3. Except as herein modified or amended the Agreement shall continue in full force and effect. In witness whereof the parties hereto have caused this Supplemental Agree ment to be executed by their duly authorized agents upon the date first above written. INTER-BOROUGH LAUNDRY BOARD OF TRADE, INC. By LOUIS H. SOLOMON. INDEPENDENT LAUNDRY DRIVERS UNION LOCAL 324, AMALGATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA, By MURRAY M. GASSMA. SAMUEL MORETZKY, Witness Witness CERTIFICATE OF AUTHORIZATION The undersigned members of Inter-Borough Laundry Board of Trade, Inc., hereby reaffirm that they are parties to and are bound by the collective-bargaining agreement between the said Association and Independent Laundry Drivers Union Local 324 of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America dated Mav 1, 1946, and by the supplements thereto dated May 1, 1946, and June 19, 1947 Each of the undersigned has authorized Louis H. Solomon to execute on their behalf a further supplemental agreement dated December 26, 1947, supplemental to the said collective-bargaining agreement dated May 1, 1946, and dealing with the matter of prices to be charged by Agent Drivers. Each of the undersigned hereby agrees to be bound by the terms of said further supplemental agreement dated December 26, 1947, with the same force and effect (whether or not the undersigned remains a member of the Association) as if the same were executed by each of the undersigned individually. (Signed by members of Inter-Borough Laundry Board of Trade, Inc.) CERTIFICATION OF AUTHORIZATION The undersigned members of INTER-BOROUGH LAUNDRY BOARD OF TRADE, INC., hereby reaffirm that they are parties to and are bound by the collective-bargaining agreement between the said Association and INDEPENDENT LAUNDRY DRIVERS UNION LOCAL 324 of the AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA dated May 1, 1946, and by the supplements thereto dated May 1, 1946, and June 19, 1947. Each of the undersigned has authorized Louis H. Solomon to execute on their behalf a further supplemental agreement dated December 26, 1947, supplemental to the said collective-bargaining agreement dated May 1, 1946, and dealing with the matter of prices to be charged by Agent Drivers. Each of the undersigned hereby agrees to be bound by the terms of said further supplemental agreement dated December 26, 1947, with the same force and effect (whether or not the undersigned remains a member of the Association) as if the same were executed by each of the undersigned individually. BON LAUNDRY SERVICE, INC., PIONEER LAUNDRY SERVICE CORP., DAVID FORMAN, Treasurer. LUNA LAUNDRY CO., INC., LEO BERLIN, Secretary. RESOLUTION ON SOCIAL SECURITY (Adopted by CIO Executive Board, February 15, 1950) CIO affiliates, through their collective-bargaining efforts, have continued to make notable advances in obtaining social-security protection. This progress not only aids those directly involved but gives a tremendous impetus to the passage of adequate social-security laws. The entire Nation is indebted to the strikers in steel, auto, and other industries who through their sacrifices have contributed so much to the cause of economic security. We must not relax our efforts. Very substantial improvements must still be made before we achieve our goal of adequate social-insurance protection for all Americans. The CIO Committee on Social Security has been developing detailed legislative proposals to carry out the resolutions adopted at our recent convention. These deal with four main branches of social security: Old age, survivors, and disability insurance; public assistance; unemployment insurance and employment offices; and a national health program, including health insurance. We strongly urge all affiliated unions and industrial union councils to place social-security improvement No. 1 on their legislative-action program. All of our combined strength should be directed toward an informed membership who can express the urgency of the need of across-the-board improvement to their respective Congressmen. OLD AGE, SURVIVORS, AND DISABILITY INSURANCE The CIO position will be presented in a few weeks before the Senate Finance Committee, which is now holding hearings on H. R. 6000, the bill passed by the House last session. We support universal coverage, which is indispensable to proper protection for all aged citizens. As a minimum immediate step, we believe that benefits should be more than doubled in line with the specific proposals of the CIO Committee for Social Security. The permissive retirement age for women should be reduced to 60. The program for total and permanent disability insurance now in H. R. 6000 must be retained and should be improved. The national system for temporary disability insurance outlined in the administration bill in the House should be enacted. PUBLIC ASSISTANCE This phase of social security likewise requires substantial improvement beyond the provisions of H. R. 6000. No matter how much better we make social-insurance laws, many Americans will have to rely on public aid on the basis of need to help them in emergencies. This last resort must be adequate to help all needy persons, not just the aged, the blind, and dependent children, as at present. H. R. 6000 should be amended to provide Federal matching grants for general relief also. The grants should be adjusted to the financial requirements of the States. Dependent children should be aided on as liberal a basis as other groups. Federal standards should be strengthened to reduce residence requirements and secure other improvements. UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE AND EMPLOYMENT OFFICES We commend the plans of the Committee on Social Security to introduce a bill for a national system of unemployment insurance and employment offices with adequate benefits for all wage earners. We urge the House Ways and Means Committee to give immediate consideration to this proposal as well as to other bills aimed at patchwork improvement in the Federal-State system. With unemployment now close to 5,000,000, Congress must make plans to replace the insufficient protection written into State laws. Benefits must be raised substantially and duration extended so that able-bodied men and women who cannot find jobs are not abandoned to public or private charity. The program for Federal standards again recommended by President Truman would b a valuable interim step. It should be accompanied by reinsurance grants to Stutes whose funds are funning low and by adequate appropriations for the Federal and State employment-security agencies. HEALTH INSURANCE AND THE NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM We deeply regret the continued failure of the organized doctors to support any legislation to make essential medical services available to