these rules and regulations that were adopted by the Federal Government are remaining status quo at this time. And I believe, Nelson, that it was agreed by the committee that regional public hearings would be held, if possible, before any further rules and regulations were put into effect.

Of course, there is a lot of history behind this subject. I want to go back to the hearings that we had in Washington, because it ended in a brawl. No one gained anything from them. A lot of hard feelings were created. Essentially, we got down to, what we can call, a public relations job, meeting with people and trying to reason out some of our differences. I think we have accomplished a great deal. I congratulate the Secretary of Labor and his staff on the job of transferring this Walsh-Healey business to the Bureau of Labor Standards. We have worked with the Bureau of Labor Standards for years, as you know. It has worked with us. And it does provide a service.

I hope and recommend to the IAGLO, Mr. President, that we, too, have a permanent committee for this purpose, working out these problems, rather than sitting in some big meeting in Washington, where one group gets on one side and one on the other. We end up in a big argument, accomplishing nothing. I think a great deal is accomplished in meeting with these gentlemen in Washington. I certainly do hope that we will establish a permanent committee, a liaison committee with the States and Federal Government. We had this problem with the Federal Bureau of Mines. We accomplished more in 15 minutes sitting around the table with a group than we accomplished over 15 years in fighting it out in Congress. I believe the Department is sincere. I certainly hope that the contracts for all those States you qualified to do this job will be reinstated at an early date.

This has been going on a long time, Nelson, and I know that you have a lot of work to do, but I see no reason why this thing should be held up another 3 or 4 years before these contracts are either reinstated or we are told that they are not going to be reinstated. We do not want to get back into this fight. We do not want to get our hands in the pocketbook of the Appropriations Committee. But, this is the States' responsibility. They have the people to do the job, and they are qualified. We should do it; it is our responsibility. It is our responsibility to work together and understand one another's problems. So with that in mind, I hope that we will continue with this relationship. As it appears at the present time, it will only get better as time goes on.

President CATHERWOOD. Thank you, Eddie.

Mr. Ricciuti, would you like to elaborate?

Commissioner RICCIUTI. No.

President CATHERWOOD. Bill Laney?

Commissioner LANEY. I don't think so, Mr. Chairman. But I would like to go a little further than Eddie did. Of course, the meetings were warm and on friendly terms at all times. I think this had to do with, perhaps, moving forward as fast as we did with the problems that we had. I commend Chairman Webb for the way he handled the meetings and, of course, the Secretary and the Under Secretary.

President CATHERWOOD. Thank you, Bill.

Are there any questions from the floor?

CONFEREE. One thing I would like to comment on. In these meetings with Federal people, I have always found them to be very warm and friendly. The only thing is, the end result sometimes is a little cold.

President CATHERWOOD. Are there any other observations?

In an informal discussion a few days ago, the Commissioner from Kansas raised the question as to just when could he expect clarification in this area? I get the impression, Nelson, that it will take a little time-say, weeks or months-to work out the specifics under which contracts will be reinstated or new contracts developed; also the relationship for supplying information to those States with which specific contracts are not developed. Will this be clarified within a matter of a few months? Is that unreasonable?

Mr. BORTZ. I am fully cognizant of the fact that the 50th annual meeting of this organization will occur next summer. [Laughter.] Since I have attended most of the meetings over the last 10 years, I am hopeful that I will be able to attend the one next year. I would be very unhappy, as I am sure you would be, if no progress is made between now and the time of your next convention.

I want to say this in all candor. I think we recognize that some mistakes have been made in the past. It is human nature and we always will make some mistakes. One mistake that I hope we will avoid is rushing into this situation without careful review of what the past experience has been. I have a number of personal theories that I would like to test out with reference to some of the past operations. I want to be reasonably confident that when we move ahead, we move ahead on the basis of reason and understanding, and on the basis of some qualifications or criteria, as Eddie Boggs mentioned, so that everyone has a scorecard and knows the players and the rules.

President CATHERWOOD. Thank you, Nelson.

I am sure one of the benefits that came out of the work of the committee and the exchange was recognition on the part of State representatives that we are faced with a more complex situation here than we might have visualized, when we were thinking of the issues simply as being cancellation or noncancellation of the contracts.

My recommendation to the succeeding president of this organization will be that a committee be continued on this subject. One of the functions of this committee would be to keep in touch with you, Nelson, and to be sure that we do have progress reports, certainly a progress report before the next annual meeting, in fairly specific, mutually acceptable terms.

Are there any other questions on the Walsh-Healey phase of our deliberations?

Commissioner WILLIAMS. I do not have a question but an observation. We feel very fortunate—maybe we should say blessedthat the Walsh-Healey inspection has been turned over to Mr. Bortz. We feel that he will use a lot of good common judgment in drawing up the agreement or contracts for the procedures of inspections. I think that he will use his good judgment as to who does the work. The same contractor will have part of his employees engaged in Walsh-Healey and part of them not. Consequently, there are some of them not inspected by either agency and, of course, we have them both in the same plant on the same days. I hope that Mr. Bortz will keep this in mind when he works up some kind of agreements, either to assume all of the inspection or release them. I do not care which way, just so we know where to go. President CATHERWOOD. Are there any questions on WalshHealey?

