Mr. DREW. What do you mean by a fabricating shop; what do they do to the material in the fabricating shop?

Mr. POST. The material, as it comes from the mill, is a plain, structural shape; it goes to the shop and has a lot of holes put through it and then the parts are assembled the plates and channels and anchors-and they are made into a finished beam such as you see going into buildings.

Mr. DREW. Do all these holes have to be made and all the other work done according to particular specifications?

Mr. POST. Yes, sir; it has to be done in accordance with the specifications, and very accurately done.

Mr. DREW. Could you buy that fabricating material in the open market to comply with any contract you might have?

Mr. PosT. That would be impossible. Every column in that building has to have a certain number of specified inches and has to have certain sizes and lengths and has to have certain connections, and all other materials going into the building. Such a thing as buying them from stock would be an absurdity.

So the next proposition we would be up against, even if we could secure the material, which I know we can not, would be to find a bridge shop to fabricate the material for us, and as the percentage of private work, such as railroad work and building work for private owners, so far exceeds the amount of structural work being furnished and built for the United States Government, no shop would consider for one moment putting their shop on an eight-hour basis; they could not afford to do it and compete with other work.

Mr. DREW. Then do I understand you to say that if you took a Government contract and attempted to turn about and subcontract for fabricating steel with which to complete your job you would find it utterly impossible to find anyone who would furnish you the same? Mr. Post. I do not believe it could be done.

Mr. PAYSON. Let me ask you this question: Suppose, now, leaving the original contractor out of view altogether and assuming that the Government would attempt to do this work itself without your intervention, would not the Government find precisely the same difficulty in dealing with these manufacturers of the material down below that you find, and hence it would be impossible for the Government, in doing its own work, to get this material?

Mr. POST. The only way the Government could get the material would be to manufacture it itself.

Mr. PAYSON. That is right; that is what I wanted to bring out. Mr. DREW. Let us press that point further. What you have said would apply to private work?

Mr. POST. Yes, sir.

Mr. DREW. You would add to these facts the further fact that the Government always has tests and certain specifications, more than the ordinary contract contains? What effect would they have?

Mr. POST. That would make it all the more difficult to purchase material. In purchasing materials, we find that the rolling mills are asking from $2 to $5 a ton more for the same materials manufactured under the Government specification than the price they ask under the so-called manufacturers' standard.

Mr. NICHOLLS. What is the cause of that, would you say?
Mr. POST. The cause of it?

Mr. NICHOLLS. Yes.

Mr. PosT. It means putting through a special order of the small amount of material, manufacturing it specially, and the requirements are so rigid that they claim that they can not manufacture it at the same cost, or at least they do not want to be bothered with it. Mr. NICHOLLS. That is construction iron?

Mr. POST. Yes; and construction steel.

Mr. DREW. We will go back to our assumption that you get the material delivered on the ground. What can you say as to the effect it would have if a law were passed absolutely prohibiting the employment of anybody on the building more than eight hours in any one working day?

Mr. POST. It would greatly hamper the operation of the building and very materially increase the cost, for the reason that as the building progresses, for instance, the steel work comes to the building. The dimension work may have progressed to a point where it is very essential to have that steel, but if we were restricted to an eight-hour day, we could not make up time which may have been lost in some previous stage of the work.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you speaking now of a Government building? Mr. POST. Of any building on the eight-hour basis.

Mr. DREW. I asked him what effect it would have if, after the steel was delivered, they were not allowed to work more than eight hours a day.

The CHAIRMAN. The fact is that on Government buildings that is the law now.

Mr. DREW. Yes; that is true.

Mr. PoST. Do they not work overtime on Government buildings? The CHAIRMAN. I can not tell you what is done. I know what the law is, and in California there have been some convictions for violation of it.

Mr. POST. I have not worked on a Government building of any size since the appraiser's store, which was three years ago, but I am sure there we worked overtime, paying the men time and a half for overtime work.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you remember whether that was before or since August, 1892?

