a cash allowance for uniforms. Other items of equipment such as helmets, rubber coats and boots, and badges were frequently furnished. Practically all fire departments gave vacations with pay; less than a half of 1 percent of all employees in the 363 cities received no vacation. Although the vacation periods varied in length from 7 to 33 days, 62 percent of the employees received approximately 2 weeks. Cities in the East North Central and the South Atlantic regions gave the longest vacations. Members of the Chicago and Detroit fire departments, who constituted 31 percent of all employees in the East North Central region, received 20 days. Similarly, the department in Washington, D. C., with 15 percent of the employees in the South Atlantic region, gave 26-day vacations. Most members of the New York City fire department had vacations of 21 days. In only the East South Central region were the vacation periods appreciably shorter than 2 weeks; 42 percent of the total employees in this region received 10 days.

Promotion policies in fire departments are exemplified by the systems of promoting privates. In 263 of the 363 cities it was the general policy to promote privates automatically from one grade to another after a specified period of service, usually a year. Fortysix cities provided for promotion by civil-service examination, and 26 made promotions on the recommendation of superior officers. Of the 28 cities which reported that they did not classify privates in more than one grade, some indicated that they gave salary increases within that grade.

HOURLY EARNINGS IN THE LUMBER AND TIMBER PRODUCTS INDUSTRY 1

Summary

IN THE winter of 1939-40 workers in the lumber and timber products industry earned an average of 50.1 cents per hour. As a result of the 30-cent minimum wage, which became effective on October 24, 1939, nearly one-third of all workers averaged from 30.0 to 32.5 cents. Three percent earned less than 30.0 cents, and the remainder were widely scattered among various higher-earnings classes. Only about 1 worker out of 10 received as much as 77.5 cents per hour.

Average hourly earnings in the individual branches of the industry varied from 36.6 cents in cooperage stock production to 94.8 cents in the manufacture of shingles. These two branches, however, employed only a small proportion of the workers in the industry. Logging and sawmilling, which together employed about half the workers surveyed, provided average hourly earnings of 59.7 and 47.5 cents per hour, respectively.

In the West, where timber is large and densely concentrated, the industry differs markedly from the northern and southern industry, and pays much higher wages. Western workers as a whole averaged 72.7 cents an hour, and one worker out of four earned 82.5 cents or more. Workers in the Douglas Fir region of the West averaged 77.3 cents, those in the Western Pine region averaged 68.9 cents, and those in the Redwood region averaged 63.7 cents.

Workers in the North earned an average of 46.4 cents an hour before adjustment to the 30-cent minimum wage (which affected about 1 worker out of 10). Only about 4.4 percent of the northern workers earned as much as 82.5 cents. Wages were highest in the Middle Atlantic States, where they averaged 54.6 cents, and lowest in New England (40.3 cents). Southern workers averaged 34.6 cents an hour, even after the effective date of the 30-cent minimum wage. Over two-thirds of all southern workers received less than 32.5 cents, and about half earned exactly 30.0 cents. Variations within the South were not marked, although workers in the border States had slightly higher earnings than those in the "deep South."

Earnings of workers engaged in the production of veneer, plywood, and veneer baskets were tabulated separately from those for the larger industry. Veneer workers received 37.3 cents an hour, on the average, while plywood workers earned 49.0 cents and veneer basket workers 34.2 cents.

1 Prepared by Harry Ober of the Bureau's Division of Wage and Hour Statistics. The study was directed by Victor 8. Baril, assisted by Abner Lakenan. A more detailed report, including information on weekly hours and earnings and separate figures for certain occupations, will be issued by the Bureau in the near future.

The study of the lumber and timber products industry undertaken in the fall and winter of 1939-40 is the first wage study in the industry for nearly a decade, and the most thoroughgoing study that has been made.2

Description of the Industry

The scope of the industry covered by the Bureau's survey is accurately indicated by the definition adopted in the code of fair competition under the NRA, which included the production of "logs, poles, and piling; sawn lumber and products of planing mills operated in conjunction with sawmills; shingles; woodwork (millwork), including products of planing mills operated in conjunction with retail lumber yards; hardwood flooring; veneers; plywood; kiln-dried hardwood dimensions; lath; sawed boxes, shooks, and crates; plywood, veneer, and wire-bound packages and containers." As thus defined, the industry involves considerably more than the mere conversion of timber into lumber and other basic products. A narrower definition than the above, however, would be unrealistic, in view of the marked tendency of recent years for sawmills to perform certain wood-reworking processes, such as the manufacture of millwork, flooring, and dimension stock. The manufacture of finished furniture is not included in this industry.3

The various products embraced in the industry are classified by the Census of Manufactures in a number of industry categories, of which the following are most important: (1) Lumber and timber products not elsewhere classified; (2) planing-mill products and other wooden products not elsewhere classified; and (3) wooden boxes, except cigar boxes. These three broad census industries included over 12,000 establishments in 1939, employed an average of 391,000 wage earners, and paid wages amounting to $334,000,000. The value of the products manufactured in these industries amounted to $1,235,000,000, and the value added by manufacture totaled $671,000,000. The size of the industry has declined irregularly since the early years of the century.

