labor movement has been brought for the first time into our foreign operations. Representatives of the movement have sat upon public boards reviewing the performance and qualifications of Foreign Service officers in the light of the new concept of diplomacy and in many other ways have participated in making their activities dynamic. Members of the American Federation of Labor have heard at first hand from trade unionists in other countries about the effectiveness of the work of the labor attachés in representing America abroad. Where we have heard criticism, it has always been directed at the idea that more material or more labor personnel are needed, usually in areas of the world subject to serious Communist infiltration in which there are no specialized labor personnel yet assigned in the Foreign Service. The role that the Department of Labor plays vis-a-vis the ILO is paralleled to some extent in other United Nations bodies where matters that affect labor arise the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, the Status of Women Commission, the Human Rights Commission, and the Social Commission. The American Federation of Labor has regarded the matters discussed in these forums of such importance to American labor that it acquired consultative status with the UN to speak on the kinds of issues which have arisen, yielding this status to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions when the latter came into being. It is important that the Department of Labor be involved in these activities and that personnel in the Department, drawing upon all the Department's technical resources, help to make effective presentations of the American point of view through the channels which these forums afford. In our view even this is not enough to meet the needs at hand. In fact, the American Federation of Labor has indicated to the Secretary of Labor that we regard these forums as of such great importance that we feel that representatives of American labor itself should be placed upon American delegations to, for example, meetings of the General Assembly. The American Federation of Labor has supported the reciprocal trade program. but in doing so we want to see it soundly and carefully administered. The chief bases for protection that have been urged in the United States are the existence of wage differentials between the United States and other countries and the dislocation of employment that would result if tariffs were reduced. We want the facts in these matters judged adequately in the decisionmaking process. We don't want our people subjected to unwarranted serious injury; at the same time we want to reduce tariffs to the maximum where this can safely be done. This area is so important to the interests of American workers that in our view the Secretary of Labor's judgment should be available to the President when basic decisions are made. The Department of Agriculture is intimately involved in the tariff process speaking with respect to the welfare of farmers; the Department of Commerce is intimately involved, speaking with respect to the welfare of businessmen; the Department of Labor should also be involved with respect to the welfare of American labor. Decisions made by the President should be made with full knowledge of the facts concerning competition that may exist from other countries on the basis of standards that might reasonably be called unfair and with full knowledge of the details of the local employment situation that exists in the particular industries involved. The Secretary of Labor should advise the President on these matters and in doing so, of course, he must have an adequate staff. The Department of Labor has been involved in the trade-agreements process since 1947 on what must be considered to be a very minimum basis. The American Federation of Labor and its international unions have an interest in a great many of the particular tariff matters which come before the two interdepartmental committees which administer the trade program, the Interdepartmental Committee on Trade Agreements and the Committee for Reciprocity Information which holds public hearings on the matters involved. It is only since the Department of Labor has been involved in these proceedings that American unions have had official knowledge of contemplated tariff negotiations and have had a department with responsibility in the program to which to present their views and problems, in the same manner that American farmers and American businessmen take their views in these matters to the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce. The details of the negotiating process and the decisions contemplated have always been held close by the Government agencies involved until Presidential decisions have been made; it is precisely because of this, and the fact that American unions have no chance to comment on specific degrees of tariff reduction that are contemplated, that the American unions must have both a forum and a department to which they can present their detailed point of view and obtain detailed information concerning the facts of the employment situation as it is affected by imports in particular cases. In conclusion, I think it would be of interest to the members of the subcommittee to know the position which the American Federation of Labor in con junction with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the Railway Labor Executives, and the United Mine Workers have taken in general on the importance of the Department of Labor's role in international labor affairs. We have made our views known on these matters to the Secretary of Labor and have urged upon him a course of action which would insure that the Department of Labor's role and the use of its technical resources were recognized in all appropriate aspects of the Government's