The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-04-26
TO HELP
FIX MINIMUM
WAGE SCALES
Miss Perkins Says Organ.
lied Crafts to Play Big
Roll Under New Law.
ICnnfinnad from Pare 0neN

organizations which have endorsed
the short work week bill with her
amendments for minimum wage
boards. Approximately seventy-flve
of the indorSerS were manufacturers
and the rest were labor groups or
civic associations.
President William Green of the
American Federation of Labor today
strenuously opposed the minimum
wage proposal Of the administration.
Green, appearing before the COM
mittee in support of the 30-hour
work week, said he feared the
moral effect of minimum wage
fixed by the government would be
so great that it would pull down
living Standards
Fears Minimum Wage
1--WE fear the minimum wage scale
would be the maximum" Green
said, adding he believed that living
standards would be definitely low
cred instead of lifted up"
Unemployment must be relieved
and purchasing power restored if
the depression is to be lifted, Green
asserted.
He proposed an amendment which
would force employers to permit
their workers to join labor unions.
Green said he could see no reason
Why the newspaper industry should
not operate under the thirty hour
week.
Our executive council urges very
strongly that the printing industry
be included under provisions of the
BILL" he said.
Increase in the purchasing
power of labor is the key to business
recovery" Secretary Perkins told
the committee. ANY devices which
do that should be seriously consid-
cred.
Reduction in the length of the
working week clearly would result
in spreading work, but would not
solve the problem of purchasing
power.
And fear that purchasing power
merely would be divided by the
Black bill caused me to suggest that
there De attached a provision for
fixing a minimum wage where
wages had fallen below the value of
services rendered or the standard Of
a decent living wage.
Wage Bottom Held Necessary.
Citing a wage of 81 cents a week
as an example of unbelievable con-
ditions" now existing in various in
dustries, particularly where there is
no organization and no opportunity
for it, Miss Perkins said it there
fore seemed appropriate to ask
your committee to canvass solemn
ly the condition and the possibility
of fixing bottom to the fall of
wages"
Secretary Perkins told the COM
mittee she would have no objection
to extension of the bill to include all
workers in every occupation.
She prefers to see it apply to men
and women alike rather than simply
to women.
Measures to prevent child labor
and to pension aged workers will
follow along, she hopes.
Several members of the labor
committee, which twice reported the
thirty-hour week bill favorably, in
dicated that they now favor adding
to it exemptions more liberal than
Secretary Perkins proposal to per-
nit forty-hour weeks in ten weeks
of any year.
The secretary pointed out to them
that any great increase in exempt
ion defeats the purpose of the bill.
She refused to be swayed from
her opposition to extension of the
bill to cover products of foreign
factories.
William Green, president of the
American Federation of Labor, and
Gerard Swope of the General Elec-
trio Company are to testify today.