Evening star., 1933-06-20
Johnson Announces Federal
Hands-0ff Policy in Out
lining Plans.
u. S. NOT TO ATTEMPT
TO PRESCRIBE CODES
Textile Industry Presents Trade
Agreement to Boost Wages
and Shorten Hours.

The basic principles which will guide
the Federal Industrial Control Admin
istration In consideration of codes of
fair competition were announced today
by the administrator, Gen. Hugh S.
johnson, a short time after he had re-
ceived the first trade agreement drawn
up by the cotton textile industry, tn
which it seeks to check its long standing
internal war by boosting wages and
shortening the work week in mills
throughout the country.
A bulletin outlining the principles
emphasized the fact that the initiative
in the recovery program rests upon in
dustry itself, and that "it is not the
function OF the national recovery ad-
min1Stration to prescribe what shall be
the codes or to compel the organi-
zation of either industry or labor.
Subject TO Approval.
Basic codes containing provisions
respecting maximum hours of labor,
minimum rates of pay and conditions
OF employment, which are in themselves
satisfactory, will be subject to approval,
although such conditions may not have
been arrived at by collective bar
gaining"
In the bulletin, Gen. johnson invited
the immediate submission of simple
basic codes by 10 of the largest indus
tries-coaI, oil, lumber, textiles. iron
and steel, leather, chemicals and drugs,
automobiles, meat packing and rub
Der. The codes are to cover "only such
agreements" as meet at once the three
objectives Of the national recovery act,
namely, maximum hours Of labor, min
1mum rates OF wages, and such means
as each industry may find necessary to
protect its constructive and co-opera-
tive majority from the wasteful and
unfair competition Of minorities or re-
Proposals Sought.
The basic codes, according to the
bulletin, should propose an average
work week, designed so far as possible
to provide for such q spread Of em-
ployment as will provide work for em-
ployes normally attached to the par
ticular industry"
Likewise, 1t was said, codes should
propose o minimum wage scale "sufl-
cfent in fact to provide . decent stand
ard OF living In the locality Ia which the
workers reside"
Broad protection for the interests of
the public as consumers is assured by
specific provision for representation at
all hearings to the end that the effect
Of increased money wages shall not be
Gen. johnson asserted
Shortly after the board started func-
tioning officially, the cotton textile in
dustry filed the first trade agreement
under specifications drawn up in the
recovery act and Gen. john
son Immediately set June 27 as the
date for a public hearing Of all phases
Of the proposed code.
Hard hit In the past few years by
failure Of its members to agree on time
operations Of their mills, the industry
Informed the industrial administrator
That 1t was now willing to operate on a
40-hour week with a minimum wage
scale of $40 week in the South and
S11 in the East.
Work Schedule Reduced.
It was outlined in the code that the
a0-hour week would be reduction Of
20 per cent from the present schedule,
and the fixing Of the minimum wage
scales at $40 and $11 brings about an
Increase of 80 per cent In pay roll
The code was presented by a commit
ZEE composed Of George A. Sloan, T. M.
Marchant and Ernest N. Hood. The
'roup In letter to the industrial ad-
said the code was accept
able to cotton textile mills owning more
han two-thirds of the spindles and
ooms in the country.
Staff Named.
Meantime he made public today the
ist OF national known economists and
business and labor leaders
f1cially named to occupy key positions
n the organization. Those named are
re follows:
Assistant for industry-Dudley Gates
4 Chicago, vice president of Marsh g.
dcLennan, insurance; attended Univer-
ity of California and engaged In bank
ng In San Francisco until 1917. Dur.
(COntinued m Pare Column ~