foreign operations. In this connection, we have urged the centralization of activities within the Department of Labor and wherever any duplication may be found to exist among the other agencies, the elimination of the functions involved in the other agencies and their transfer to the Department of Labor. Senator HILL. Next we have the Congress of Industrial Organizations. I note that the witnesses are to be Mrs. Katherine Ellickson, Mr. Milton Plumb, Mr. Harry Pollak, and Mr. Paul Sifton and Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald. Mrs. ELLICKSON. We also have Mr. Montgomery, who is not listed. Senator HILL. Will you come forward, too, Mr. Montgomery? CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS STATEMENT OF KATHERINE ELLICKSON, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH GENERAL STATEMENT Senator HILL. All right, Mrs. Ellickson. Are you first? I am appearing with the other CIO representatives because of the deep concern of the many programs covered by these appropriations. Senator HILL. Have you filed your statement for the record? Mrs. ELLICKSON. Yes. And we would like to have all these statements included in full. Mr. Victor Reuther could not be here today, but he would like to have a statement presented on behalf of the Office of International Labor Affairs. Senator HILL. All right, we will have all those appear in full in the record. Mrs. ELLICKSON. We appreciate that. We favor adequate appropriations in this field, and we think we know you would undoubtedly wish to vote these sums if it could be shown that the money spent would be recaptured by the committee, and we think this is an extremely important point. Now, we have attempted some crude calculations of our own in this matter. As you may know, this is done by life insurance companies. There is an interesting publication by Mr. Dublin, of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., on the money value of a man. We believe that it is appropriate that your committee should ask either the Department of Labor or the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, to develop estimates for you which will show how much the Nation loses for each life that is crippled or cut short by such items as industrial accidents, preventable disease, and so on, because we think a case can be made for the fact that human life is not only something of infinite value in itself, but, in addition to that, it has an actual, cold-cash value which is recognized by the insurance companies, which is allocated by the cost when they give money for damages, and this should be available to your committee. We suggest that you allocate at least $500,000 for the development of such data for your committee. GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT PER PERSON Now, to give you some crude estimates of our own. The gross national product of this country, if divided by those gainfully employed in the first quarter, came to $5,800 per person. The net amount con sumed by each person was about $1,400 based on personal consumption expenditures. So that the net gain in the country for each person gainfully employed, is about $4,400. Now, these are crude estimates. But even if you cut this in half, the value of each gainfully employed person would be over $2,000 a year. Now, for each person who is killed prematurely so his working life, say, is cut off by 20 years, the Nation loses something like $50,000 or a $100,000 depending how you evaluate it. In the same way, for each child who, because of bad environmental conditions of poor health, is crippled and becomes a burden on the community, instead of being a productive person, the Nation loses between $50,000 and $100,000. We think this is a method of approach to these problems of appropriation that should be considered, because the needs are so vast, and we see our members being crippled unnecessarily each year. We know our kids have great difficulty getting the help they need when some of them start going wrong, and we think that this simply should be stopped by an adequate expenditure. HOSPITAL CONSTRUCTION FUNDS In the field of health, the same thing applies, and we know your tremendous interest in health, and we believe that the total amount authorized for hospital construction, namely, the $150 million, should be appropriated, in addition to other sums for the homes for the aged, the chronically ill, and so on. We think that if the Federal Government will show its interest in having adequate sums available to the States, the States will more rapidly expand their programs. And we don't go along with the approach that you should not appropriate the money because maybe it won't be spent. If it is not spent it is still there, but at least you will be giving leadership to the formulation of an adequate program. MEDICAL RESEARCH And what I am saying goes not only for hospital construction but for medical research. We believe that the amounts recommended for research in the field of health and passed by the House, although the House increased some of the amounts and cut some other parts of the health program, we feel those two need to be increased. And as a goal to shoot at, we think it would be well to adopt the recommendations of the advisory council, which told the Public Health Service they thought more should be spent for mental research, for cancer, and so on. Senator HILL. We had representatives of those councils here with us. In fact, we spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday both with representatives of the councils. Mrs. ELLICKSON. Our members back the importance of research in preventive work that will stop the disease and avoid these tremendous costs. We also favor the full amount for the Public Health Service hospitals, including those for merchant seamen, which were recommended by the