DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR AND HEALTH, EDUCATION, HEARINGS BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS EIGHTY-SIXTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR AND HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND JOHN E. FOGARTY, Rhode Island, Chairman WINFIELD K. DENTON, Indiana FRED MARSHALL, Minnesota MELVIN R. LAIRD, Wisconsin ELFORD A. CEDERBERG, Michigan ROBERT M. MOYER, Staff Assistant to Subcommittee DEPARTMENT OF LABOR FEDERAL MEDIATION AND CONCILIATION SERVICE INTERSTATE COMMISSION ON THE POTOMAC RIVER BASIN NATIONAL MEDIATION BOARD NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS CLARENCE CANNON, Missouri, Chairman GEORGE H. MAHON, Texas HUGH Q. ALEXANDER, North Carolina JOHN TABER, New York H. CARL ANDERSEN, Minnesota CHARLES RAPER JONAS, North Carolina, MELVIN R. LAIRD, Wisconsin ELFORD A. CEDERBERG, Michigan GLENARD P. LIPSCOMB, California JOHN J. RHODES, Arizona KENNETH SPRANKLE, Clerk and Staff Director II DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR AND HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE APPROPRIATIONS FOR 1961 DEPARTMENT OF LABOR WITNESSES MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 1960. HON. JAMES P. MITCHELL, SECRETARY OF LABOR JAMES E. DODSON, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT SECRETARY MISS MARGARET THOMAS, DIRECTOR, MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT Mr. FOGARTY. The committee will come to order. We have before us this morning the Department of Labor and a group of witnesses headed by Secretary James P. Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell, do you have a statement? Mr. MITCHELL. I have a very brief prepared statement. GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE SECRETARY Mr. MITCHELL. The estimate of funds required from all sources for various functions totals $556,886,000. This represents a net increase of $6,083,100 over 1960. The table presented shows a breakdown of the increase as follows: ANALYSIS OF INCREASES NEW LEGISLATION For salary and expense items, $4,233,500 of which $32 million is due to new legislation enacted at the last session of Congress pertaining to labor-management reporting and disclosure. There is also an increase of $213,000 distributed to various appropriation accounts of the Department to cover the cost of the new health insurance program for Federal employees which becomes effective July 1. GRANTS TO STATES The increase shown of $10 million for grants to States pertains principally to the increase of wages of State employees. We show on this statement a reduction in the amount of money required for the payment of unemployment insurance benefits of $13 million. (1) REVISION OF CONSUMER PRICE INDEX The beginning of the revision of the Consumer Price Index is well underway. The committee will recall this is a 5-year program. For the fiscal year 1961, which is the second year of this program for this purpose, an increase of $1,020,000 is requested. EMPLOYEES COMPENSATION FUND The employees compensation fund shows an increase of $3,819,000. This is caused principally by the transfer of charges formerly financed out of appropriations made to the Public Health Service for the treatment of Federal employees injured in the line of duty. It is my understanding that the Bureau of the Budget has made a downward adjustment in the Public Health Service as an offset to this increase. Šalary and expense items for administration of the entire Department make up less than 10 percent of the total estimate. The bulkof the budget is for grants to States and benefit payments. INCREASE IN WORKLOAD The workload of the Department has accelerated due to increased. responsibilities placed on it by new labor legislation and other actions authorized by the last two sessions of Congress. I have in mind enactment of legislation in the areas of maritime safety, pension-welfare reporting and labor-management reporting. We have under way the revision of the Consumer Price Index, the new wage statistics program, and we have assumed full responsibility for all of the Government's labor force statistics. The above activities have placed unusual demands on the entire staff of the Department, and I am proud of the manner in which they have accepted and carried out their respective duties. The problem of fully implementing the new legislation has not been completed and will offer further problems of administration. However, we are well underway. LABOR-MANAGEMENT REPORTING AND DISCLOSURE ACT OF 1959 I wish to thank the members of this committee and Congress for their confidence in making an appropriation without the usual amount of detailed justification in order that immediate problems under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 could be met. In the few months since enactment of the new law, the Department has had to organize while actually doing the work required by statutory deadlines. Over 40 percent of the 620 people estimated to be needed have already been hired and trained and are working in Washington or in 22 field offices established for the new program. While organizing, it has been necessary to make and issue interpretations of the act; to publish and distribute well over a million pieces of information material; and to design, distribute, receive, and process over 50,000, reports of various kinds. It was also necessary to initiate investigations on several hundred complaints filed during the same first months. There is still much to do, and the size of the job cannot yet be measured accurately. We know that union members and officials want to comply with the law. Distribution of general informational material is already well underway; but this is not enough. We must, in addition, inaugurate an educational program down to the field office level to provide instruction and assistance in the specific problems arising in meeting the requirements of the act. We must also make a thoroughgoing analysis of the detailed forms we are receiving. Any violations disclosed by this analysis will be acted on. Mr. John L. Holcombe assumed the duties of the Commissioner of the new Bureau at the beginning of this month. He will go into detail on this subject when he appears before you. I would like now to comment on three program areas where expansion is requested: INTERNATIONAL LABOR PROGRAM The struggle for economic improvement and political freedom in which enormous sections of the world are now engaged may well be the most far-reaching human effort in history. Certainly the course of this struggle is a major factor in the fulfillment of the U.S. foreign policy. Labor-that is organizations of workers as well as manpower, economic and institutional factors associated with workers-is having a major and rapidly increasing influence upon the course of this struggle in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In India, for example, with steel and other industries beginning to accelerate their development, the role of worker organizations is becoming increasingly important in the political and economic development of the country. The problems of labor generally-unemployment, skill development, training, governmental administration in the labor field, etc.-must be at least partially solved before Indian economic development can proceed. The independence movements, continuing with increasing vigor in Africa, are virtually all being led by leaders of worker organizations or by those who have secured the support of these organizations. In Latin America, we have seen the powerful part labor has played in the struggle for economic development. In Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela, in Argentina and Bolivia, trade unions are playing a key political as well as economic role. In Mexico, a former Minister of Labor, Lopes Mateos, was elected President with a strong backing of worker organizations, which today continue to provide the necessary popular support for the Mateos administration. These few examples point to the new and peculiar importance of fully considering and accurately reflecting international labor factors in the development of U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Lodge will go into the details of this requested increase. MEXICAN LABOR PROGRAM The program of enforcing the terms and conditions of the standard work contract and the international agreement with Mexico, and the standards of the Department governing the employment of Mexican agricultural workers needs strengthening. In cooperation with the |