Newspapers / The Charlotte Labor Journal … / Sept. 10, 1942, edition 1 / Page 1
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She Charlotte labor Journal Endorsed by the N. C. Stott Federation of Labor AND DIXIE FARM NEWS Official Organ of Central Labor Union; Standing for the A. F. L. VOL. XII.—NO. 16 YOUR ADVERT I •■MINT IN TNI JOURNAL IR A INYRRTNRNT CHARLOTTE, N. C„ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1942 JOURNAL ADVRRTIRRRR OKSRRVK CONSIDERATION OF $2.00 Per Year The ONLY REALLY INDEPENDENT WEEKLY in Mecklenburg Comity ^^NBi^c^cot-NTT For a Weekly Its Readers Represent the LARGEST BUYING POWER in Charlotte THE HOME FRONT As the machinery of war production moves at a steadier pace, with fewer starts and stops and less grinding of gears, plans that were only paper a short while ago become realized facts. One question long under discussion was how to combine the productive resources of plants manufacturing sim ilar, competitive articles so that a limited supply of these articles still would be available after most of the plants had turned to making war goods. The British have had a system of pooling industrial resources for some time. America’s first real test of the new method of operating “surviving” plants comes in the bicycle field. Last year’s output of these machines aver aged about 150,000 per month. This year the figure has been steadily re duced until it is now set at no more than 10,000 bicycles per month, with Army, Navy Maritime Commission, War Shipping Administration and Lend Lease having first call on those produced. Ten of the dozen bicycle plants already have been converted strictly to war manufactures. The two re maining plants will continue to make bicycles but only the Victory Model, a light machine that uses a scant amount of critical materials. The two makes will be alike, distinguished merely by the letter “W” or “H” before the serial number. LACK OF FUEL OIL CREATES NEW PROBLEMS War needs are like ten pins, a “strike” from one direction setting in motion a whole series of effects in like or even unlike fields. The drain on our fuel oil supply, for instance, has affected the demand for artificial gas to such an extent as to require restrictions of gas supplied to new industrial and domestic consumers. The natural gas fields of the midcontinent are feeling the pull. At the same time, however, drilling of new wells in Kansas and Oklahoma—except by direct permission—has been halted in order to save materials, compel wells opened but not producing to connect with pipe lines. MEATLESS DAYS APPROACHING Meat is an item that will appear less frequently on our tables during The coming year, though the amount we’ll get—2% pounds per person per week—is about our average consumption for the past 10 years and well above the one pound a week that the Englishman gets, the 12 ounces per week allowed Germans, or the 5 ounces available for half-starved Belgians. Our total meat supply is the largest on record, but because of the needs of the fighting forces and of our Allies, we will run 3 billion pounds short of being able to give the folks at home all the meat they might want. MANPOWER NEED POSES PROBLEMS There are too few carpenters in the U. S. A. to handle war construction, a circumstance that has led to an apprentice-training program under the joint auspices of the National Buildnig Contractors and the Carpenters In ternational Union. Farm labor, too, if insufficient, will be increased by im portation of Mexican farm workers by special arrangement, between the U. S. and Mexico. Everywhere the need for manpower poses problems. Selective Service Director Hershey is trying to arrange the “loads” of draft boards throughout the CiAJntry so that each class of selectees will be called up more or less at the same time. Local boards with a heavy proportion of single men, for in stance, should send these men in at about the same time that other boards with smaller numbers of the same class send theirs, regardless of quotas. The War Department will take volunteers with special skills up to the age Of 50, pro..'Tug such men are cleared by their local draft boards. This policy, however, will not deprive war industries of needed older men. WAR PRODUCTION DRIVES SHOW FAVORABLE BALANCE SHEET War Production Drives also show a favorable balance sheet, with Labor Management Committees established in 1,300 war plants, and other indus tries, including the first major railroad to adopt this form of cooperation, the Illinois Central Railroad, and the first of the large lumber companies, the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company ... Government geologists and en gineers have blocked out more than 500,000 tons of valuable bauxite in Georgia, and other experts are exploring the “black” sands of the Oregon Coast for metals . . . There will be more sugar for workers in areas where the population has jumped because of war industries . _. . Apples processors may raise the price of canned applesauce, applejuice, cider