applications for work, by requests for job training, and other employment service activity which we feel is the pulse of the labor market. In order to amplify my statements to you on Wednesday, I would like to point out the following facts from current labor demand and supply data for the local labor market: A. SUPPLY 1. Employment office active file (as of this date, Sept. 11, 1942) A large percentage of these job seekers are women newly enter- 3. Average renewal applications per month for June, July, and August... 4. Average monthly enrollment in preemployment vocational courses. B. DEMAND 1. Anticipated hires for the next 6 months. This figure is for 10 major employers in the Janesville area and accounts only for new hires in addition to present employment. Approximately 65 percent of these indicated needs will be male workers to be recalled by 1 establishment and for the most part they are not now represented in the active file count shown in the supply above. 2. Withdrawals for the armed forces_ This can only be a rough estimate with limited knowledge on the demand based on 10 percent of the approximate male employment in the 10 major establishments. C. BALANCE OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND 1, 348 531 517 96 None 780 400 It would appear from the present data that the available supply for the Janesville labor market area for the next 6-month period will exceed considerably the local demand. While demand from adjacent and distant areas is steadily in creasing and our office has a responsibility to help meet this demand with the local supply, the number of workers who will migrate from the area is limited by many factors. A large percentage of the present job seekers represented in the available supply are qualified and available only for local job openings. These facts clearly indicate that the labor needs of the Parker Pen Co. for the next 6-month period for your anticipated increased production on war contracts can be amply met. Your present and past procedure of employing a large percentage of women with a minimum of limiting qualifications enhances this prospect. May I add also that the increased employment by your establishment in the past several months has been a most gratifying factor in the local labor market. While the placement activity of this office with essential employers has been very brisk, opportunities for industrial employment in Janesville other than in your factory have been quite limited. I appreciate the cooperation your organization has given this office in our efforts to effect an orderly control of the labor market which is particularly desired in these times. Sincerely yours, WILLIAM B. MILLS, Local Manager. Mr. THOMPSON. This letter shows that on September 11 there were 1,348 applications for work on file with the Janesville office. For the months of June, July, and August there were an average of 531 applications filed per month, and 517 renewal applications, these representing mostly recurring job seekers from seasonal occupation. A few weeks ago when the canning season was at its height, the employment in Janesville was at a high point, but even then there were large numbers of applications still on file unused. Now that the canning season is over several hundred more people are out of work and available for other employment. Senator MALONEY. I might say that we have heard from time to time that there is a great shortage of farm labor, particularly in dairy-farm labor, in your State. Mr. THOMPSON. There is not. Senator MALONEY. There is no shortage? Mr. THOMPSON. Not to speak of; not in our vicinity. I don't know how it is farther north. Senator MALONEY. Please do not let me interrupt you further. Mr. THOMPSON. I would like to quote just one paragraph from the letter of the United States Employment Office. This states: It would appear from the present data that the available supply for the Janesville labor market area for the next 6-month period will exceed considerably the local demand. While demand from adjacent and distant areas is steadily increasing and our office has a responsibility to help meet this demand with the local supply, the number of workers who will migrate from the area is limited by many factors. A large percentage of the present job seekers represented in the available supply are qualified and available only for local job openings. I think that answers your question. Many of our people own their own homes and many of the workers are women who are working to help pay for their homes. These people cannot readily move from one place to another, and a large proportion of our people working in the main plant could not and would not move away from Janesville if they became unemployed as the result of the closing down of the factory but would remain there in the hope of obtaining employment elsewhere as future demands might increase or of obtaining only seasonal employment. They would simply add to the labor surplus already existing in this area and the result would be severe economic distress in our community. Our union in cooperation with the Parker Pen Co. has been energetic in the War bond purchase program and many 10 percent buttons are in evidence