Evening star., 1940-04-23

Secretary Henry Wallace q
wage-hour administrator, as tn
Forum.
creameries, canning plants, packing
plants, and sometimes even in flour
mills, bakeries, groceries, or other
concerns engaged in processing or
marketing farm products. They
argue that higher wages will mean
larger merchandising spread between
producer and consumer, and thus
lower prices to farmers, or result in
smaller demand at retail. This argu-
ment fails to recognize that the
farmers income from sales is af-
fected not only by marketing and
processing costs, but also by con-
sumer demand. And they also fail to
realize that changes in the ability
OF consumers to buy have much
greater effect on farm prices than
DO marketing costs. For example,
processing and marketing costs on
the food bought by an average city
Workingman's family increased IL
per cent during the recovery from
the depression, fnom $l72 in 1888 to
$193 in 1887. But over the same
period, the income of the average
city family increased by 40 per cent,
and its expenditures for food at. re-
tail went up from 1854 to 1858. This
increase in city buying power from
1888 to 1887 much more than offset
the increase in marketing costs, and
the farmers income from the food
products bought by this average
family almost doubled, going up from
$92 in 1888 to $3.50 in 1887.
Some Want Cheap Labor.
Col. Fleming-How then do you
account for the alarm of some farm
ers over the wage and hour law,
which, of course, is designed to raise
wages for the low-paid workers,
thereby increasing consumer de-
mand?
Secretary Wallace-Many of these
objectors, think, are quite sincere,
but they have simply been misled.
Some of those who Want cheap labor
want to make their profits out of the
hide of labor. If profits are increased
at the expense of pay rolls, farmers
suffer along with labor. A very large
share OF the pay received by those
With low incomes goes to buy food
and clothing. Workers receiving 30
cents an hour or less spend almost
half their income for food and cloth
ing. If their pay is cut, half of that
cut must come out Of their expendi-
lures for farm products. The we'll
to-do spend much less for food and
clothlng-only about one-eighth of
their incomes. Every transfer of
$40 from wage payments to excessive
profits reduces retail expenditures
for food and clothing by 81.
Col. Fleming--Some business inter-
ests have gone pretty far in attack
ing the Wage and Hour Act. For
example. some of them have recon-
mended that all city workers en-
gagged in marketing, transporting, or
processing materials derived from
farm products should be excluded
from the act That means that not
only people who handle foodstuffs,
but all those who are handling fibers
or any other farm products, would
be excluded.
Secretary Wallace-That would
exclude workers in the packing
plants OF Chicago and Omaha. work.
ers in the great flour mills of
minneapolis and Buffalo, workers
handling cotton in tire factories or
automobile plants and cotton mills.
and workers manufacturing shoes,
II every factory using farm products
IN any way were exempted, nearly
nall OF all factory workers would be
taken out from under the Wage and
Hour Act.
Over 100000 in Processing,
Col. Fleming-Some persons argue
that only "a few thousand" workers
would be affected if all those en-
gagged in processing farm products
were eliminated. That is absurd.
Our computations show that there
are at least million and half men
ana women engaged at some stage
IN the processing or marketing of
farm products.
Secretary Wallace-And farmers
would lose, rather than gain, if wages
were cut in those industries. It seems
to me the Wage and Hour Act is lust
an attempt to put floor under
wages in order to prevent exploita-
ton OF labor by paying such low
wages that workers can hardly exist.
Col. Fleming-That's right. The
wage and hour law is not concerned
with the minimum wage of persons
who are already getting high wages.
Just as you, Mr.. Secretary, through
the farm programs, are attempting
to put floor under farmers in
comes, the wage and hour law is
attempting to put floor under the
income of the poorest paid industrial
workers.
You remember after N. r. A., some
industries began to cut wage rates
very sharply. In some industries,
oNSAA 90 SOttOAA NAOt1lllS, 01lc WAKE
cutters began to get most Of the
business. Other manufacturers had
to cut wages in turn. This went on
until wages in some areas were forced
down to where mill hands were
getting only IS a week. The wage
floor established by the wage and
hour law forces manufacturers to
stop this kind of thing.
Secretary Wallace-One fact YOU
have just brought out is Of particular
interest to farmers. That is, the
wage and hour law does not affect
the minimum wages of workers al
ready getting high pay, but aims at
raising the pay for workers at the
very bottom of the income scale.
Unorganized workers, almost all of
them. These city workers have had
to pay city rents and city food and
clothing costs from a few nickels a
day. These are the workers who
would hllV more farm rrodllcfs If