May I turn now to that portion of my statement concerned with whether the recommendations can be regarded as merely permitting steelworkers to catch up with workers in other industries.

Mr. Feinsinger has so declared. The President of the United States said, among other things, in his radio address to the Nation on the night of April 8:

In the steel case the Wage Board recommended a general wage increase averaging 13 cents an hour in 1952.

Obviously, this sets no new pattern and breaks no ceiling. It simply permits the steelworkers to catch up to what workers in other industries have already received.

We do not believe that the facts support this declaration. What are the facts?

I mentioned a few minutes ago that steelworkers received an increase of 16 cents per hour on December 1, 1950. It was referred to in Dr. Taylor's report, which I also mentioned, as the largest increase occurring in that year.

That increase in steel compared favorably with those which followed, including increases to employees in other industries, where escalation clauses resulted in increases flowing from the inflation.

Government officials now, however, are declaring that the increase recommended by the Board in steel is justified because of these increases in other industries following steel's last round.

There is, in our opinion, no basis for this catch-up theory. To the contrary, the facts prove, we believe, that a more appropriate characterization is "leap ahead."

The charts which I will now present show the past relationship between wages in steel and several of the Nation's principal industries. The industry groups shown are those which Mr. Feinsinger selected for comparison with his Board's recommendations for the steel industry.

Mr. Feinsinger, however, in certain of the industries referred only to a wage-rate increase in one company; and, in others, the industry. The steel case is an industry case.

The industry groupings are those established by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The earnings data which the charts reflect are compiled monthly by the Bureau on a uniform, comprehensive basis.

The charts will reflect changes in both straight-time hourly earnings and average hourly earnings.

I will, of course, indicate which is which as the charts are presented. Straight-time hourly earnings, as compiled by the Bureau, include basic hourly rates, incentive earnings, and shift differential or premium payments. Average hourly earnings include the same components plus premium pay for overtime and for holidays worked.

The Bureau furnishes a series of adjustment factors by which straight-time hourly earnings are calculated from average hourly earnings. These adjustment factors have been used in determining the straight-time hourly earnings which will be shown.

These adjustment factors were published in 1942 and 1950 in copies of the Bureau's Monthly Labor Review. The factors consist of a series of percentages by which average hourly earnings may be adjusted to produce straight-time hourly earnings, depending on the average number of hours worked per week.

The Bureau has been careful to point out the limitations in the use of these adjustment factors. These limitations are minimized for the purpose at hand, which is to show changes in straight-time hourly earnings as between various industries over a period of time.

May I emphasize that each chart of average hourly earnings and straight-time earnings which follows is on a uniform basis as between the industries shown and reflects official Government figures.

Here, in chart 1, is shown the picture as painted by Mr. Feinsinger of wage increases granted by selected companies in industries since the date of the last steel wage increase. None is shown for steel. Naturally this is so since he took a starting point 1 minute after the December 1, 1950, steel increase to begin the comparison.

The figures for companies in the auto and farm-machinery industries do not include the latest 3-cent cost of living increase March 1, 1952, for those companies. However, the March cost of living index, if continued into the coming months, would eliminate 2 cents of this 3 cents increase.

Mr. Feinsinger's wage increase figures besides starting with an unfair pin point date-December 2, 1950-represent the changes in base rates only for selected companies within each industry. In the next chart are shown the increases in average hourly earnings in the same industries using Bureau of Labor Statistics comprehensive .data.

So that there will be no misunderstanding of my reasons for introducing average hourly earnings into this discussion, I want to describe briefly those reasons.

Such earnings are a far more reliable measure of the relative status of employees in various industries from the standpoint of wages than are the wage rate increase statistics upon which Mr. Feinsinger relied. It should be noted in passing that the Presidential Steel Fact-Finding Board in 1949 selected average hourly earnings as the best available method for determining whether or not the workers in one industry were suffering wage-rate and income inequities relative to workers in other industries.

There can be, and almost always is, a difference of opinion with respect to the proper series of earnings data to use in inter-industry comparisons of wages. I use both straight-time earnings and average hourly earnings. The conclusions are the same on either basis.

The significance of straight-time earnings in the questions here under consideration is that this concept is the one employed by the Board in its general wage regulations 6 and 8.

The significance of average hourly earnings is that they are a better reflection of the relative wage positions of various groups of employees. There is a tendency, in comparing average hourly earnings, to overemphasize the effects of differences in the length of the workweek as between industries. The average workweek in the automobile industry during World War II was 43.4 hours. That was six-tenths of an hour greater than the workweek of 42.8 hours in steel. Since the war, the steelworkers' workweek has averaged 39.2 hours, exceeding that of the auto workers by about one-tenth of an hour.

In the period 1950 to 1951 the auto workers' workweek declined from 41.2 hours to 39.5 hours and the workweek of the steelworkers increased from 39.9 hours to 40.9 hours.

Wage rates and straight-time earnings are, in an important sense, somewhat unrealistic. Very few employees ever receive pay checks which, divided by their hours of work, yield a wage scale rate. Earnings of steelworkers are complicated results of many components

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including hourly wage rates, incentive payments, shift differentials, out-of-line differentials, reporting pay, overtime premium, holiday premium, and others.