in that plant. I think as many as 80 percent of our members have signed up on the 10 percent pay-roll deduction program. Unless our people can have continued employment, they cannot continue to buy War bonds and pay taxes as they are now doing. We also feel that we are engaged in making a product which has real essentiality. Of course writing instruments are not an article of war. Many wars have been fought and won before they were invented, but the same applies to the telephone, telegraph, radio, V-mail, and other media of communication. Pens and pencils are merely two essential instruments for one means of communication, and undoubtedly the most universal used of all means next to actual speech. In considering the essentiality of fountain pens and pencils, it is important to note that families have been dislocated to tremendous extent due to some members entering military service and others being transferred from one locality to anothter due to various phases of the war effort. In the interest of members of the armed forces, a fountain pen is most essential because it is a small portable writing instrument containing a supply of writing fluid that will last an average of 30 days. Our records indicate that over 50 percent of our fountain pen production is sold dierctly to men in the military and naval service or to persons intending to give the pen to such men. The reasons why a soldier would feel a fountain pen essential are plain. A fountain pen is portable and may be carried on the person, and because of the clip it is not readily subject to loss. It is durable, and practically nonbreakable. It will carry a month's supply of writing fluid which is of special importance when away from permanent bases. Certainly no soldier could be expected to carry a bottle of ink and an ordinary steel pen into the field. The fountain pen is the only practical writing instrument which members of the armed forces can use when away from a permanent base. For the 6 months, March through August, 21 percent of our total sales were sold to post exchanges, navy stores and other military outlets. An additional 4 percent went to United States Army and Navy outlets overseas; these outlets constituted 26 percent of our total export sales. These fountain pens and mechanical pencils which we produce require very little critical material, only a small quantity of steel is now needed as our substitution program has successfully eliminated stainless steel, brass, aluminum, and other critical materials. We have in process a mechanical pencil, the steel content of which is less than 8 pounds per thousand units, whereas the steel content of our former pencil was approximately 80 pounds per thousand units. Silver is the only restricted metal we need now in addition to this very small amount of steel to continue the manufacture of fountain. pens and mechanical pencils and make it possible to develop our war plant to a state of full scale and efficient production. And silver certainly cannot be considered a critical material as long as there are millions and millions of ounces buried in the vaults of the United States Treasury. Senator MALONEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Thompson. Senator GREEN. Mr. Chairman, there are a few more witnesses present. We are very appreciative of the patience of the committee, and I am not going to call on them. However, I am going to ask each one of them to come forward, and if they have any new thoughts to present, to state them orally, and if they have written statements with them, to leave them with the files of the committee. Senator MALONEY. And we appreciate the assistance you have given us, Senator. We are very anxious to cooperate with you and very anxious to dispose of the matter. Some Senators are hopeful of getting away for several days, and I had hoped insofar as this subcommittee is concerned, that we could conclude today. Senator GREEN. There is another representative of the employees present, Mr. Dennis N. Burke, president of the International Photoengravers Union, who has a few words to say. STATEMENT OF DENNIS N. BURKE, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL PHOTO ENGRAVERS UNION, NEW YORK, N. Y. Mr. BURKE. I shall be very brief, because your meeting has been rather long. I appear this morning to make a plea for the 10,000 members of the International Photo Engravers Union. Senator MALONEY. Give us your full name, please. Mr. BURKE. Dennis N. Burke. Senator MALONEY. And your address? Mr. BURKE. 