INTERSTATE MIGRATION SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1940 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE INTERSTATE MIGRATION OF DESTITUTE CITIZENS, Washington, D. C. The committee met at 9:30 a. m., in the circuit court of appeals hearing room, United States Courthouse and Post Office Building, Los Angeles, Calif., Hon. John H. Tolan (chairman), presiding: Present: Representatives John H. Tolan (chairman), John J. Sparkman, and Frank C. Osmers, Jr. Absent: Claude V. Parsons and Carl T. Curtis. Also present: Edward J. Rowell, chief field investigator; John W. Abbott, field investigator in charge; Abe Kramer, field investigator; and Alice M. Tuohy, secretary. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order. WELCOME BY ARLIN E. STOCKBURGER, REPRESENTATIVE OF MAYOR FLETCHER BOWRON, LOS ANGELES, CALIF. Mr. STOCKBURGER. Honorable committee members, I want to say a word of welcome to the committee on behalf of Mayor Bowron who is on the high seas in a plane returning to Los Angeles, and who will land at San Francisco today. He has been in the South Seas for a month. Mayor Bowron, I know, would be here this morning if he were in the city. In talking to the chairman of the city council, Mr. Burns, he asked me to convey his respects to the committee and assure you of his interest in the program. Secretary Wallace is here today, and the chairman of the city council is doing the honors to the Secretary and will be very busy this morning and around noon time, so he couldn't be present. It is The city of Los Angeles is the hub of this migrant problem in Southern California, of course. The city has no legal responsibility for caring for indigents and participating in this relief problem. primarily under State law and is a county problem. However, it is very close to us and we do have a department of social welfare that is working with the recognized agencies in handling this problem. We are most happy that the Federal Government has recognized the seriousness of the situation in California and what we are confronted with, especially in Southern California, in connection with the migrant problem and we are here to assure you that we will cooperate in every way possible in trying to furnish information to aid you in arriving at your conclusion. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I want to simply say to you that we opened our hearings in New York on June 29, and the first witness in these hearings was Mayor LaGuardia of New York. He considers that interstate migration is a national problem, and as president of the Mayors' Conference he is contacting every mayor in the United States on the subject. We are also contacting the Governor of each State. On behalf of the committee we wish you to express our thanks to the mayor and to the city council, and extend to them our very best wishes, and say to them that our records will not close until the final hearing in Washington the last week of November, and if you have any further material you may send it to our committee at Washington and we will insert it in the record. Thank you very much, Mr. Stockburger. TESTIMONY OF ROBERT B. ROBERTSON, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, BURBANK, CALIF. Mr. OSMERS. Mr. Robertson, will you give your full name and address and occupation to the reporter, please. Mr. ROBERTSON. Robert B. Robertson. Do you want my business address? Mr. OSMERS. Your business connection and your address. Mr. ROBERTSON. Assistant director of industrial relations at the Lockheed Aircraft Co., Burbank, Calif. MIGRATION TO AIRCRAFT INDUSTRIES IN CALIFORNIA Mr. OSMERS. Mr. Robertson, you have submitted a letter to the committee here in reference to the applications for employment that you have received in a typical week at the Lockheed plant here. It seems from this letter of yours that a great many of these people that apply to you are interstate migrants. (The letter referred to is as follows:) Dr. E. J. RoWELL, LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, Chief Field Investigator, House Committee on Interstate Migration, San Francisco, Calif. DEAR DR. ROWELL: At the request of Mr. J. W. Abbott we have compiled some hurried statistics regarding the locale of the men who are applying for jobs at Lockheed. This information represents a tabulation covering about 1 week's time and totals 2,050 applicants of whom 1,450 did not have the necessary training or skill to warrant a second consideration on our part and the tabulation below includes only those 1,450 men who we feel might possibly be or become a social burden. You will note that the out-of-State applicants make up about 35 percent of the total and at the present rate the total would be approximately 26,000 unskilled for a 12-month period. We handle from 10,000 to 12,000 applicants per month and have increased our personnel from 3,000 to almost 14,000 within the past 2 years. As you no doubt know a large number of so-called aircraft technical schools have recently and suddenly sprung into existence here in Southern California. The majority of the schools are poorly equipped and poorly staffed, and the value of the training given by them is practically nil. Some of these so-called schools have been and are still sending representatives to other States (mainly the midwestern States) and by the use of high pressure methods and actual promises of jobs at extremely high rates are inducing a large number of young men to come to Southern California. We feel certain that there is a wealth of material right in this vicinity from which all of the qualified schools could easily draw the enrollment for short courses for training in production jobs. We quite naturally give every preference to local boys in hiring those who have completed the courses of the few schools which offer training of value. We have consistently advised strongly against unskilled workers coming to California in the hope of employment in the aircraft industry and have publicized this in newspapers on a country-wide basis. I will be glad to appear personally before your committee on September 28, 1940, and would appreciate information as to the exact time. Very truly yours, R. B. ROBERTSON, Assistant Director, Industrial Relations. TESTIMONY OF ROBERT B. ROBERTSON—Resumed Mr. OSMERS. Now what conclusion do you reach in that tabulation? Mr. ROBERTSON. Well, we reach this conclusion out there, that from 35 to 50 percent of the applicants at