The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1951-03-29

WVI kGlS VCuVu11Ce
Freezing Of Pay
Washington, ID. c. (ILNS). -
A conference here of AFL interna
tional unions in the service anC
trade industries charged the Ma.
tional Wage Sterilization BoarC
with indifference and neglect" ir
the plight of 100000 trade anc
service workers whose low wages
the unions said, have been frozen
at substandard levels under exist
ing wage controls.
Called on the initiative of Hugo
Ernst, general president of the
Hotel and Restaurant Employees
Union, the wage conference was at
tended also by the following
unions: Retail Clerks, Laundry
Workers, Meat Cutters and Butch
ers, Building Service Employees,
BARRIERS, Firemen and Oilers, OPP
Grating Engineers, and the State,
County and Municipal Employees
International. These organizations
represent over one and one-half
million AFL workers in trade and
service.
The unions denounced the 10
percent cost-of- living adjustment
formula under the stabilization
boards General Regulation 6 as
"pitifully inadequate in meeting
the wage needs of service and
trade workers, millions of whom
today are protected by nothing bet
ter than state minimum wage
orders providing as little as 40 or
so cents an hour" Such workers
are not now covered by the federal
75-cent minimum because of ex-
emptions in the law.
ST Minimum Pay Urged
Nothing has been done to get
at the substandard wage problem"
said a statement submitted by the
hotel workers president and en-
dorsed by the conference. "On the
contrary, the stabilization rules
now freeze and perpetuate sub
standard wages by legalizing only
such adjustments as will bring
wages up to such state minima as
40 and so cents an hour. And even
10 percent on top Of this would
still keep workers living on less
than subsistence levels"
The conference endorsed a pro-
posal to demand a definite wage
figure below which wages should
be considered substandard. A min
imum of $1.00 an hour was urged,
up to which wage increases should
be allowed without prior board ap-
proval and without reference to
other formulas. This, it was ex-
planned, would mean that 10 per-
cent for cost-of living could be
added to the $1.00 minimum after
rates were brought up to that fig
ure.
The unions also accused the
wage board of freezing trade and
service workers out of the picture
on the question of time and one
half for work after 40 hours be-
cause of the board regulation which
effects new premium pay practices
against the cost of-living formula.
Unlike workers in the rest of the
economy, it was said, trade and
service workers now get straight
time pay for the 9Th day. An over
time rule was demanded similar to
President Executive Order 9240l
during World War ii when time
and one-half for the 9th day was
permitted in new contracts without
being charged off against other
wage adjustment formulas.
Bankruptcy For Thousands Seen
Asserting that millions of low
wage trade and service workers
we're being made "expendables"
under stabilization policy, the con-
ference declared that thousands of
small employers faced bankruptcy
because of their inability to hold
heir labor under the incentive of
better wages in basic industry on
var work.
The answer, the unions said, was
@ end the discrimination against
he trade and service industries by
recognizing their need to more
'reedom in raising wages to hold
heir workers on the job.
Actions taken by the conference
a move to secure special
representation for the trade and
ervice unions on the United Labor
Policy Committee, with whose pol