Equal Opportunity and Full Employment

We certainly welcome all of you before the committee. We will call on you in the order in which the names are listed on the schedule. Mr. Schmitt, may we hear from you first as president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.

STATEMENT OF JOHN W. SCHMITT, PRESIDENT,

WISCONSIN STATE AFL-CIO, MADISON

Mr. SCHMITT. Honorable Chairman, Congressmen, my name is John W. Schmitt. I am president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO and I am here today to express the deep concern of organized labor in Wisconsin about high levels of unemployment across the Nation and particularly here in Wisconsin. However, I would like to point out some erroneous information you got from Mr. Winters about unemployment payments. The way he gave the information it seems all you have to do is send in your name and you get a check. It is far from being that

easy.

Unemployment is an earned right. If you work 17 weeks in the State of Wisconsin, you then qualify for unemployment compensation but you must work 17 weeks for each week of compensation and then you get eight-tenths of 1 week credit if you work for 40 weeks. In order to qualify you must report to the employment office. If you turn down a job and they find it is not for good cause, you are disqualified.

We have a 6-week candidacy period in this State, 6 weeks in which you are allowed to work in similar work or a job that is about the same pay; after that you are at the mercy of the EC office. So it is not that easy that all you do is get a check from someone.

Across the Nation we have close to 8 million workers officially without jobs. We have another 1 million men and women who are not in the official unemployment statistics because they have given up looking for jobs that don't exist. We have another 3 million workers who want full-time work but have to work part-time because they can't find fulltime jobs.

That's 12 million Americans who have serious problems in terms of jobs, earnings and income-one out of every eight workers.

Here in Wisconsin we have serious problems of unemployment and cutbacks in work schedules, loss of income, and personal and family suffering as a result of seriously high unemployment.

For the period of January 1 through August 1975 the average number of unemployed was 159.000, or 7.5 percent. For the same 8 months of 1974 the average was 93,500 and the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent.

In 1975 the high month of unemployment, in terms of rate, was 8.2 percent in the month of March and the high month in terms of numbers was 172,000 in the month of June.

Statewide the unemployment figure with respect to construction workers was 25.1 percent in January with the lowest month being in July at 8.4 percent. This, however, is statewide. At the present time here in the city of Milwaukee the mechanical trades have roughly 12 percent to 15 percent unemployment and the basic trades have around 35 percent unemployed. Once the weather gets cold that figure could rise above 50 percent and I assure you that is going to happen in Milwaukee in the next 30 to 60 days. Thousands of construction work

industrial base, to regulate the export of American technology and capital, to eliminate the tax and other incentives that encourage U.S. companies to establish and expand their operations in foreign countries and to curb the rising tide of imported goods and components that displace U.S. production."

15. A full-scale congressional examination of the structure of the American economy is urgently needed to provide the Congress and the public with the facts on such economic developments as business mergers, interlocking relationships among the giant corporations and banks, their domination of key parts of the national economy, their effect on prices and America's position in the world economy and their impact on American communities and democratic institutions. Detailed information on such factors of American economic and social life is essential for the adoption of appropriate Government policies. Congress must be especially wary of attempts to dismantle the Federal regulatory agencies that were established to protect consumers from disreputable, unfair and monopolistic business practices.

I thank you.

Mr. HAWKINS. Thank you, Mr. Schmitt.

We will hear from the other witnesses first and then question all of you at one time. I am sure there will be many questions.

Mr. Ray Majerus, United Auto Workers, Milwaukee.

STATEMENT OF RAY MAJERUS, DIRECTOR, REGION 10, UNITED AUTO WORKERS

Mr. MAJERUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee.

I am Ray Majerus, director of region 10 of the International Union, UAW, which includes Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana, representing about 70,000 workers. I welcome this opportunity to testify on the need for Government action to assure full employment in our country.

Congressman Hawkins and Congressman Reuss certainly deserve our very sincere thanks for having worked so hard to promote legislation that focuses on full employment as the key goal of Government economic policy. Furthermore, in developing H.R. 50, they properly recognized that achievement of that goal requires a two-pronged approach: First, a planning mechanism to anticipate future developments and thereby minimize unemployment in the private sector, as well as in the normal employment activity of government at all levels; and second, a public service employment program which would provide jobs for anyone otherwise unemployed.

It is reassuring that the Congress is actively considering this bill and several others which have been developed along similar lines but differ in the details of how they would operate in order to fulfill the full employment promise of the 1946 Employment Act. It is now almost 30 years since that act assisted the economic transition from war to peace. However, we still have not been successful in getting off the roller coaster of high- and low-unemployment rates. Additional steps must be taken to assure work and adequate income for everyone; and the sooner that is done, the better.

expansion of money and credit to encourage balanced economic growth. The Federal Reserve should also be directed to allocate a substantial portion of available credit for such high priority purposes as housing, community facilities and essential capital investment and to curb the flow of credit for such activities as land speculation, inventory boarding, foreign subsidiaries and conglomerate takeovers.

The entire structure of the Federal Reserve System must be changed through such essential actions as a yearly audit by the General Accounting Office, abolition of the banker-dominated Open Market Committee and absorption of its functions by the Board of Governors, reduction of the term of office of the Governors to 7 years and the chairman to 4 years, and extension of membership on the governing bodies and advisory committees of the entire system to representatives of major groups in the economy, including organized labor.

6. Federal financial aid must be provided to State and local governments hard pressed by high unemployment.

7. Federal funds should be made available for a program of restoring railroad track and roadbeds.

8. Long overdue improvements in the outmoded unemployment insurance system should be adopted.

9. A Federal program is essential to continue health insurance for the unemployed who lose their coverage when they lose their jobs. 10. Congress should close the major loopholes in the Federal tax structure, which could raise as much as $20 billion of additional Federal revenue.

11. A comprehensive national energy policy is urgently needed to rapidly reduce dependence on imported oil and to establish U.S. energy independence, without profit bonanzas for the giant international oil companies.

12. The Federal farm program should help hold down food prices to consumers and more fairly distribute farm income support payments. The Nation's agricultural policy must encourage maximum production to redress the lack of balance between domestic supplies and the demand for American farm products at home and abroad. A reasonable payment ceiling should be enforced on income maintenance payments to any farm producer.

Effective export controls on agricultural and other raw material products in short supply should be established and maintained until inflationary shortages are ended and pressures on prices of such products subside. Adequate stockpile reserves of agricultural goods and other raw materials should be maintained. The Federal tax subsidy for export companies should be suspended for the export of commodities in which there are supply problems.

13. A new Reconstruction Finance Corporation-type agency should be established to provide Government loan guarantees and low interest, long-term loans for the preservation and creation of jobs in the private sector, including housing developments, as well as to assist State and local governments.

14. The Congress and the administration should adopt and pursue an international economic policy that will meet the needs of the American people in the world of the final quarter of the 20th century-to stop the export of American jobs and undermining of the Nation's

industrial base, to regulate the export of American technology and capital, to eliminate the tax and other incentives that encourage U.S. companies to establish and expand their operations in foreign countries and to curb the rising tide of imported goods and components that displace U.S. production.