should say that I am secretary also of the Interstate Association, but I am connected with it here. Mr. EMERY. You represent the Interstate Association here? Mr. HALL. Yes, sir; I am secretary of the local association here. Mr. EMERY. What is the membership of the Interstate Association, Mr. Hall? Mr. HALL. About 415 or 420. Mr. EMERY. And what is their line of business? Mr. HALL. They are builders and material men, finishers of material for buildings, and so forth. Mr. EMERY. How many members have you in the District of Columbia? Mr. HALL. The Employers' Association comprises 201 members. Mr. EMERY. Are your members large employers of labor? Mr. HALL. They are. Mr. EMERY. Do they do a large or small amount of work for the Gevernment? Mr. HALL. Our association takes in practically all of the contractors, the contracting builders, and subcontractors, that contract for Government work in the District of Columbia. There might be one or two exceptions, possibly. Mr. EMERY. You then represent substantially all the contractors for municipal and Government work in the District of Columbia? Mr. HALL. Yes, sir. Mr. EMERY. And your membership consequently would be very much affected by the enactment of House bill 15651? Mr. HALL. It would. Mr. EMERY. Will you make a statement to the committee as to the views of your membership with respect to this bill? Mr. HALL. This statement that I would make is drawn from individual talks. As secretary of the association I have had very many of our members inquire of me the meaning of this bill, and what it was, etc., and after it has been explained and they have read it, they have, without any exception that I can bring to my mind now, felt and made the statement that they felt as if they could not afford to consider Government contracts if such a law went into effect. The reasons for that of course would vary. Mr. EMERY. Are your members perfectly clear as to how far this bill goes in its application to them? Mr. HALL. I think they are. I have studied the matter' somewhat myself, and have understood it, I think. quite well, and explained it to them, and, of course, it has been of interest to them and they have had to study it, because being contractors for the Government it would touch them in their work; and there has been a great deal of interest displayed by the members of the association along that line, subcontractors and general contractors and supply men. Mr. EMERY. Are your members as constractors also seriously affected by its provisions respecting subcontracts? Mr. HALL. They certainly would be, for this reason: As you well know, there is but very little manufactured stuff in the District of Columbia, and the general contractors go outside of the District of Columbia for many subcontracts, for material, or anything of that sort, anything that is made special. There is but very little manufacturing done, of course, in the District of Columbia. That especially would affect them. The CHAIRMAN. How would that affect it, whether it was manufactured in the District of Columbia or outside? Mr. EMERY. What he is referring to is that as subcontractors they contract for many things that they install in the fulfillment of the Government contracts. The CHAIRMAN. How would that affect it whether it was manufactured in the District or outside? Mr. EMERY. Of course as contractors for the District of Columbia, in which a large part of their work comes, they are directly affected in a large portion of their contracts in the District. Mr. EMERY. Can you state to the committee approximately the number of men employed by your members in the District? Mr. HALL. Of course some of our contractors employ as high as 400 or 500 men. Others perhaps employ only 15 or 20. Mr. EMERY. Would it be correct to say that they represent in the building trades the largest employment in the District? Mr. HALL. Yes, indeed. Mr. EMERY. In passing I wanted to ask, Mr. Hall, if you come in personal contact yourself, as secretary of this association, with a persona large amount of labor individually? Mr. HALL. Yes, sir; I do. We have an employment bureau connected with the association, and practically I furnish the mechanics for our contractors and subcontractors. Mr. EMERY. And practically all the labor employed by your members is employed through you? Mr. HALL. Yes, sir. Mr. EMERY. So that you come in personal contact with the labor itself? Mr. HALL. I do. Mr. EMERY. In the course of a year, then, you come in contact with a good many thousands of men individually, do you? Mr. HALL. A good many thousands; yes, sir. Mr. EMERY. With respect to their affiliation with organized labor,. do they represent both union and nonunion men, or one class exclusively? Mr. HALL. Certainly, our employers' association has subcontractors and contractors employing both union and nonunion men, as the case may be, and what I am speaking of applies only to labor in general, or to mechanics. Mr. EMERY. Can you state to the committee from your personal contact with both union and nonunion laborers in the large numbers to which you have referred, whether you find a desire on the part of the men to secure opportunities to take overtime work? Mr. HALL. I most certainly do. Mr. EMERY. Is that marked? Mr. HALL. It is marked, very marked. Mr. EMERY. Can you give the committee some reason for making such a statement? Mr. HALL. I can give a concrete illustration that perhaps would be more to the point than merely a say so. Last summer a certain contractor in this city, a large contractor, was under penalty to finish a building, the Academy of Music, at a given time, and it was necessary for him to have a lot of extra work. He was working ten, twelve, or fourteen hours week day work, and Sundays. In my capacity as secretary of the employment bureau I would give those mechanics cards to go on certain work, and they would go where there was no extra or over time and work there for their eight hours, and then flock to get this extra time over at the other building. More than that, it was very difficult for me on my part to keep the men, in many instances. Now, I remember particularly when we were plastering there, when that plastering work was being done, I would send plasterers to that work that was being accomplished within eight hours that is, in that particular time and of their own accord they would go over and seek work on this other building, so that we brought the matter up in our association, because it was drawing laborers-that is, mechanics-away from other members of the association, and they could not get the mechanics they wanted on their work because they were so anxious for the overtime. That was on the Academy of Music. One hundred and twenty men were employed on that particular building. A man there would go and work extra hours in the week, and work Sundays; men would go from the other jobs and work there three or four hours overtime. Mr. EMERY. Did you refer to the plasterers as being especially anxious for the overtime? Mr. HALL. I spoke of that because at that time there was considerable plastering work going on in the city, and in many instances it was difficult to get them. Of course it was just that time of the year when we were particularly anxious to get plastering work done for the fall and winter, before the winter weather would come on, and when every contractor who