and dried apples to cover the increased cost of producing and harvesting apples . . . Ceiling prices for dry cleaning, shoe repairing, laundering and other common serv ices must he posted for public inspection . . . Retail prices for footballs, basketballs, and other autumnal sporting goods will be cut . . . Boys and men will have to get along with whatever woolen lounging robes are on hand, but mothers need not worry about woolen robes for infants, sizes 1 to 3—And over-size persons can have their woolen garments built to fit . . . Measures to protect the Nation’s Federal buildings against air raid hazards and sabotage are being taken by the Federal Works Administration. Two problems—to prevent escape of prisoners from Federal Prisons, and of dan gerous animals from bombed zoos . , . Violators of the Men’s and Women’s clothing simplification orders who make expensive “zoot suits” and “juke” coats for male and female jitterbugs face WPB trouble . . . The third anni versary of the German invasion of Poland found that tortured country still defiant and unconquered, with more than 150,000 of its fighting men in action on United Nation fronts. NEARLY 20% OF AMERICAN LABOR STILL GETS LESS THAN 40 CENTS Despite the white light of publicity on the wages of the relatively few highly-skilled and highly-paid workers in industry, some 7,500,000 Ameri can wage earners still make less than 40 cents an hour, L. Metcalfe Walling, Administrator of the newly consolidated Wage and Hour and Public Con tracts Divisions of the United States Department of Labor, pointed out to day. “Any realistic discussion of wages must take into consideration the large number of American workers who are still right on the edge of the mini mum standard of health and decency or below,” Mr. Walling said. “Some 7,500,000 American wage earners still get less than 40 cents an hour. This represents 19 per cent of the 40,000,000 American workers ex clusive of proprietors and Government employees. Of this number 1,500,000 covered under the Wage and Hour Law are getting between 30 and 40 cents. Some of the others in agriculture, retail trade, domestic service, fisheries, and othr types of work not covered by the Wage and Hour law are getting as little as fifteen cents an hour or less. “Even for those of the 7,500,000 who are getting up to 40 cents an hour or $16 at the most for a forty-hour week, it must be remembered that the rise in prices has levelled the purchasing power of their 40 cents down toward that of the 30 cents set as a minimum standard of decency when the Act was passed in 1938. “In addition, even in these war times, there are still employers who il legally withhold from their workers even the modest minimums required by law. Since Pearl Harbor about $16,250,000 in restitution has been agreed to or ordered paid to 415,000 workers in 22,000 establishments throughout the country. It must be remembered that this underpayment of covered workers is discouraged, not only by the criminal provisions of the Act, but by the double penalty which workers can collect. In most states workers not covered by the Federal Law have no such protection.” WISDOM “Ag' a matter of course, I’d have my son go to church. What’s more. I’d go with him.” —Prom “If I Had a Son,” by J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D. C. Every Dollar Makes 'Em Holler! isSS^Sgs^... V. S. Tnmmiry Dqx. —Courtesy Syracuse Post-Standard. DR. LITTLE SENDS A MESSAGE OF GREETING TO CHARLOTTE LABOR THE GOSPEL OF WORK By DR. LUTHER LITTLE, Pastor First Baptist Church Charlotte. North Carolina Ours is an age and a world of work. The whole universe is keyed to the song of labor. Nothing is at rest. It is God’s divine decree that man shall go coatless and hatless and house less unless he works. God has locked up the treasures of this world until man digs them out. God has commanded that we labor and subdue the earth that we live on. Remember that the Lord put man in the Garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. So at this season of the year I greet and hail that great army of workmen, and rejoice with them in the contribution that they are making to this whole world. Remember that it is,•also honorable and noble to engage in activities of toil and labor. Jesus Christ was the world’s truest gentleman, and He worked as a carpenter for his daily bread. Be proud that you, with Him, are classed as one of the world’s workers. Such was the example also of the greatest of Apostles, Paul himself, who was a tent maker, and who once said, “Ye, yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and also to them that were with me.’’ In fact, it is ignoble to be idle. My friends, there is nothing so hard as doing nothing. Let me give you some definite con crete statements. 