TOOLS, JIGS, DIES, AND FIXTURES TO BE PROPERTY OF GOVERNMENT

It takes time, often many months, to make tools, jigs, dies, fixtures, and other aids to manufacturing, and to lay out the shop practice for the production of munitions and weapons of war. The provision of the tools alone, which under this bill would be the property of the War Department, would cut down the time, from the beginning of the emergency until it was possible for the factories to get into production in quantity, by at least 5 months on the average. We do not have sufficient reserves of war materials now. We must either provide them or provide some means of acquiring them rapidly after the beginning of the emergency.

It is not the intention of the committee to allow the War Department to purchase its general supplies without regard to the bidding statute. Your committee feels that section 3709 of the Revised Statutes should be followed in all ordinary purchases. It feels, however, that a limited exception should be made in this case, limited by the amount authorized each year in a long-term program and also limited by the requirement in the bill that any order let under this proposal shall be let only after the specific approval of the President.

The need for a program of the sort provided for in this bill is apparent. It will greatly advance our industrial preparedness for emergency. The War Department is strongly in favor of the legislation and a copy of the report of the War Department is attached to and made part of this report.

REPORT OF WAR DEPARTMENT

Hon. LISTER HILL,

SEPTEMBER 20, 1937.

Chairman, Committee on Military Affairs,

House of Representatives.

DEAR MR. HILL: Careful consideration has been given to the bill H. R. 6246, to provide for placing educational orders to familiarize private manufacturing establishments with the production of munitions of war of special or technical design, etc., which you transmitted to the War Department under date of May 12, 1937, with a request for information and the views of the Department relative thereto.

Efforts have been made by the War Department at various intervals since the World War to obtain legislation exactly along these lines, in order that one of the weak points in our plans for industrial mobilization might be overcome. At a recent meeting of ordnance district chiefs and their executives the subject of educational orders was again emphasized as one of the most important things confronting the ordnance procurement districts in their dealings with industry with a view toward obtaining early production of munitions in case of a national emergency.

As our planning now stands, a responsible manufacturer who has had no experience whatsoever in peacetime in the production of munitions may be called upon in time of emergency to convert his plants from their peacetime pursuits to the production of munitions noncommercial in character. Plans and specifications for the munitions to be produced, for the various tools needed to produce them, and for the factory lay-out for their production are essential, but they are only the first step. The War Department knows that successful quantity production, especially in the early months, requires the adaptation of such plans to factory practice and a familiarity on the part of the men on the job with the numerous processes which enter into the manufacture. Such experience can be gained by commercial concerns only by actual production of the material.

Educational orders placed with firms that have already been allocated material to produce in emergency will serve the purpose of familiarizing them with the details and difficulties of manufacture and will save months in an emergency. Such orders should be diversified as to critical types of material and should be

placed with the greatest number of commercial plants possible, in order that engineering organizations may study the munitions to be made and plan the necessary tools, jigs, fixtures, and gages for their manufacture.

Under existing conditions the Ordnance Department of the Army maintains facilities at its six manufacturing establishments for the development, production and maintenance of ordnance material. It is the practice to place some orders for finished and semifinished material and all orders for raw material with commercial concerns. The facilities available are adequate for supplying only a portion of the total requirements in the event of a major emergency. In such an emergency civilian industry must be called upon to do its share. Similar conditions prevail in other supply arms and services of the War Department.

We find that our program of industrial preparedness now enables us to acquaint the prospective manufacturer with drawings and specifications and production schedules pertaining to items that will be required of him, but in most instances he is never given an opportunity to produce such items in time of peace. In short, the manufacturer has a paper knowledge but no practical experience pertaining to the munitions which the War Department is depending upon him to produce a specific rate. Here is where the educational orders fit into our scheme of industrial planning for emergency production. Educational orders will not only provide the means of imparting practical experience in the manufacture of munitions which the industrial concerns will be called upon to produce in large quantities in an emergency, but also by the application of section 2 of H. R. 6246 the Government will accumulate complete sets of gages, dies, jigs, tools, and fixtures and their special aids and appliances needed for the production of such munitions. Again it can be stated that the very existence of these essential accessories will greatly aid in bringing about rapid and economical production in case of a national emergency.

Authorizing the Secretary of War to place educational orders will not interfere with our Government manufacturing arsenals and establishments. The War Department will keep at all times, within the limits of appropriations made available, a force of trained and skilled workmen to keep alive the art of manufacture and to maintain the arsenals intact not only to produce their full share of the load allocated to them for war production, but also to provide trained inspectors and technicians necessary to assist commercial plants with their wartime tasks.

For the reasons set forth above, it is urgently recommended that favorable consideration be given to the enactment of legislation such as contained in H. R. 6246.

