The Houston convention of the American Federation of Labor went on record, without a dissenting vote, for the repeal of the Knowland amendment to the Social Security Act Amendments of 1950, and for the improvement of our Federal-State unemployment-insurance system, by the passage of H. R. 8059. The report of the executive council to the convention also fully endorsed the provisions of this bill. The representatives of the Federal Government employees' unions, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, will speak for themselves, but I know that they are in favor of that portion of the bill dealing with unemployment insurance coverage of Federal civilian workers, as well as its other clauses. The American Federation of Labor has long been cognizant of the inadequacies of our Federal-State unemployment-insurance laws, and we urge you to report favorably this bill. We have, in our opinion, good reasons for urging you to take such favorable action.

The report of the executive council of the American Federation of Labor to the Houston convention last September specifically referred to the provisions of this bill. I want to consider them with you.

There is first the question of the extension of coverage. I do not believe it is necessary to dwell at length on the proposal to extend coverage to employers of one or more workers at any time by Federal statute. I wish to emphasize the point, by Federal statute, instead of waiting for the individual States to cover the small employer. We have waited and waited for years for the States to act, but only a handful of States have acted to protect our members against the ravages of unemployment, if they happened to work for a small firm. Our members do not understand this discrimination against them, if they work for a small employer, in the vast majority of States. Unemployment is unemployment, whether a man formerly worked for a large or a small employer. The unemployed worker ought to be protected by unemployment insurance because he needs it. And, if he needs it and is being denied such protection because the States have failed to act, then Congress must step into the picture and remedy the situation. This bill offers such a remedy by requiring the States to include all employers of one or more workers in all covered industries. We most strongly favor this part of the bill.

We are not satisfied with the limitations of this bill in the matter of coverage. We do not find any provision for covering agricultural workers. We of the American Federation of Labor have long felt that the agricultural workers, who need unemployment-insurance protection the most, should be covered under the program. The States have done absolutely nothing in this regard.

We know there are the so-called administrative difficulties in covering farm workers, but we have had about a dozen years now to perfect the State employment-security agencies and to learn how to handle administrative problems. We have had over 10 years to study the problem of extending coverage of the system to agricultural workers, and it is high time that we took some action, now, instead of waiting another 10 years.

I am happy to note that Public Law 734, the Social Security Act Amendments of 1950, has at long last broken the ice and covers the year-round or regularly employed farm workers for old-age and survivors insurance. That is, however, only a beginning, and we are glad to see it, although it is very inadequate. However, in the case

of unemployment insurance, there isn't even a beginning, for there is nothing in this bill for the agricultural workers. We would like to see you include a provision for coverage of farm workers.

This bill does cover the so-called border-line agricultural workers, who should have have been excluded by the congressional act of 1939, which defined agricultural labor in such a way as to take out commercialized and industrialized workers, and who never were agricultural workers. These border-line agricultural workers are not farm laborers at all. We also do not see any justification for excluding some borderline workers, such as those working on gum naval stores, in cotton gins, or on ditches, from Public Law 734, or from this bill before you. They are no different from other border-line agricultural workers.

As I stated at the outset, the representatives of the Federal Government employees' unions will speak on behalf of coverage of Federal workers. I merely wish to point out that the American Federation of Labor is behind our affiliated unions in their stand in this matter.

The American Federation of Labor has gone on record for unemployment-insurance coverage of many of the excluded groups, not included in this bill, but I do not wish to make this statement overlong by going into coverage extension in too-great detail. I would like to say, however, that we favor the inclusion of Puerto Rico in the Federal-State unemployment-insurance system. I know that the island will have to pay its own way according to this bill, but if the people of Puerto Rico want to be included they should be given the opportunity.

In the matter of taxable wages and tips, we are most heartily in favor of the figure of $4,800 or more, instead of $3,000 or $3,600, and we support the inclusion of tips as part of wages.

You gentlemen know that the American Federation of Labor has been as close to social-security legislation as almost any single piece of legislation, Federal or State. We were on the ground floor, as it were, in 1934 and 1935, and we have been stanch supporters of unemployment-insurance laws ever since. Our members are on the Federal Advisory Council and State advisory councils. At the annual convention of the American Federation of Labor, at the conventions of our international unions, and at the conventions of our State federations of labor, one of the major subjects discussed is socialsecurity legislation, including, of course, unemployment insurance. I do not need to tell you, therefore, that the question of unemploymentinsurance benefits, the amount and duration thereof, and the matter of disqualifications, are all of the utmost importance to the workers.