In part, the decline of the industry has resulted from a drastic curtailment of building and construction. In part, however, it reflects the inroads of products competing with lumber. Substantial economies in the use of lumber have also been realized through surface coating and other treatment of wood, as well as through the increased use of plywood. The slump in lumber production has resulted in less

The last of the previous studies by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was summarized in its Bulletin No. 586: Wages and Hours in the Lumber Industry in the United States: 1932. This study was limited to sawmill workers and certain workers in logging camps.

A study of wages and hours in the furniture industry was undertaken in the spring of 1941. The results of this study will appear in an early issue of the Monthly Labor Review.

employment in the transportation industries which carry lumber from the western and southern producing centers to the eastern markets, as well as a decline in the employment furnished by the lumber industry itself.

To some extent lumber and timber products are manufactured in every State of the Union; but a large part of the industry-particularly the operation of logging camps and sawmills-is located in those regions where most of the remaining saw-timber stand is concentrated. In 1939, 48 percent of the total lumber production in the United States was cut in the West, chiefly in the coastal States, where the most luxuriant softwood timber stand is to be found; 42 percent was cut in the South, where a substantial amount of softwood and most of the remaining hardwood timber grows; and only 10 percent was cut in the North, east of the Rocky Mountains. From the nature of the industry the basic processes are carried on largely in sparsely populated areas or small towns.

The transportation of heavy lumber products from sawmills to distant finishing mills is expensive. In consequence, much of the reworking and finishing of lumber products is carried on near the sawmills, and integration in the industry is relatively extensive. Some wood-reworking processes, however, are carried on largely in States which are unimportant from the point of view of lumber production. Much of the custom millwork, for example, is manufactured in the Middle West, particularly in Iowa and Wisconsin.

Small and medium-size concerns play an important part in the industry. In 1935, among manufacturing industries employing 100,000 wage earners or more, only one showed less concentration of employment in the plants of the largest companies than did "Lumber and timber products not elsewhere classified"; among industries employing 25,000 to 100,000 workers, none showed less concentration than planing-mill products. However, the largest plants employ a substantial proportion of the workers. In 1937 less than 10 percent of the establishments employed over 100 workers, but such establishments accounted for over half of the total employment in the industry. On the other extreme, one-fourth of the establishments employed 1 to 5 workers and they accounted for only 2.2 percent of the total employment.

The Labor Force

The wage question is an important one in the lumber and timber products industry, since a substantial part of the cost of production consists of payments to the workers. In 1939 wages in the three

'See National Resources Committee, The Structure of the American Economy, Part I, Basic Characteristics, pp. 240-243.

census industries combined constituted 27 percent of the total value of the product, and half of the value added by manufacture.

Largely as a result of the decline in production, the employment in the industry has dropped substantially over a period of years. In 1939, when the Bureau's index of employment in durable-goods manufactures was 90.2 percent of the 1923-25 average, the index of employment in sawmills stood at 60.5 percent and that in millwork at 59.4 percent.

The lumber and timber products industry is highly seasonal, although its pattern of operations from month to month varies from area to area and by branch of the industry. Conditions of labor and the character of the labor force also show much variation. In logging camps, especially in the West, operations are carried on close to the available timber stand and away from centers of population; many of the workers have to live in camps and be on the move when the camp moves. Sawmill labor, too, is dependent to a large extent on the timber stand, and exhaustion of this stand in the area of the sawmill means movement to another area. In the South and in other sections much of the logging and sawing is carried on by farmers as a part-time activity supplementary to farming. As the production processes become further removed from the basic processes of logging, conditions of labor approximate more closely those of factory labor in general.

A large part of the labor in the industry consists of men. Women are employed in substantial proportions, however, in the production of veneer, plywood, veneer baskets, and wooden boxes. About half of the workers in the South are Negroes. In the West some Japanese, Chinese, and Mexicans are employed, chiefly as maintenance labor. About one-fourth of the workers in the lumber and timber products industry belong to unions. In the North unionization has involved a considerably smaller proportion of the workers than in the West, while in the South only a negligible proportion of the workers are organized. At present, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (A. F. of L.) and the International Woodworkers of America (C. I. O.) are the principal unions in the industry. The Northwestern Council of Lumber and Sawmill Workers, established by the Brotherhood of Carpenters, reported a membership of 36,000 in January 1941. Some lumber workers in other parts of the country have also been organized by the Brotherhood, but their number is not known. The International Woodworkers of America had a membership of 59,000 in 1940, as indicated by its voting strength at the convention of that year.