was far enough along with his work of course was anxious to get his plastering done; and these men would not only ask, but sometimes beseech me, to put them on the Academy of Music work to get the extra time. I finally had to make an arrangement, after the contractors had complained to me about the scarcity, almost, in the work, to give cards, and have nobody go on the Academy work unless he had a card from me saying that he was not employed or had gone directly on that work. I made a particular system for that work. Mr. EMERY. Do you know whether these plasterers were union men? Mr. HALL. They were; not only from the District but from outside of the District. Mr. EMERY. Did this apply to both union and nonunion men? Mr. EMERY. Can you say that union plasterers in this case sought the work, and it was not necessary to secure on the part of the employer permission from the union for them to work? Mr. HALL. I did not catch that question. Will you please repeat it? Mr. EMERY. You testified that there was an equal desire on the part of union and nonunion plasterers to go on this extra work. I wanted to understand whether or not you knew that the individual union men sought this work, or whether or not it was necessary for the employer desiring to employ them on overtime work to secure permission from the union so to do? Mr. HALL. It was the individuals. Mr. EMERY. I asked that question particularly, Mr. Chairman, in view of the testimony given the other day that the men were not permitted to work overtime. Do you find, Mr. Hall, that this desire to secure overtime opportunity is constant? Mr. HALL. Yes, sir; I think the feeling of the men is this: That while they are in favor of an eight-hour law as such; that is, that eight hours shall be the regular day's work Mr. EMERY. The standard for the day's work? Mr. HALL (continuing). The standard, perhaps, if that is the term you use, in every instance every man feels that he would like to have the opportunity, as much as a man in any other business would have, of increasing his income by working overtime when he can. I do not know of an exception to that, with hundreds of men I have talked with on the subject. They will express that themselves, many times. Men are interested in this overtime. It would perhaps surprise the committee to know the number of individuals who have talked about this bill to me. Mr. EMERY. That is, the workingmen? Mr. HALL. Yes, mechanics. A man illustrated it to me in this He said: "Would it be right for a lawyer or any other man to have a law passed that he could not work in his office more than eight hours, and that he must then stop his income at a certain point?" The CHAIRMAN. There has been no testimony and there have been no statements which I have heard on the matter as to whether or not men do at any time work on two jobs, that is, work the regular hours on one and other hours on another. Now, first, if a mechanic works eight or nine hours, as the case may be, on one job, and then goes to another job to work additional hours, is that time counted as overtime which he puts in on the second job? Mr. HALL. It was in this particular instance, I know, for this reason, that they would go from one job where they would work during the week to another where they would work Sundays; it would be a special hurry-up job. The CHAIRMAN. All Sunday work is overtime? Mr. HALL. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. What I wanted to get at is whether or not it was true that the day's work, whatever the number of hours, comes as a rule between two specific times. Mr. HALL. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. And work done outside of those times, those hours, whether on the same job or another job, is overtime work; is that true? Mr. HALL. I think that would be true, but I could not answer that question directly. When I referred to this particular job, I referred more to the Sunday time, and to the desire of the men to get onto that work any way they could, so as to get in the extra work. Mr. EMERY. Are there instances in your knowledge where men work on two jobs in the same day, leaving Sunday out; that is to say, a mechanic who is working on the job eight hours, after he has completed that day's work, goes to some other job where there is a push, and works overtime? Mr. HALL. Yes; I have known that. The CHAIRMAN. To any considerable extent? Mr. HALL. Perhaps not to a considerable extent recently, because of the general lack of work and rush work, and lack of overtime. The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Mr. HALL. You understand the business conditions here have been such that there is very little of that; but that did happen on that particular job I speak of at that time, because it was a rush job, and it was generally known; that is, the mechanics knew it. The CHAIRMAN. Is one job the extent of that experience? Mr. HALL. No; I could mention other jobs, but they would be smaller. That was work here in the city, and the contractor was under heavy penalty if he did not complete it in time. Mr. DAVENPORT. Do you refer to work on Government buildings? Mr. HALL. Not in this instance. I am speaking of a local contractor and the local contract. The CHAIRMAN. I am not trying now to develop violations of the law on Government buildings, Mr. Davenport, I am trying to find out what the practice of the men is-if there is enough of it to amount to a practice-in regard to making a day's work on one job and then working overtime on some other job. Mr. DAVENPORT. I understand; but that brought to my mind the inquiry whether the contractor on one public building could work his men eight hours and then put the same men on another building, on another contract, and work them an additional number of hourspermit them to work more-without violating the act of 1892. The CHAIRMAN. I had supposed that the construction of that act was clear. Mr. DAVENPORT. In an instance that might be supposed, where a man had a contract to build a building and he also had another contract to build another building, both for the Government, is there anything in the existing law of 1892 which prevents a contractor permitting a man to work eight hours on one building and then to go to the other building and work on that building, it being a separate contract? Mr. EMERY. On Government work? Mr. DAVENPORT. Yes; on Government work. The CHAIRMAN. I should say, off-hand, there would not be any difficulty about his conviction in that case, under the act of 1892. Mr. EMERY. Did I understand you to state, Mr. Hall, that your members had found great difficulty in resolving what their position would be under the exceptions of the bill which takes from its operation articles and materials ordinarily purchased in the open market, whether made to conform to particular specifications or not. and supplies for the Government, whether made to conform to particular specifications or not? Mr. HALL. There has been a good deal of talk and question in regard to what that bill meant, just what the idea was as to specifications and articles. I do not know that I am just clear on your question. Mr. EMERY. I understood you to state that your members were in doubt as to just how far the exceptions of the bill would help them in what they otherwise feared would be impracticable prohibitions in the act? Mr. HALL. Yes. |