Lockheed are out-of-State people and that, I should say, approximately 75 percent of those people from out of State are not employable at Lockheed. I also might add that these technical schools or so-called technical schools are, in my opinion, a bigger problem than the publicity that the aircraft industry has received in the past year or so because they are really going out after boys from back through the midwestern States and other States and pulling them into Southern California, rather than having the boys come out here cold with the expectation of getting a job in the aircraft industry. Mr. OSMERS. Would you say that the expansion of the national defense program has acted as a magnet to bring these young men here from other parts of the country? Mr. ROBERTSON. To a certain extent. Mr. OSMERS. Now, I wonder if you would explain to the committee the apparent discrepancy between statements made by various labor organizations that there is an adequate supply of skilled labor available here and the statement made by some men in the aircraft industry that there is not a sufficient supply of skilled labor. Mr. ROBERTSON. We still maintain that there is not. As a matter of fact, we are recruiting throughout the East for skilled laborers constantly. Chairman TOLAN. Right now? Mr. ROBERTSON. Right now. Mr. OSMERS. For what type of work are you seeking those men? Mr. ROBERTSON. Well, I want to say, first, that we are not going after any man out of the industries that are so-called essential and vital to the defense program, and also I might add that 90 percent of the men that we do get, skilled men, are employed now. We are very careful to stay away from industries that are considered vital to the defense program. Mr. OSMERS. Why do they come with your organization? Do you offer them a better proposition? Mr. ROBERTSON. In a majority of cases I should say that the rates of pay are not any more than they are receiving at the present time. Mr. OSMERS. Do you offer steadier work or better conditions? Mr. ROBERTSON. It might be steadier and, of course, the California. attraction is there, too. There are a lot of people throughout the country that want to come to California, and we have found that that is a selling point. AIRCRAFT TECHNICAL SCHOOLS 1 Mr. OSMERS. Now you have touched on a point there before, and I would like to go into it a little further. These aircraft technical schools that you have mentioned, would you describe those in detail for the committee, the establishment and the type of work they do and their value? Mr. ROBERTSON. Well, some of them are all right. Some of them are well equipped, well staffed with good instructors, and turn out a boy that is useful to us; but they are very much in the minority. I would say you could count those on the fingers of one hand. Others have sprung up where they get together a bunch of material and they throw that in front of the boy when he comes out and he reads that, and perhaps they might give him a few hours with a rivet gun or something like that, and consider him a graduate. Those boys we cannot use. Mr. OSMERS. May I ask you how they solicit the boys for those schools that do not deliver the education that they say they will? Mr. ROBERTSON. Well, I wouldn't like to say that this is a definite accusation, but we have had any number of reports-and I think authentic reports-that these schools send representatives back through the Midwestern States and even back into some of the Eastern 1 See p. 1523, Lincoln hearings, pt. 4 States, who make promises and statements that they are connected with the aircraft companies and some of them say that the aircraft companies own these schools. They promise rates up to $1.50 an hour after 5 or 6 weeks of training, which is absolutely untrue. It is not possible because even the best of the schools that turn out boys that we can employ we put through a brush-up course at our plant before we put them to work. Those are the boys that come out of the better schools. I want to state that I think that these schools that are not qualified present one of our biggest problems as far as the aircraft industry is concerned in bringing out people from other States, and the majority of these people have to sacrifice in order to raise the money to pay the tuition. Mr. OSMERS. You don't happen to know what a typical tuition would be, do you? Mr. ROBERTSON. I should say around $150 for 5 or 6 weeks, or a 4 weeks' course. Mr. OSMERS. That is almost equal to some college tuition for a whole year, isn't it? Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes. Mr. OSMERS. Here is a question that may be beyond your knowledge. If it is, just say so. Are these schools licensed under any governmental authority, or are they just independent private businesses? Mr. ROBERTSON. I cannot answer that definitely. Mr. OSMERS. You don't know whether they are or not? Mr. ROBERTSON. No. Mr. OSMERS. Do you believe that they ought to be regulated if they are not? Mr. ROBERTSON. I certainly believe they should be. Mr. OSMERS. Or better regulated if they are being regulated? Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes. The California Labor Code cannot do anything to regulate them, as I understand it, unless they charge the boys for an attempt at getting them a job in an aircraft plant. If they make a charge for securing employment they would come under the employment agency section of the California Labor Code, but they are careful not to do that. Mr. OSMERS. Now, when we had hearings in Lincoln, Nebr., Mr. Robertson, several letters from aircraft companies were offered and placed in our record at that time. I believe at least one of these letters charged that some of the aircraft companies were enticing skilled labor away from certain other industries after these other industries had taken the trouble to train the men involved. Do you know whether that is a common practice in the aircraft industry, or not? Mr. ROBERTSON. Well, I think Mr. OSMERS (interrupting). I think you have said that before. Mr. ROBERTSON. I think I made my statement before on that. Mr. OSMERS. That you people recruit? Mr. ROBERTSON. We will take skilled men away from industries that are not considered vital to the national defense program. We have done it and unless we are stopped we will continue to do it. Mr. OSMERS. I am quite sure that you are familiar with the residence requirements that hold today in most States of the Union. I believe |