Evening star., 1937-12-05
NEW WAGE-HOUR
DRAFT COMPLETED
BY A.E.L. COUNCIL
Would Provide Accent Min
imum and. Maximum
40-Hour Week.
GREEN HITS ECONOMIC
PHILOSOPHY OF SOUTH
Peace Conferees to Resume Delhi.
erations December 21, but
Outlook Seems Dark.
BACKGROUND

Despite opposition OF American
Federation OF Labor and luke,Oarm
Endorsement of C. I. O., the Dooe
and hour bill Uas dislodqed from
the House Rules Committee by
petition after long struggle for
needed signatures. Already passed
oy Senate, the bill probably DiL
undergo ertensiDe reuision in lo,Der
body, but te,1 belieue it wiH become
LdD during special session.
After hearing and keeping secret
the inside story of the break-uo of
the Lewis-Green labor war conversa-
tions, the Executive Council of the
American Federation of Labor COM
pleted yesterday the draft of a sub
stltute wage and hour bill for intro
auction In Congress this week.
The Federation's bill would provide
Nationwide 4O-cent-an-hour wage
and maximum 40-hour work week,
leaving enforcement to the Depart
ment of Justice and porviding a s1oO
fine for each violation.
The Federation's distressing expert
ences" with the National Labor Re-
lations Board moved the council to
oppose setting up any administrator
or administrative board as a means
OF making a wage-hour bill effective.
In discussing the proposed legisla-
tlon intended to make Southern man
ufacturers provide as high minimum
wage as those in the North, East and
West, with equal hours, William Green.
president Of the Federation, strongly
criticized the prevailing economic
philosophy and practice of the South
IN press conference yesterday aft
ernoon.
South Has Wrong Idea.
The South has got the wrong idea"
he said, "an idea that because we are
In the South, conditions are different
and We have the right to take a
different stand Somebody has got
TO move them from the rigid position
tney have assumed and maintained.
Somebody has got to persuade South
ern manufacturers that if they are
going to sell their goods they must
develop a market by increasing pur-
chasing power among their own
people.
"As long as they keep wages down
to S6 and So week in the South. it
Will be poverty-stricken. They must
choose between poverty and buying
power and help industry create a mar
ket in the South for the sale of man
1lrQfflIrnd Tn Isfa
are wiping out the argument of un-
fair competition"
MIR. Green was asked if he antici-
pated such a wage-hour bill as his
executive council had proposed would
mean wholesale violations and bring
upon the Department of Justice a
tremendous problem of enforcement.
After expressing the belief that the
general run of industrialists were
law-abiding, he said it was reason
able to assume the Government will
arrange the necessary machinery to
make the law effective"
Proposal Much Simpler.
The federation's proposed legisla-
ton would be simpler, he argued,
than the Black-Connery bill, which
provides a flve-man board to admin
lister the wage-hour law. In setting
40 hours week as the maximum,
Mr.. Green said the federation was
not abandoning the policy of seek
ing a 30-hour week, but was merely
acknowledging the fact that such
Utopian schedule was not yet prac-
ticable.s
From the federation's wage-hour
bill, agricultural workers would be
exempted. So would air transport
pilots, fishermen and several other
classif1cations of workers. The bill
would also prohibit the shipment in
interstate commerce and the sale
of goods produced by child labor or
convict labor.
One of the first things Mr.. Green
did upon meeting with his colleagues
of the council yesterday morning was
to recount his third meeting with
Mr.. Lewis which ended in a COM
plete breakdown shortly before 1O:3O
O'Clock Friday night, with no con-
clusions arrived at and no recon-
mendations decided upon by either
leader to make to their embattled
labor armies, enrolling almost 4,000,-
900 members each.
Peace Outlook Dark.
The committees from the A. F. Of
l.. and the c. I. o. which had car
ried on exploratory conversations be-
fnrn MoccrS
brought together will reassemble De-
cember 81, but unless there are new
developments in the meantime, the
outlook for truce or a peace treaty
that would reunite the two factions
under one tent seemed to be dark.
Mr.. Green, who looked unusually
glum when he left Mr.. Lewis pres
ence Friday evening, had resumed his
usual cheerfulness yesterday.
Hope springs eternal" he remarked.
I'VE will keep on hoping that some
thing will come out of all this"
One of the biggest stumbling blocks
in the Green-Lewis conversations, it
was learned, was the different terms
each man proposed as to the manner
in which the G. I. o. unions should
return to the A. F. Of L. Mr.. Green
offered an immediate welcome home"
to the 10 suspended unions which first
took a walk with Mr.. Lewis, and
similar reception to the two others
the Newspaper Guild and the Fur
riers Union-which later jumped the
traces.
(Convrirht 1927 hv Nau vark u.ra,d
Tribune.)