all Americans. Highpaid press agents have fanned the doctors' fears of Government action through misstatement of facts and distortions. The American Medical Association, through its board of trustees, has even reversed its previous support for permanent- and total-disability insurance. Bills that would give Federal funds to train more doctors and other medical personnel and to expand local public health services and medical research still are tied up in congressional committees. We urge immediate passage of such measures. We also urge as rapid action as possible toward the establishment of a national system of health insurance to cover the costs of medical care on an efficient, unified basis for all Americans. RESOLUTION No. 15 OLD-AGE, SURVIVORS, AND DISABILITY INSURANCE AND PUBLIC ASSISTANCE The drive of affiliated CIO unions for pensions, health and other social-security provisions has roused Congress from 14 years of inaction. Today it seems possible that the provisions of the Social Security Act, which were admittedly inadequate when enacted in 1935 and are now a mockery of social security, may be modernized to meet in some degree the needs of old people, the dependent, the sick, the disabled and the unemployed. We are proud of the fact that our unions, by making social security the No. 1 item in their 1949 collective-bargaining demands, have forced congressional committees to take social security out of moth balls and put it high on the legislative calendar for the second session of the Eighty-first Congress. We welcome the support of those who are now campaigning for improvement of the Government social-security programs, even though they err in representing our collective-bargaining demands as an alternative to extension and improvement of the Government programs. They are mistaken in charging that our demands are in any sense competitive with or alternatives for Government programs. They are not. They are and will continue to be a necessary supplement to the Government program. We reaffirm our belief in and support for comprehensive National Government programs of social security that, by coverage for all families and pooling of risk, can give maximum protection at the least expense. Likewise, we reaffirm our belief and support for our collective bargaining for pensions and social security. We propose to the American people that they join in a great crusade to end the double standard whereby Workers who have invested their lives in building our industrial supremacy receive average pensions of slightly more than $300 a year, whileManagement executives receive pensions from $25,000 to $77,000 a year (usually under noncontributory plans that are said to be morally debilitating when proposed for wage earners), and Members of Congress may receive pensions of more than $8,000 a year. This is morally wrong, economically and socially destructive. It is part of the boom-and-bust philosophy of the twenties that has been repudiated in five successive Presidential elections. The 14 years of inaction and procrastination by Congress are shameful. Oldage and survivors insurance contributions by workers and employers will rise from 1 percent to 1% percent of wages on January 1, 1950, but Congress has not yet acted to increase OAS benefits above the present average of $25 a month, which is less than half the amounts paid by some States as public assistance to needy persons qualifying under the hateful means test. H. R. 6000, which the House passed shortly before adjournment, is a step in the right direction. It covers 11,000,000 people under old-age and survivors insurance and increases benefits by close to 100 percent for low-paid workers and by about 50 percent for better-paid workers. H. R. 6000 also launches a new system of permanent- and total-disability insurance and brings various improvements in public assistance. The Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee all signed a minority report which was less liberal and which was translated into a bill offered as a substitute. The overwhelming final vote for H. R. 6000 was partly the result of our collective-bargaining efforts which demonstrated the determination of American wage earners to achieve security. The bill's passage was a defeat for the insurance companies which had vigorously fought genuine improvements. Regrettably, the insurance companies' lobby did influence some members of the committee and thus watered down the administration's proposals quite drastically. The Senate Finance Committee has not considered social security at this session, although its advisory council last year recommended many improvements, some of which go beyond the House version. Only a few members of the Senate Finance Committee have in the past voted for measures favored by organized labor. The most vigorous kind of public pressure must be organized in order to secure favorable and prompt action by this committee and the Senate. Although the CIO favored passage of H. R. 6000, despite its inadequacies, we had urged in hearings that the committee support the administration bill, which would have doubled insurance benefits on the average, extended coverage to nearly all Americans, and added a national system of temporary- as well as permanent-disability insurance. We also favored extensive improvements in public assistance, including Federal grants to States for general assistance for all types of persons in need. This proposal was rejected by the House committee. The present social-security law is so out of date that even the substantial advances in H. R. 6000 would leave many gaps and inadequacies. Our State industrial-union councils have made vigorous efforts to improve State laws on workmen's compensation, unemployment compensation, and public assistance. In a handful of States temporary-disability laws have been passed, most of which are wholly unsatisfactory. Fifty-one separate State systems of social insurance are highly confusing. In many States underrepresentation of industrial areas in their legislatures makes it difficult to secure good laws, especially since insurance companies and other conservative forces constantly marshal their efforts to defeat us. Such separate State systems are wasteful and cannot adequately protect our many members who move from State to State. CIO workers have a profound interest in social insurance. A sound national system is vitally necessary and long overdue. If well planned and well administered, the social-security system will in itself help avoid economic ups and downs: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, The Congress of Industrial Organizations reaffirms our desire for a unified comprehensive national social-insurance system, with universal coverage and adequate benefits, giving protection against the hazards of old-age survivorship, permanent