know is from the word of the workers I worked with, but I myself was never involved in it.