Mr. SMITH. What I am getting at is how important is this, reallyI mean in what percentage of the cases does the determination actually become the amount that will be paid on the job? I find that in a lot of cases the amount paid on the job is more than the determination was

anyway.

Mr. DONAHUE. That can frequently be so. I might bring myself back to the point where we left off when I was about to make a response to a question by the chairman.

Take the example of missile sites. Those sites could be in areas of the country where there is a comparatively modest prevailing rate. We move in, examine that rate, find that it prevails, and determine it for the area.

Contractors, however, when they proceed to secure the contract for the job and to secure labor to perform the job, discover that they cannot obtain enough workers at that predetermined rate to perform the job adequately.

In those circumstances, they must proceed to negotiate a rate. We find that we may determine at the outset of a job a rate of a certain character and then in the progress of the work that rate may be exceeded perhaps two and three times in the course of 1 or 2 years of performance. So that what we have actually determined will be lower than what is actually paid.

Mr. SMITH. It has been stated that this encourages more people to bid because they know there will not be someone come in and bid so much lower that they could not possibly compete, but is it not really a sort of exceptional case where the determination is actually the rate paid?

Mr. DONAHUE. I would not say so, Mr. Smith. I think that it is perhaps the exceptional case. Where the Davis-Bacon Act failed to reflect wages actually paid in contract performance. I am not talking in terms of precision. I am saying that, by and large, I think that the determinations which we make reflect, and we try to make them reflect so far as we possibly can, the rate which we find is prevailing for the area. Now that rate may go up after a period of months to some higher rate.

It is our purpose, and I think in most cases it is the practical outcome, that the rate we predetermine is the rate paid at the outset.

Mr. SMITH. To get at it another way, you include in the determinations the rates paid by very small contractors, do you not?

Mr. DONAHUE. We are required to do that.

Mr. SMITH. But most Government contracts are larger than those contractors are performing. Therefore, they are practically eliminated from the bidding anyway. They just do not bid. So you have a group bidding that pay higher rates than that on the average. So do you not almost automatically end up with a higher rate paid than your determination?

Mr. DONAHUE. I believe the Congressman is speaking of a situation which occurs but it does not broadly occur.

In those cases where we consider, as we are bound to consider, wages which are actually being paid in the locality of contract performance, it may well be that what we determine in some situations is exactly as you described. We determine a lower rate than some other

rate which may be the rate actually paid. That can happen, sir. But it does not happen in the majority of cases.

Mr. SMITH. I have just one more question. Under the LandrumGriffin bill, the Taft-Hartley law, and so forth, and under criteria set up by the Board, Congress determined that if an employer doesn't operate on a certain size scale, Federal law will not give him any attention but under Davis-Bacon we include all these people in the determination. Now, is this inconsistent? Should we include all those people who are so small that they won't be bidding anyway, in making the determination?

Mr. DONAHUE. That may be a matter which the committee may wish to consider at some future date.

I should like to point out to the Congressman that the provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act state that we should consider the wages which prevail on projects of a character similar to the contract work. Now that calls for a determination on our part of what is similar and what is dissimilar.

In our operations, for example, we have considered residential work as being in one category. On the other hand, we have considered commercial and industrial work as being in another category. Now I believe what the Congressman is referring to is the fact that, regardless of size of the job, it has been the customary interpretation over many, many years under the Davis-Bacon Act to consider all commercial and industrial work as one regardless of the amount of money which may be involved. If it is a shopping center, if it is a school, if it is a hospital, all are considered as one.

That has been our practice.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. And you are not passing at this time on whether that is a good practice or practical in arriving at your determination? Mr. DONAHUE. Not at this moment; no, sir.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. You recognize the Congressman's point?

Mr. DONAHUE. I recognize that the Congressman's point is very good.

Mr. SMITH. It seems to me there should be a point below which you would not have to go in considering because it is not really relevant. Mr. DONAHUE. I think that is a matter which the committee may wish to consider in its further deliberations on the Davis-Bacon Act. Mr. ROOSEVELT. It does not detract from the merits of the two bills presently under consideration.