455 One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street, Rockaway Beach, N. Y. Senator MALONEY. Thank you very much. Mr. BURKE. I also appear for Local 1. I make this plea because our employers are having difficulty at the present time in receiving silver nitrate. Silver nitrate is very essential to the photoengraving industry, and the reason for that is, you must photograph all objects or images that come into a plant before a photo can be made, and while we use very little silver, it is really the heart of the industry. A photographer will make a negative, and that is as far as the silver goes, but when he is through with that negative, it must be printed on metal, it must be etched, routed, finished and proved, which means that a lot of men depend upon the small amount of silver nitrate we use. We believe we are essential to the war program, because we do advertising work for the Army and the Navy. We also photograph the Senators for publicity purposes. Senator MALONEY. That is not essential to the war effort. Only recently, to try to illustrate how essential silver is to the photoengraving industry I, myself, a photographer, made four negatives of the Army Air Corps, where they were making posters for recruits and cadets, and from these four negatives, red, yellow, blue, and black, a plate was made. It had to be plated and the color artist had to work on the particular plates for days, and in the end the cost amounted to four or five hundred dollars, so from that small amount of silver men receive quite a large salary. I might say in that regard our members average about $75 a week. I understand that at the present time they are trying to raise money to help defray the war, and our men are playing a big part in that regard due to the fact they average a good salary, and they are paying high taxes. I think it is essential at the present time, and I believe something should be done to release the silver so men can make a living, especially when it pertains to the war industry, or plays a certain part in the war industry. I don't say that we should disregard the war and keep the silver or give the silver out indiscriminately to all parties, but when even a little bit of the war is being helped, I think we should allocate the silver to these particular industries. In that regard I feel that possibly this committee can either recommend this bill or some bill where men in my industry can get some benefit from it. I think it would be unfair to say that we would have to stop making photoengravings. We realize that there will be a curtailment in photoengraving, and we have tried to assist in that regard by assessing our members $4 a week at the present time, whereby those unemployed will go to defense schools and learn other than photoengraving. We pay them benefits while they are going to these defense schools so that they can get into another industry, and we also subsidize them as high as $10 a week to make up the difference, whatever they receive at the defense plant and what they receive at photoengraving, because as a rule you start at about 65 cents an hour and work up to 70, and so on, so for a period of about 3 months we pay these men, and in that way we are trying to encourage the surplus man in our industry to go into defense. So, I think we are playing our part and trying to do all we can to help the cause, and in return we feel we should be given some consideration for the small amount of silver we use. That is all. Senator MALONEY. Thank you very much. Senator GREEN. I will call Mr. M. Fred Hirsch, Jersey City, N. J. STATEMENT OF M. FRED HIRSCH, M. FRED HIRSCH CO., INC., SILVERSMITHS, JERSEY CITY, N. J. Mr. HIRSCH. Gentlemen, I came down on behalf of the smaller sterling silver manufacturers, and since Mr. Wilcox so ably stated it, I believe whatever I have to say will merely be a repetition. Senator MALONEY. You just want to record yourself, you and those you represent, as being in favor of the bill? Mr. HIRSCH. Correct. Senator MALONEY. Thank you very much. Senator GREEN. As the last witness I will call Mr. G. N. Stieff of Baltimore, Md. He is a manufacturer. STATEMENT OF GIDEON N. STIEFF, THE STIEFF CO., Mr. STIEFF. Gentlemen, I am just as anxious to get out of here as you are, so I am not going to take up much of your time. Senator MALONEY. Give us your full name, please. Mr. STIEFF. Gideon N. Stieff, of the Stieff Co., Baltimore, Md. I am only going to try to hit upon something that the rest of the gentlemen have not done. We are doing about 75 percent defense plant work today in our plant. Now, in order to do it efficiently, we have to have silver for the regular work that we have been doing, because in defense work there are periods when certain departments are more or less not working, through priority, not having steel or copper or something of that kind, and we can work those men on silver which is, after all, our regular business, and if that silver is taken away from us, it is going to make us less efficient. As I say, we are working 75 percent in defense work. Senator DANAHER. And you are apt to lose those men? Mr. STIEFF. We are apt to lose those men; yes. As a matter of fact, we lost 30 men in our place when silver was taken away from us. If we had had that silver, we would still have those men and probably be doing better war work. Senator MALONEY. And ready to move into it. Mr. STIEFF. Yes; there has been a gap there, that we have been just cut off. I am not going to touch on all these other subjects and I am not going to touch on all these phases, because these gentlemen have covered most everything I know of. Eventually I hope we will be working 100 percent on war work, and even if we work 100 percent on war work, there will be times when certain departments are not working, and we can have something else for those men to do while we are waiting for the material to come in. |