1. There is No Such Thing as Common Toil. I don’t like the phrase, common toil. All work is right if done in the spirit of holiness. The man who goes out to use the saw, the hammer, the plow, the yard-stick, the pen, or the typewriter, if he be a man of God he has a right to believe that his work is holy. The greatest blessing next to our salvation is our work. 2. God is Pleased with a Life of Work. When God said of Jesus, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased,” I believe he was thinking of the work-shop. I further believe that our God is pleased with us in proportion as we are faithful to dignify the work of our hands and brains. 3. Faithfulness and Fidelity to our Tasks Dignify Labor. That is the reason there is no such thing as “common toil,” be cause all work is glorified and dignified in our faithful living. The only possible discredit in the matter of labor would be when we have not done it well. Happy is the man or woman who can realize that he or she in the sweat of his or her brow is earning his or her daily bread. So please be comforted in the gospel of work, and by faith know that upon your head is a daily bene diction and blessing. Go, labor on; enough while here. If He shall praise thee, if He deign Thy willing heart to mark and cheer; No toil for Him shall be in vain. I A. F. OF L PARTICIPATES IN COMMUNITY CHESTS For the first time in history an agreement between the Amer ican Federation of Labor and the Community Chests of some 80 cities has been signed—giving the A. F. of L. union officials in the various cities proper representation on the Community Chest committees and accepting the several central bodies as a vital and necessary force in the success of this most important under taking. The agreement was signed by Mr. Woll for the Amer ican Federation of Labor. WAR STOPPAGES DECREASE Man-days lost from war production by strikes in July dropped to 8/100 of 1% of total man-days worked from 9/100 of 1% in June, the National War Labor Board announced last week. The number of man-days lost fell approximately 8% from 254,653 in June to 233,614 in July. At the same time, the number of man-days worked rose from approximately 275 million in June to 308 million in July. RUBBER SURVEY NEARLY FINISHED The three-man committee appointed August 6, by President Roosevelt and headed by Bernard Baruch to make a “quick but adequate” survey of the confusing and critical rubber situation has nearly completed its study. Trade unions in the rubber and related industries have awaited the report eagerty. The War Production Board has reduced to 10,000 a month the number of bicycles which may be manufactured. Production will be centered in two plants to free the remainder of the industry to produce war weapons. Payrolls in the steel industry attained a new high in July at $120,671, 000 nearly two million above the previous top of $118,067,000 established in October, 1941. N. C. LEADERS SALUTE STATE’S WORKING MEN Governor Broughton, Labor Commissioner Shuford, and AFL and CIO Heads Join In Labor Day Program Honoring ‘Soldiers Of Production’ For Spirit Governor Broughton, Labor Com missioner Forrest H. Shuford and state leaders of the AFL and CIO joined in a Labor Day salute to work ers of the state as “our soldiers of production.” “North Carolina Labor believes in the purposes of this war, because North Carolina Labor knows that only in our own land is Labor free,” said the Governor in a Labor day program. “Labor knows that defeat in this war would subjejct it to the same intoler able and inhuman conditions which prevail throughout the countries which have been overrun by the aggressor.” The program was heard by many workers on war production who were still at their benches on this tradi tional holiday for laboring men. Other programs honoring the part workers are playing in the war effort were held in various communities of the state. C. A. Fink, of Spencer, president of the State Federation of Labor, said that the federation had prepared no lesislation program for the coming session of the General Assembly. “Our purpose was for the elimi nation of all controversial matters in the Legislature so that all citizens might co-operate and work through concerted action for one purpose of winning the war,” he said: Asserting that “management, labor, farmers—all of us—face a common enemy,” Shuford said, “the slogan of the enemy is divide and conquer. Knowing that the stakes of this war involve our very existence as a free nation our slogan must be unite and produce, unite and fight, unite and conquer.” FREE LABOR WILL WIN Germany, Italy, and Japan had their own brand of labor day. Obedient workers lined up at their benches where Dr. Robert Ley, head of Germany’s “Labor Front,” and his Italian and Japanese cohorts command labor to increase its production. Obediently the workers listened, dutifully they applauded, hastily they turned back to their workbenches. Production continued under the demanding eye of the Gestapo. Production—by slaves under whiplash threats. ... . . That’s Hitler’s production line. He figures to win this war with it. In America on Labor Day a free labor movement reviewed its achieve ments and pledged even more production for the future. Can