Mr. DONAHUE. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Mr. Goodell?

Mr. GOODELL. Mr. Secretary, we are delighted to have you here. You were gracious enough to pay tribute to the Republican contribution on the training program.

May I pay tribute to you and your staff? We appreciate your help and cooperation in this bipartisan effort and in the writing of our Republican substitute, also.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to say at the outset that I am very sympathetic with the purposes of the Davis-Bacon Act, to the idea of extending this, but I believe that we have an interesting coincidence here, that 2 days of hearings have been scheduled while the building and construction trade unions happen to be in town. It would seem to me to be a perversion of the legislative process for us to pass on this bill before us with only 2 days of hearings. I think we are going to

have to hold more hearings if we are to get legislation that can actually be passed and not just be a little show for a select audience of building trade visitors to Washington. I would hope that we would schedule further hearings as early as possible to do this.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. I assure the gentleman that if there are more or numbers of witnesses who want to discuss these two bills, we will be happy to consider the situation.

If they want, however, just to launch an extended hearing for the sake of defeating the purposes of these two bills, the chair would not be very sympathetic.

Mr. GOODELL. It is not a question of good faith.

May I just assure you that any request I make will be made in good faith because I think there are ramifications to this legislation that we should know a little more about. In spite of the Secretary's kind tribute to all the things we do know at this moment in this committee, there are many things we do not know.

Mr. Secretary, would you agree that the Davis-Bacon Act as administred and as written in law has a relationship to jurisdictional disputes in the missiles sites program?

Secretary GOLDBERG. Well, I am frank to state that there have been jurisdictional problems. I do not think that they focus completely around the Davis-Bacon Act.

Mr. GOODELL. I do not eithetr, but you feel there is a role here that Davis-Bacon plays?

Secretary GOLDBERG. What we are attempting to do in the administration of the Department is to point out that as Congress enacted the law and as we are going to administer it, it should have no impact upon jurisdictional disputes because what we are charged with doing by this bill is setting a rate which is the prevailing rate and not deciding who gets the job.

Mr. GOODELL. Mr. Secretary, we are going to run a little short of time. May I pinpoint my question a little more? Is it not true that as a practical matter when a Davis-Bacon determination is made, the building and construction trade unions then identify this as their particular baby; and they have jurisdiction, and this then often results in further jurisdictional problems?

Secretary GOLDBERG. I think there has been a misconception by everybody concerned about the nature of the statute, and one of the jobs I am going to try to do is to try to enlighten everybody that when we make a Davis-Bacon determination we make no determination as to who does that work. That is the job for the employer, that is the job for the unions to negotiate. We do not prejudice anybody. This is not a determination that this job belongs to building trade unions or industrial union. That is not our business.

Mr. GOODELL. You agree that this, however, is used as a handy yardstick in the building and construction trades?

Secretary GOLDBERG. I have no doubt as I have discovered in many areas that every action you take can be susceptible to some such interpretation. I think it is a wrong one. Part of the educational process we must carry on is to illuminate this area. I intend to do just that. Mr. GOODELL. I appreciate the Secretary's statement on that.

Now, you mentioned jurisdictional disputes; and I think this is one of the things that concerns us all a great deal, particularly, of course, it concerns all American people in the missile site program. Now, your labor commission, the Missile Sites Labor Commission has, as Í understand it, reported that the percentage of missile site work stoppages attributable to jurisdictional disputes has gone up rather tremendously. I think from a previous 23 percent it has increased to 57 percent of these work stoppages at missile bases now attributable to jurisdictional disputes.

Is that not correct?

Secretary GOLDBERG. I would like to say what I did say because I think also when the newspaper publishes a condensation it does not publish what you actually said.

I said two things. The number of all disputes, jurisdictional and otherwise, has declined substantially since last year. So, jurisdictional disputes have declined.

I said in the last 2 months over our past record of the last 6 months, the number of jurisdictional disputes has increased. I was comparing the last 6 months with the last 2 months.