This report was submitted to the Bureau of the Budget which advised that the proposed legislation would not be in conflict with the program of the President, provided section 4 thereof, which authorizes the appropriation of $2,000,000 per year for 5 years, be changed to read substantially as follows:

"SEC. 4. To carry out the provisions of this Act, the Secretary of War is authorized to expend not to exceed $1,000,000 per year from funds carried in the War Department annual appropriation, during each of the five fiscal years beginning with the fiscal year during which this Act is enacted."

Sincerely yours,

MALIN CRAIG, Acting Secretary of War.

о

75TH CONGRESS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 3d Session

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REPORT No. 2182

FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938

APRIL 21, 1938.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mrs. NORTON, from the Committee on Labor, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany S. 2475]

The Committee on Labor, to whom was recommitted the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with an amendment and recommend that the bill as amended do pass.

The committee amendment strikes out all after the enacting clause of the Senate bill and inserts in lieu thereof the following: That this Act may be cited as the "Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938".

FINDING AND DECLARATION OF POLICY

SEC. 2. (a) The employment of workers under substandard labor conditions in occupations in commerce, in the production of goods for commerce, or otherwise affecting commerce (1) causes commerce and the channels and instrumentalities of commerce to be used to spread and perpetuate among the workers of the several States conditions detrimental to the physical and economic health, efficiency, and well-being of such workers; (2) burdens commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; (3) constitutes an unfair method of competition in commerce; (4) leads to labor disputes burdening and obstructing commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; and (5) interferes with the orderly and fair marketing of goods in commerce.

(b) The correction of such conditions affecting commerce requires that the Congress exercise its legislative power to regulate commerce among the several States by prohibiting the shipment in commerce of goods produced under substandard labor conditions and by providing for the elimination of substandard labor conditions in occupations in and affecting commerce.

Sec. 3. As used in this Act

DEFINITIONS

(a) "Person" means an individual, partnership, association, corporation, business trust, legal representative, or any organized group of persons.

(b) "Commerce" means trade, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication among the several States or from any State to any place outside thereof.

(c) "State" means any State of the United States or the District of Columbia or any Territory.

(d) "Employer" includes any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to employee but shall not include the United States or any State or political subdivision of a State, or any labor organization (other than when acting as an employer), or anyone acting in the capacity of officer or agent of such labor organization.

(e) "Employee" includes any individual employed or suffered or permitted to work by an employer.

(f) "Agriculture" includes farming in all its branches and among other things includes the cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, the cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities, the raising of livestock, bees, foxes, or poultry, and any practices performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to such farming operations, including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market. (g) "Employee employed in agriculture" includes individuals employed within the area of production engaged in storing for the farmer, preparing (but not commercial processing), or packing agricultural or horticultural commodities in their raw, natural, or dried state, but does not include employees of transportation contractors engaged in transportation of farm products from farm to market. (h) "Employ" includes to suffer or permit to work.

(i) "Industry" means a trade, business, industry, or branch thereof, or group of industries, in which individuals are gainfully employed.

(j) "Industry affecting commerce" means an industry with respect to which an order issued under section 6 is in effect.

(k) "Employer engaged in commerce" means an employer in commerce, or an employer engaged, in the ordinary course of business, in purchasing or selling goods in commerce.

(1) "Secretary" means the Secretary of Labor.

(m) "Oppressive child labor" means a condition of employment under which (1) any employee under the age of sixteen years is employed by an employer (other than a parent or a person standing in place of a parent employing his own child or a child in his custody under the age of sixteen years in an occupation other than manufacturing or mining) in any occupation; or (2) any such employee between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years is employed by an employer in any occupation which the Chief of the Children's Bureau in the Department of Labor shall from time to time find and by order declare to be particularly hazardous for the employment of such children or detrimental to their health or well-being; but oppressive child labor shall not be deemed to exist by virtue of the employment in any occupation of any person with respect to whom the employer shall have on file a certificate issued and held pursuant to the regulation of the Chief of the Children's Bureau certifying that such person is above the oppressive childlabor age. The Chief of the Children's Bureau shall provide by regulation or by order that the employment of employees of the age of fourteen but under the age of sixteen years in occupations other than manufacturing and mining shall not be deemed to constitute oppressive child labor if and to the extent that the Chief of the Children's Bureau determines that such employment is confined to periods which will not interfere with their schooling and to conditions which will not interfere with their health and well-being.

MINIMUM WAGES

SEC. 4. Every employer engaged in commerce in any industry affecting commerce shall, during the first three hundred and sixty-five days from the effective date of the original order issued under section 6 with respect to such industry, pay each employee employed by him a wage at a rate not less than 25 cents per hour, and during each succeeding three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day period pay each employee employed by him a wage at a rate not less than the rate applicable under this section during the immediately preceding period increased by 5 cents per hour; except that no provision of this Act shall require any such employer to pay a wage at a rate in excess of 40 cents per hour.

MAXIMUM HOURS

SEC. 5. No employer engaged in commerce in any industry affecting commerce shall employ any of his employees for a workday longer than eight hours, or shall during the first three hundred and sixty-five days from the effective date of the original order issued under section 6 with respect to such industry, employ any of