Mr. POST. It was about that time-no, it was 1896 we put up that building.

The CHAIRMAN. Where was that.

Mr. POST. In New York City, a big building with many thousands of tons of steel.

The CHAIRMAN. For the United States Government?

Mr. PosT. For the United States Government.

The CHAIRMAN. On Government land?

Mr. Posт. Yes, sir.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Do you know whether any special permission was obtained for that?

Mr. POST. I could not say, sir.

Mr. DREW. Does a general eight-hour work day obtain in the building trades in the great cities?

Mr. POST. Our men work eight hours a day, and we pay them for overtime at the rate of time and a half.

Mr. DREW. The eight-hour day simply determines the wage?

Mr. POST. That determines the wage.

Mr. DREW. The wages are paid on the basis of an eight-hour day? Mr. POST. On the basis of an eight-hour day, and in periods of prosperity such as we have just passed through, and when all men are busy, so many people are pushing their work and paying overtime that we have actually been compelled, in order to get the right kind of mechanics and to get our work ready, to resort to an overtime basis where we did not need to do so to complete the work on time.

Mr. DREW. You mean the men insisted on working overtime? Mr. POST. We could not get them unless we paid overtime wages. Mr. DREW. In other words, the mechanics themselves in the building trades in your work, according to your personal experience, desire the overtime jobs?

Mr. POST. They certainly do.

Mr. DREW. And will they not leave a job where no overtime is being made and go to a job where the contractor is working overtime?

Mr. PosT. Yes, sir.

Mr. DREW. And if you were limited to an eight-hour day on a Government contract in a busy season, would you find it difficult to obtain men to work on that job?

Mr. POST. I think if we had been engaged on a Government contract last summer, we would have found it almost impossible to get the men. Men who on the average would get $24 a week were getting $50 and $60 a week.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Are these men union?

Mr. Post. Some union and some nonunion.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Do the unions permit and approve of that kind of work?

Mr. POST. Yes; they insist on it.

Mr. DAVENPORT. There seems to be a difference between the practice of the unions and the representatives of the unions.

Mr. DREW. Are you familiar with union agreements in New York City, Mr. Post?

Mr. POST. Yes, I am; up to about two years ago we were working on an agreement with the union.

Mr. DREW. Have you ever seen a union contract that did not make special agreements for overtime work?

Mr. Posт. No; I have not.

Mr. DREW. Have you ever worked a union gang that did not insist on it?

Mr. PosT. No; they always insist on it.

Mr. NICHOLLS. Let me ask one question: I am in doubt as to your last answer. Do you mean to say they insist upon working overtime, or insist upon getting the time and a half when they are required to work?

Mr. POST. They insist upon getting time and a half-double time in some trades.

Mr. NICHOLLS. But do they insist on doing overtime?

Mr. POST. No; but they leave buildings sometimes, where there is a good opportunity to get overtime work somewhere else.

Mr. DAVENPORT. But no union that you know of is so solicitous for the health of its men that it forbids them working overtime? Mr. POST. No; I can not imagine such a thing.

Mr. DAVENPORT. All those contracts provide that they may?

Mr. POST. Yes; that they may; and they let them work twenty hours a day if they want to.

Mr. DAVENPORT. With whom are these contracts made?

Mr. POST. With private parties, mostly.

Mr. DAVENPORT. With the officers of the union?

Mr. POST. In New York City, about the only trade in which there is no agreement with the union is the Housesmith's Union, which we employ.

Mr. DAVENPORT. You make your agreement with the officers of the union?

Mr. POST. Yes; we make our agreements with the officers of the union?

Mr. NICHOLLS. What, in your opinion, is the reason for the unions inserting in their contracts the requirement that if overtime is worked it must be paid for at a higher rate than the work done in the regular hours?

Mr. PosT. For the simple reason that they can get it.

Mr. NICHOLLS. Are you sure that it was not for the purpose of placing a penalty upon the employer for requiring them to work more than eight hours?