and temporary disability, sickness, industrial accidents, and unemployment, geared in with a national employment service and other positive programs to minimize such hazards. We urge Congress, at its coming session, to revise the social-security system more liberally than is done by H. R. 6000 through adopting the following provisions: (a) Universal coverage. (b) Relating benefits to earnings in the best five consecutive years, liberalizing the formula, restoring the full 1-percent annual increment, and raising the wage base ceiling to $4,800. (c) Providing specifically for contributions from the general revenues so as to avoid undue piling up of pay-roll taxes. (d) Inclusion of temporary- and partial- as well as total- and permanent-disability insurance with dependents' benefits to help provide adequate levels for families. (e) In connection with the public-assistance program, the addition of Federal grants to the States for general assistance to all types of needy persons, with more liberal matching provisions for the poorer States and no ceilings; and Federal standards to see that needs are met and residence requirements and liens on property are removed. We urge the National Government to continue seeking to develop additional methods for more adequate provisions for older persons who have not reached the retirement age but cannot find good jobs, or who have passed the retirement age but do not have social-insurance protection. We call upon our affiliates to renew their efforts to achieve adequate social security both through collective bargaining and through legislation on the National and State levels. In connection with State legislation, we urge action to improve State laws on workmen's compensation, and pending development of a national social-insurance system, public assistance, unemployment compensation, and temporary-disability insurance along the lines recommended by the CIO. RESOLUTION No. 17 UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE AND THE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT SERVICE Unemployment insurance, together with other New Deal measures such as Federal insurance of bank deposits, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, helped to prevent the 1949 recession from becoming a full-scale depression. The more than 2.5 billion dollars in benefits paid out in the past year contributed to purchasing power at a time when wage payments were shrinking. But the dangerous weaknesses of the present inadequate and discriminatory Federal-State crazy quilt of unemployment insurance and public employment services have been high lighted during the latest test of the system: Benefits are too low, averaging only one-third of weekly earnings. This is because of low maximums set by State laws. Duration of benefits is too limited. One-third of all claimants exhaust their rights under present laws before they find new jobs. Disqualif.cations, based on discriminatory laws and rulings, deprive many thousands of workers of benefits to which they should be entitled. Workers employed in more than one State lose their rights partly or completely. At the same time, inefficient and discriminatory placement work by State employment services harms both workers and State unemployment insurance trust funds. Reactionary forces have seized upon the 51 State systems as an excuse and means for fighting progress. They have used experience rating to reduce their taxes in good times so that in some States funds may prove inadequate even under poor benefit provisions. The employment service, too, has suffered through the artificial erection of State barriers across labor markets and because of the necessity of supporting 51 separate systems to carry out the same program. Congressional appropriations have failed to finance adequate functioning of either Federal or State employment security agencies, a situation which has been seized upon as an argument for bills to undermine already weak Federal controls. The Interstate Conference of Employment Security Agencies, composed of State administrators of unemployment insurance, has lobbied at taxpayers' expense for legislation undermining a sound system out of funds provided by Congress. The interstate conference has in other ways taken over functions that should properly be performed by the Federal Bureau of Employment Security. Recognizing the need for basic improvements in our present unemployment compensation system, President Truman recommended in his midyear economic report that Congress establish minimum benefit standards for all parts of the country, providing "benefits for 26 weeks ranging up to $30 a week for single individuals with additional amounts for dependents." Although a bill to provide such Federal minimum standards was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman King, no hearings were held on it, nor on another proposal for providing Federal funds to pay benefits for more than 26 weeks in States suffering severe unemployment. The transfer of the Bureau of Employment Security to the Labor Department is only a first step which must be reinforced by improved laws and adequate appropriations: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Congress of Industrial Organizations reaffirms its belief that only a national system of unemployment insurance, geared in with a national employment service and a unified national social insurance system, can properly discharge the responsibility of the National Government to deal adequately with the national problems of unemployment, arising from Nation-wide corporations, competitive areas, and labor markets. That we support, as a preliminary step in the right direction, President Truman's proposal for national minimum benefit standards, realizing, however, that such standards cannot really give assurance of proper performance, as for example in rulings on suitable work disqualifications, and cannot overcome inherent difficulties in relying on separate State laws, such as uneconomically small areas for pooling risks, confusion, waste, and insufficient protection for people who work in more than one State. That we favor as an interim measure immediate provision of benefits up to 52 weeks in a calendar year out of Federal funds, provided States meet certain minimum benefits standards. That we believe the Federal Government has a basic responsibility in times of mass unemployment to provide adequate payments to the unemployed as a matter of right so long as necessary if sufficient jobs cannot be provided, in order that family needs are met and purchasing power is maintained. That we oppose proposals for making workers bear part of the cost of unemployment insurance through pay-roll taxes as intolerable under the present inefficient Federal-State system and inconsistent with our objective under a unified social |