We are not satisfied with the pitiful sums which are paid out as unemployment-insurance benefits in some of the States. We have long maintained that weekly benefits should average about 60 percent of wages. An unemployed worker needs at least 60 percent of his wage to get by; to exist. And yet, what do we find the States paying today? Some are still paying a maximum of only $15 a week, or of $20 a week. That condition is unfair; it ought not to be tolerated.

Certainly some of the States have made progress, but the differences are too glaring, gentlemen. Workers are justly impatient with the differences between the States, and with the terribly long time it takes to get the backward States to increase the benefit amount. Of course, there ought to be a maximum benefit amount, but let that maximum have some realistic relation to existing wage levels, not wage levels of

years ago. If a man is earning $60 a week, which is less than the average for all manufacturing along today, 60 percent would be $36 a week. With the cost of living what it is today, there will be plenty of incentive to seek work, if benefit amounts are raised to a reasonable percentage of wages earned while working. Because the States have not acted, because of the differences between the States, and because of the time it takes to get the States to act, it is necessary for the Congress to fix a minimum standard for all States on benefits.

We support the minimum standard adopted in this bill calling for a duration of weekly benefits of at least 26 weeks, uniform for all beneficiaries. A worker who is unemployed should be assisted for a reasonable period, while looking for work, on the basis of his needs to live, and not on the basis of his earnings or his past employment, or any other such condition. He needs the unemployment-insurance benefit and is entitled to it for at least 26 weeks. This unemploymentinsurance system was not set up to help only those who had the highest earnings and the longest employment and, therefore, to get the maximum duration of benefits; it was established to help all the unemployed as long as possible. There is no magic in 26 weeks, but we accept that duration at this time as reasonable; but it should apply to all who are unemployed through no fault of their own. Because the States have not acted to insure this minimum duration of benefits, because the States vary so much, it is necessary for Congress to set up a standard in this regard, which we strongly endorse.

Now I come to a very sore point, the question of disqualification provisions of our State laws. If there is anything which has aroused the ire of our workers, it is the intolerable disqualifications in some of our State laws, and the abuses of administrative officers as well, in the matter of disqualifications. The employers have horned into this thing; they have secured reductions in taxes through experience rating to a point where many of them pay practically nothing and, further, in many of the States, the employers have taken over the unemployment-insurance system. The administrators in some States have adopted their point of view.

Unemployment insurance was established to pay the unemployed benefits, it must be emphasized and reemphasized. Instead of a willingness on the part of State agencies to pay benefits to the unemployed, there is a tendency, which is influenced by employer pressure, to deny benefits, and to make a record of it, to cut down benefits, to apply disqualifications, which abolish rights to benefits, even for the entire period of unemployment. As you know, we have little use for experience rating, but one of its worst aspects is the pressure on State agencies to deny benefits, to cut down benefits.

Some of the legislatures of the States have gone hog-wild, in many instances, by the disqualification provisions which they have put into State laws. We of the American Federation of Labor are most emphatically opposed to this whole vicious business, from start to finish. We want an honest unemployment-insurance system, administered by people who are interested in the welfare of the unemployed, unemployed through no fault of their own, and not in trying to save money at the expense of the workers, or catering to employers and their experience rating to the detriment of workers' rights.

So far as disqualifications are concerned, we want them reduced; we want the restrictions modified; we want some completely abolished.

In no case ought there be a disqualification lasting for more than 4 weeks, except for fraud. I cannot go into the many kinds of disqualifications, but I know how the workers feel in this matter. I cannot go into the details of cases involving disqualifications, in connection with quitting a job, refusing to take a job offered, or being sacked on a job, but I can tell you, gentlemen, that it is a shame and an outrage to see the vicious penalties imposed on helpless workers. When they are unemployed, they are least able to take it, and they get it then in the worst way, by having their rights reduced or entirely eliminated. For weeks and weeks they are on a blacklist. Workers resent this sort of thing bitterly and especially from an agency that was supposed to help and protect them against the ravages of unemployment. So far as the bill before you is concerned, we favor reducing the period of disqualification to 4 weeks, in accordance with action taken at conventions of the American Federation of Labor. That is punishment enough, in cases which call for any disqualification. But there are plenty of cases which do not call for any disqualification. The States are disqualifying, by their laws or decisions, when there ought never to be a disqualification. This bill corrects that situation.