Mr. GOODELL. I am aware of what you said but it seems to me your Commission reported on this, the Missile Sites Labor Commission, and did say that previously about 23 percent of these work stoppages, work loss periods, were due to jurisdictional disputes, and it has gone now up to 57 percent.

Secretary GOLDBERG. When I said previously we were then referring to the good results we had in the last 6 months.

Mr. GOODELL. I do not want to load the statistics either way, but it is true we have had this trend?

Secretary GOLDBERG. In the last 2 months, as contrasted with the previous 6 months since our Commission was established, there was a substantial rise in jurisdictional disputes.

Mr. GOODELL. Now, your Commission also said, or one of their comments was, as I recall, that there had been a breakdown of voluntary procedures and a tendency to resort to pressure methods in order to gain objectives in this missile site situation.

Do you have any comment on this?

Secretary GOLDBERG. Yes. There has not been a breakdown in the voluntary procedures in terms of the existence of the procedures, the commitment of the unions, international unions to the procedures. What our Commission was pointing out is that local people, and they were local people-they were not authorized to do this-were bypassing the machinery that they themselves had established, and we were appealing to everybody concerned to use the procedures that were voluntarily established.

We want to adhere to voluntary procedures. Even though some people have some doubt that we want to adhere to them, we do.

Mr. GOODELL. May I ask another question in this respect? It is my understanding that you appointed a committee, popularly known as the Holland committee, in April, and it reported to you in August with some specific recommendations. As I understand, nothing has been done to implement those recommendations.

Is there something planned in this respect?

Secretary GOLDBERG. Congressman, that is not a sound conclusion. What we are doing is doing what we were discussing here ought to be done when you study this type of problem which requires hearing on both sides.

We received a report and it was publicly reported. It was not an arbitration. Nobody agreed we should arbitrate this. We ourselves did not agree. This was a public commission established to make a report.

Since then, at the request of the parties involved, all parties, the public, the different unions involved, we have scheduled a series of hearings, administrative hearings. We just held some of them this last week.

After we give everybody an opportunity to be heard, as we promised we would do, we will then have to make a determination. So what has been going on is to give everybody a chance to be heard.

Mr. GOODELL. But this Commission did make specific recommendations which have not been acted upon?

Secretary GOLDBERG. Yes, but part of the understanding when we appointed the Commission was that everybody would have a chance, once the Commission had indicated what its recommendations were, to comment, argue, present material. I have to make the final decision. Mr. GOODELL. May I express the hope that this process will be speeded because this was, I think, an unbiased commission that was appointed to make recommendations in an area that is very vital to all the American people to try to correct this situation at the missile sites. I dont' know their recommendations in detail and probably wouldn't agree with all of them any more than you do. But they made some specific recommendations on how to cut down on this jurisdictional dispute problem and some other factors and it seems to me those ought to be acted upon with all urgency.

Secretary GOLDBERG. I am going to act upon them as soon as I give everybody an opportunity to be heard which I think I ought to do, but let me point out something

Mr. GOODELL. This report was made in August.

Secretary GOLDBERG. What has happened is that the parties have asked for time to file briefs. I have said I am a lawyer and I proceed like a lawyer.

Mr. GOODELL. You are not proceeding with quite the dispatch that Mr. Donahue says was so necessary in setting the wage rates.

Secretary GOLDBERG. None of the jurisdictional disputes that we have been discussing that have been happening had anything to do with that report.

Mr. GOODELL. That brings us back because I want to talk a little bit about the Davis-Bacon and its relationship to these jurisdictional disputes.

I think that it has been unquestionably demonstrated to this committee that the Davis-Bacon determinations immediately trigger certain reactions that sometimes result in jurisdictional disputes. I do not mean that you intentionally or Mr. Donahue intentionally trigger them, but when you extend the Davis-Bacon protection unfortunately it causes problems and those problems, I think this committee must examine. We are being asked to extend the coverage of Davis-Bacon and I am sympathetic to that purpose, but if all we are going to do is