administration. MEDICAL NEEDS OF AGED In the field of the aged, we have a suggestion that the medical needs of the aged require and deserve special attention, and we would suggest it would be worth while for your committee to recommend that special money be put into this problem because not enough is known about it. GRANTS TO STATES In the case of the grants to the States by the Public Health Service, we believe that more should be available for making known the value of putting fluoride in water, and we urge especially that you designate certain amounts for expanding work in the field of occupational disease. The work in this field has been reduced rather than expanded, and, of course, this is of great interest to our members. We believe that the people of the Nation will enthusiastically support increased amounts for health now, because the recent developments have focused public opinion on what can be done, and they have shown their interest. Before I leave the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, I want to say that the fact we have picked out these particular items does not mean that we are not interested in other phases, such as increases in the Office of Education, Indian health, and so on. Montgomery will deal with the important problem of the Children's Bureau. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR FUNDS Mr. In regard to the Department of Labor, we believe that the Department should have more adequate sums, and we also believe it would be helpful if your committee recommended that the Department devote itself to the purposes for which it was created. We are not too happy about some of the developments in the Deparment, but we feel that its work is valuable, and it should have more adequate appropriations. Mr. Sifton will deal with the matter of the crying need for more money for the Wage and Hour Division, and Mr. Plumb, with the Farm Placement Service. In connection with the Bureau of Employment Security, we think there should be adequate financing both for the Federal Bureau and for the State agencies, and this would require increases over what the Hill has voted. In particular, we recommend that you ask that the Bureau of Employment Security and the Secretary of Labor make full use of the advisory council machinery, which is required by the WagnerPeyser Act, creating the unemployment service, just as the HillBurton Act includes provision for a national advisory council, and as these advisory councils function in the Public Health Service, the statutory provision for a Federal Council on Employment Security. This has been hampered by lack of funds, and the States have not carried out the mandate of the Wagner-Peyser Act, so that they should have similar tripartite advisory councils. We feel a program of this kind, vital to management and labor and the public, should continually receive advice from all three groups at the Federal and State levels and that the bureaus and the State agencies should use these advisory councils in developing their programs. This is done to some extent, and I do not mean to imply none of the States do it; many of them do. But that needs to be improved. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS In connection with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we include in the statement a quotation from Secretary-Treasurer Carey on how the Bureau has suffered. It has the smallest regular staff in 12 years, under 900 people. We support the increases in appropriations that have been recommended. Especially we are interested in the work for additional wage surveys and studies in the field of workmen's compensation and industrial injury. We believe the Bureau of Labor Standards should certainly be given more money in regard to the employment of youth, migrant labor and workmen's compensation, as well as other forms of labor legislation. WOMEN'S BUREAU In regard to the Women's Bureau, we think the work should be increased, but on condition that the Bureau resume its former emphasis of carrying out its responsibility in regard to wage-earning women. There has been an unfortunate trend away from emphasis on the problems of the women in industry, for which the Bureau was originally created. Like our Government workers' union, the CIO strongly opposes the unfair and unrealistic Taber amendment in regard to unemployment insurance for Federal workers, and we hope to have the full amount voted for the Office of International Labor Affairs. Senator HILL. Thank you very, very much. Who is your next witness? Mrs. ELLICKSON. Mr. Montgomery. PREPARED STATEMENTS Senator HILL. Before we proceed with Mr. Montgomery we will place in the record at this point all the statements which you have submitted to us for the record, Mrs. Ellickson. That includes your statement, the statement of Mr. Victor Reuther, Mr. Milton Plum, Mr. Paul Sifton, Mr. Fitzgerald, and also Mr. Montgomery's prepared statement. (The statements referred to follow :) STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS BY MRS. KATHERINE ELLICKSON, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, CIO, ON APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR AND HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE My name is Mrs. Katherine Ellickson, and I am associate director of research of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and executive secretary of its social security committee. I am appearing on behalf of the CIO, together with other representatives from the CIO headquarters and our affiliated unions, who will deal with items with which they are especially concerned. We appreciate this opportunity of presenting our views on appropriations. The provision of adequate sums for enforcement of laws, for research, for education, and for many types of service is crucial to the effective functioning of |