There certainly ought not to be a disqualification when an employer locks out his workers. The unemployment caused in such cases is not the fault of the workers. And there are numerous instances where employers take advantage of the labor dispute provision by lock-outs. This bill remedies that situation and it also limits in other ways the disqualification of workers because of labor disputes.

The American Federation of Labor, as you undoubtedly know, fought the Knowland amendment to Public Law 734, the socialsecurity amendments of 1950, tooth and nail. We lost that battle, but we have not given up the fight. We shall never give up that fight, for a vital principle is at stake. When the Social Security Act was first enacted in 1935, it contained certain safeguards for the workers and their organizations. The law put the responsibility for the preservation of those safeguards in the hands of a Federal agency-at this time, the Department of Labor-in charge of Federal administration of the law. The effect of the Knowland amendment, no matter how anyone may try to explain it away, is to undermine the protection afforded the workers and their organizations by the safeguards incorporated in the Federal law. The recourse to State court action is a device to hamstring the Secretary of Labor, in plain everyday language. We want his hands untied, his hands free to carry out the intent of the Federal law.

During times like these, when labor is called on to back our country and all it stands for, 100 percent, it is a disservice to the Nation, I say it advisedly, a disservice to our Nation, to pass such an infamous piece of legislation as the Knowland amendment and force it down the throats of labor. Of course, its proponents say that they mean well and that they do not intend to hurt labor, but we know them by their deeds, not their words or protestations. And they will never convince labor that they are not trying to undermine labor standards in the States. The labor movement has had plenty of experience with the courts and recognizes that recourse to the courts is a means of attacking labor, of postponing benefits to workers who are unemployed, of refusing benefits to workers who are unemployed, and of destroying labor standards.

And so we say, in the sharpest language we can use before you, let's put an end to the Knowland amendment by repealing it. Let's put away our animosities toward one another, and let's face up to the critical situation before us, where employer and worker alike are at the zero hour before a common enemy. We cannot afford the peacetime luxury-if we ever really could-of cutting each others' throats. We need unity today more desperately than ever before. Let's get rid of the Knowland amendment as an indication of congressional awareness of the common need at a time of mortal danger.

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The American Federation of Labor is in complete sympathy with the provisions of this bill, which would provide for reinsurance grants to States which need them. It is only common sense to look ahead, despite the prevailing high employment, to days like those in 1949 when State agencies were using up their reserves. A reinsurance grant would provide help to the weaker States in time of need. money would come out of the contributions for unemployment insurance solely, and would be used by the States which needed and could use help at critical times. Some of the State administrators are unduly suspicious of anything in the way of Federal legislation in this field. They are no longer capable of judging an issue or a proposal on its own merits. There is a. Federal-State unemploymentinsurance system in existence and, if past events are any guide, that system will continue for many a year in the future.

We of the American Federation of Labor are realists. We work in the States for improvements in the unemployment-insurance laws, but we also work for improvements in the Federal statute on unemployment insurance. And it is high time, indeed, that the standards provided in this bill are adopted, and no State administrator need be alarmed. If some of the State administration people were more concerned about the workers, and especially the unemployed workers, instead of other things, it would be a much healthier situation than that which exists at the present time. They ought to be pushing for the passage of this bill if they were solely interested in the welfare of the unemployed man and woman in need of their cooperation and aid, for which they are being paid by the taxpayers, among whom are the workers.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. FORAND. Does that complete your statement, Mr. Calvin? Mr. CALVIN. Yes; that completes my statement.

Mr. FORAND. Are there any questions?

Mr. MASON. Yes, indeed, Mr. Chairman; I have a few questions. Mr. FORAND. Mr. Mason.

Mr. MASON. On your first page in the second paragraph there is a quotation from resolutions that were adopted at a certain meeting of the American Federation of Labor, and it is a general indictment of the State legislatures for not having corrected the many deficiencies that you see in our unemployment-compensation law. That is a general indictment. Can you be more specific and state wherein these States have failed to correct the inefficiencies and inequalities in this unemployment-insurance program?

Mr. CALVIN. Well, many of the States, Mr. Congressman, as I have read from my prepared statement, are paying benefits which are totally inadequate. For instance, my residence has been in the