Mr. PosT. No; they have never so stated, and I have attended several conferences in arranging agreements with the unions. Mr. NICHOLLS. Would you consider it a fair propositionMr. DREW. I submit that he ought to be allowed to answer it. Mr. NICHOLLS. I thought he had finished his answer. Have you completed your answer?

Mr. POST. Yes; I had finished.

The CHAIRMAN. We are not perfectly clear about the witness' understanding as to why that clause is put in.

Mr. DREW. From your experience in promoting union agreements and employing union men, is the reason for the overtime agreement to discourage from employing men overtime?

Mr. PosT. No; I do not think so; they simply know they can get it and they will insist on it.

Mr. DREW. They will leave a job where they can not get it and go to a job where they can get it?

Mr. Posт. Yes.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Is the work done during the overtime less efficient than the work done during the first eight hours?

Mr. PosT. No; I think our costs, even paying overtime, are less than they are when paying the straight time, for the reason that any piece of work that goes along to that conclusion you can do much more economically; and, furthermore, by paying the overtime we are enabled to select our men with a greater degree of care than we could otherwise, because the very fact that we are paying overtime and that the wages are higher draws a better class of men to that work.

Mr. DAVENPORT. During the first eight hours is the work of the men any better than it is during the overtime?

Mr. POST. That I could not tell you; we do not keep our costs that way.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Would it be less efficient than in the other hours?

Mr. PosT. Each week our time is turned in, and also the tonnage of material set, so we know what we have done by the week, and we know that a man working on a ten or a twelve hour basis does better work than the man on an eight-hour basis, because he is trying hard to keep on the job.

Mr. NICHOLLS. In your opinion, are the men themselves more anxious to work the overtime than they are to work the regular time. Mr. POST. I am sure they are.

Mr. NICHOLLS. Can you get them to work that overtime for the same pay as you could get them to work the regular time? Mr. PosT. I have not tried it.

Mr. NICHOLLS. As a matter of opinion, do you think you could? Mr. PosT. I do not think I could now, because we have been paying them the time and a half, and even since we have been working on the open-shop basis we still continue to pay them the same rate. Mr. NICHOLLS. Then they value the overtime at a higher rate than the regular time?

Mr. POST. Oh, yes.

Mr. DREW. I was going to ask something about the number of rivets that an iron worker could drive in a day. Somebody said 1,400 a day, and I was going to ask Mr. Post what number he got under normal conditions.

Mr. POST. I do not think, Mr. Drew, the comparison is fair, for the reason that the rivets on structural work and ship work are entirely different. In one place a man has to build a scaffold and then build another scaffold and go somewhere else. I will say that the efficiency of the men under the open-shop condition has been higher, and where we never could, under any circumstances, get over 200 rivets a day, it would be 300 and 350 now.

Mr. NICHOLLS. Do you consider that this is a question of the open shop or the closed shop?

Mr. DREW. No; it is not pertinent, I conceive that.

Mr. PAYSON. Mr. Chairman, I do not by any silence acquiesce in that proposition, because it has been openly announced by the members of organized labor that it had two objects-one to secure the universal eight-hour day in every industrial establishment in the Union, and, secondly, the closed shop, practically; that is to say, it was stated time and time again by Mr. Gompers and Mr. O'Connell.

Mr. NICHOLLS. But is there anything in the bill that would justify the claim that this bill requires any more than the limitation of the work?

Mr. PAYSON. No; except the effort which will be immediately made to have this extended to all branches. I have followed this thing from the beginning, both before this committee and before the Senate committee, and I believe I have a better understanding of it than you do, for you are a tyro in this thing yet. I believe that it is an unwarranted attempt to do indirectly what Congress would never dare to do directly.

Mr. NICHOLLS. In what way would you infer that it has anything whatever to do with the closed-shop question?

Mr. DREW. Except that you pinned Mr. Mull down to the point that they had no union men in the Cramp yards and made it a point on the record.

Mr. NICHOLLS. Some one else asked him about that, and I asked him a question to qualify it, with the idea of qualifying the statement.