free men produce more than slaves? This war will be fought and won in the confidence that they can, a confidence that is being justi fied by the ships going down the ways, by the bombers roaring into the skies., by the tanks rolling off the assembly line. And labor’s fulfillment of its job in the past is only a token of the way it will tacke its ever-in creasing production assignment until the war ends the Axis. STATE LABOR DEPARTMENT WILL ENFORCE WALSH-HEALY ACT IN NORTH CAROLINA RALEIGH, Sept. 9—The North Carolina Department of Labor, which for the past year has been directly responsible for enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act (Wage and Hour Law) in this State, will take on another important responsibility on October 1. The Labor Department will be charged with making inspections and ad ministering the Walsh-Healy Public Contracts Act in North Carolina. Under the terms of an order issued by Frances Perkins, United States Secretary of Labor, which merges the Wage and Hour Division and the Public Contracts Division of the United States Department of Labor, administration of the two Acts will be conducted from the field offices of the Wage and Hour Division. The title of the newly combined organization will be the “Wage and Hour and Public Contracts Divisions.” National administrator will be L. Metcalfe Walling, who for several months has been Administrator of both Divisions. The merger of the two Divisions, which had been anticipated for some time prior to the Labor Secretary’s action, will make numerous North Caro lina firms engaged in the production of war goods and other products under Government contracts subject to inspection by the North Carolina Depart ment of Labor. Forrest H. Shuford, State Labor Commissioner, will administer the Public Contracts Act in North Carolina, directing the over-all program of enforcement. Lewis P. Sorrell, Chief Inspector for the Department, will supervise the inspection activities under the Act. Under the terms of North Carolina’s agreement with the United States Department of Labor, Com missioner Shuford is already charged with the administration of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Shuford and Sorrell will take on the new responsi bilities without additional compensation. Fourteen inspectors of the Department have already received initial training in inspection work under the Public Contracts Act. Other inspec tion personnel will be given similar training at an early date. Techincal advice in connection with the administration of the Public Contracts Act will be furnished by a Technical Advisor who will be assigned to work with the State Department of Labor. The advisor will work in the Technical Unit already established in the Labor Department under the agreement with the wage-hour division. In accepting the duties of administering the two Acts, Shuford pointed out that such an arrangement will greatly facilitate the administration of both Federal laws, improve enforcement, and at the same time save em ployers subject to both Acts the necessity of dealing with two different sets of inspectors. Since compliance with the health, sanitary and safety standards of the State in which the work is done is regarded as evidence of compliance with the Walsh-Healy health and safety requirements, the inspections in North Carolina will practically coincide with State Labor Law inspections, Com missioner Shuford said. “In 1940 a total of 18,000 workers in American industry were killed in industrial accidents,” Shuford declared. “In 1941 the number jumped to 19,600, an increase of almost 10 per cent. Within the first six months after Pearl Harbor 11,000 workers—or practically an entire division in one of the modern mechanized armies—were killed in industrial accidents. That figure is more than the United States Navy has lost, in killed, wounded and cap tured since Pearl Harbor.” Scrupulous adherence to the health and safety provisions of the State Labor Laws and Public Contracts Act on the part of employers will do a great deal toward eliminating these accidents at a time when one of the nation’s foremost problems is the conservation of manpower, the Commis sioner said. The Public Contracts Act establishes minimum rates of pay for workers in covered industries; provides for the payment of time-and-a-half wages for work in excess of eight hours per day; establishes health and safety standards for plants producing goods under contract with the Federal Gov ernment; prohibits the employment of minors under 16 years of age, and of girls under 18 in specified industries; and prohibits the employment of con vict labor in covered industries. These provisions apply to all firms work ing on Government contracts valued in excess of $10,000. , USE THE PAYROLL PLAN 10% EACH WEEK FOR WAR BONDS
The Charlotte Labor Journal and Dixie Farm News (Charlotte, N.C.)
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Sept. 10, 1942, edition 1
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