The important determinant of relative wage position as between the steelworker and the auto worker or any other worker is the full amount of his pay. It is all his, not just a part of it. The cashier in the A. & P., when she takes the steelworkers' money, does not know, I am sure, whether she has received in payment overtime dollars or straight-time dollars. The distinction is of no significance to her. To attempt to distinguish is, in this sense, artificial.

In the comparison on chart 2A we have moved Mr. Feinsinger's starting point back 1 minute, namely, to include the entire month of December 1950, so as to include the last steel increase. It can be seen that the increases for steelworkers compare very favorably with any of the other industries frequently mentioned by Mr. Feinsinger and others. However, the increase shown for steel does not include the increases recommended now by the Wage Stabilization Board.

You may ask why, if I said a moment ago steel got 16 cents as of December 1, that second column says 21. That is because in average hourly earnings the Bureau of Labor Statistics adds to the basic wage rate, the shift differentials, the 4 cents per hour the workers get on the afternoon shift and the 6 per hour they get on the night shift, incentive earnings, overtime and holiday premium. A substantial portion of the steelworkers are incentive plans which give them increased earnings above their basic hourly rates.

Senator FREAR. I suppose you do not want to ask any questions here? Senator FULBRIGHT. You may.

Senator FREAR. Are the other bars the same as the second bar? Mr. STEPHENS. Yes, these are the figures used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the comparison is completely accurate.

Senator FREAR. Are there any of those other industries that have Saturday and Sunday work in the same proportion as steel?

Mr. STEPHENS. I would say that there are not. There are no industries there so far as I can see or know about, in which companies in the industry are of necessity, because the nature of their business, engaged in continuous operation 365 days in the year. The question was asked earlier-I think that the book which I introduced here shows that about 12 percent of the steelworkers work on Saturday and I think 8 percent on Sunday. There may be some overtime work performed in those other industries.

Senator FREAR. It would be of no significant comparison?

Mr. STEPHENS. I show that the difference in hours is not significant. Senator CAPEHART. Why did Mr. Feinsinger go back to December 1? Why did he not go back to the beginning of the Korean war or the beginning of the Defense Production Act, or the Control Act?

Mr. STEPHENS. If I may say so, in the second paragraph, on page 2, of my statement, I said, "I will be happy to answer questions if I can dealing with any matters concerning which I have direct and factual knowledge."

I have no idea why Mr. Feinsinger did not, so I cannot answer the question.

Senator CAPEHART. Just what day in December 1950 did the steel industry get the 16-cent increase?

Mr. STEPHENS. As a matter of fact, this is the story. The contracts in steel permitted wage reopening in 1950 as of November 1. Under normal circumstances a wage increase, if negotiated, would have become effective January 1, 1951.

Mr. Philip Murray, however, got after me reasonably early in the year. He said that the freeze was going to be coming along later in the year and the cost of living started rising slightly and the auto workers had gotten a little more on their escalation provisions and the net of all that was that we in the steel companies, trying to do the fair thing, opened bargaining earlier than required to under the agreements. We came to an understanding and instead of waiting for another month, which we could have done before putting the increase into effect, we put it into effect as of December 1.

Senator CAPEHART. When did the contract in 1950 expire?

Mr. STEPHENS. It did not expire, sir. There was a wage-reopening clause in it which permitted them to reopen on November 1. The contract which expired as of December 31, 1951, was that contract.

Senator CAPEHART. Normally it was the contract that expired on December 31, each year?

Mr. STEPHENS. No, sir; the contract which terminated or expired December 31, 1951, was actually a contract made April 22, 1947. It had been reopened from time to time.

Senator CAPEHART. But you did begin paying their additional 16 cents an hour in wages on December 1, 1950?

Mr. STEPHENS. Yes, sir.

Senator CAPEHART. You actually began to pay it?

Mr. STEPHENS. Yes, sir.

Senator CAPEHART. Is it true of your company and all the others? Mr. STEPHENS. It is true, I am sure, of all the major companies. Senator CAPEHART. This chart that Mr. Feinsinger used before this committee is the same one that you have on the left, or your chart No. 1. He starts with December 1, 1950, and shows steel nothing. You say you did start paying this 16 cents?

Mr. STEPHENS. Yes, sir; the employees working December 1 started to receive the increase, which averaged 16 cents on hour.

Senator CAPEHART. But he shows the steel industry in his chart. which he presented to this committee as having no increase. Senator FREAR. He used the word "since."

Senator BRICKER. It is "since December 1."

Mr. STEPHENS. It is a difference of a minute, I take it, sir, between ours and his.

Senator BRICKER. You have no idea why he picked "since" December 1?

It looks as though he deliberately wanted to misrepresent it to this committee and misrepresent it to the Nation. I can come to no other conclusion.

Is that his chart up there?

Mr. STEPHENS. No, sir; these are all our charts.

Senator BRICKER. Did he use the word “since”?

Mr. STEPHENS. This is out chart indicating what we understand the wage picture was as presented by Chairman Feinsinger.

Senator BRICKER. I think that is the chart he presented to this committee here some few days ago.