If not, I will express our appreciation to the members of the committee, to Ernie Webb, and to Nelson Bortz for his constructive presentation here.

I am going to ask Ray Male to come up here.

While he is doing so, I will read a telegram from Bill Young, Secretary of Labor and Industry for Pennsylvania. Some of you know that he has been in the hospital recently because of a circulatory problem.

It is with deep regret that I cannot be with my many friends and associates in New Orleans this week. Please accept my best wishes for a most fruitful meeting and convey my thanks to all those present that have written me during my confinement in the hospital. I have started my rehabilitation and expect to be back at my desk in Harrisburg in the very near future.

All of us, I know, have the same affection for our associate from New Jersey that I, personally, have. We have followed in the papers with a great deal of interest certain activities in which he

has been involved with the Secretary of Labor relating to wage settlement problems in New Jersey as they relate to national guidelines and a number of other policies. Several members have asked him to tell them just what is cooking and when will we know more about it. In other words, what the score is. I do not know how far he is in a position to take us fully into his confidence, but he has agreed to go as far as he can under the circumstances in telling us what this is all about.

RAYMOND F. MALE, Commissioner, New Jersey Department

of Labor and Industry

I appreciate this opportunity to speak briefly about this, partly because so many of you have been asking me the same question over and over again that I am getting tired in attempting to duck the question or to answer it.

The matter to which the President refers is the dispute between the parties involved in New Jersey. I am happy to say that all parties reached an agreement on their 3-year contract. The principal parties in the dispute were, of course, the operating engineers local, led by a very vigorous president, and the Associated General Contractors of New Jersey, representing a large number of major contracts and responsible for the biggest part of the work of the operating engineers in this local. A third party became interested in this the Building Contractors Association. And it was this association, Mr. Catherwood, and not the Commissioner of Labor and Industry from New Jersey, that sent telegrams to the President of the United States and the Council of Economic Advisers. The newspapers in your major cities stated that the contract was nearing agreement, that it would be beyond the President's wage-price guidepost, and would have a deleterious effect upon the economy of the country. I will be very blunt and tell my colleagues here how I got into it.

Briefly, I would like to point out what happened and where we are. I became involved with this upon my return from our commissioners' meeting in Washington via the suggestions of the Secretary of Labor meeting with the president of the local, and with the president of AFL-CIO, to determine whether there was some area in which something could be done.

After many hours of meeting, something that could be done emerged—a willingness on their part, and in their words, to submit the controversy to the Secretary of Labor of the United States and to the Commissioner of Labor and Industry of the State of New Jersey for "determination, resolution, and disposition." There has

been a lot of talk as to whether this made us arbitrators or coarbitrators. We have hidden carefully behind those three words throughout the undertaking. On March 28, when there were at least three strikes by the local on major construction projects, in a noisy, frustrating contention that the two of us began our labors. The Secretary of Labor persuaded a number of key men on his staff to work on supplying material and background information. I would point out that in the course of gathering material for the ultimate report a lot of people, not only in New Jersey but in Washington, some of them in this room, dug out things that had never been looked at quite that way before.

When we talked this morning about labor statistics, I will tell you, Mr. Walter Keim, how important it was to this problem that the Bureau of Labor Statistics was able, outside its regularly budgeted schedule and scheduled efforts, to come up with numbers and meaningful data that really pointed us in the direction that this report takes. I would single out, for example, the inventive, imaginative, and weekend work of Sol Swerdloff in Mr. Keim's shop who did a very important thing. He took the earnings of every one of the nearly 10,000 members of this local and computed how much more money it would have cost to keep them working at their regular rates for a period of hours, from 100 up to 2,500. Out of that, we soon discovered, as radically as it might sound, that some approach to guaranteeing-not a guaranteed wage but guaranteeing opportunities through work, through training, or through education would, indeed, be cheaper than the way we were spending the money in a not yet agreed contract proposal. And that it might be done without risk-this whole question of stabilization.

I would go back to today's luncheon with Doctor Ross, and point out that he alluded to some paradoxes here. Without labeling them as such, he talked about high unemployment in the construction industry and how it affected the industry. At the same time he pointed out how there were great shortages of skills and of manpower. Here we sit in America paralyzed with this: between great unionized manpower and still able to scream at ourselves, in the summer months and in the fall that we have shortages. There is great fear of unemployment in the construction industry at a time when everything we are saying to ourselves spells out the unmet needs of, what he labeled, the capital boom, but which is realistically, in New York, New Jersey, and, of course, the country, the need to rebuild our cities and to get on more quickly with this interstate transportation highway network, to do things about all kinds of major capital investment in which operating engineers and other construction trades are definitely involved.