tion, incidentally, which has made any advance in the States in the last decade. Two States had adopted equal-pay legislation following World War I, and seven more have enacted statutes in the last 5 years. A Federal bill, as you all know, which would operate with approximately the same coverage as the Fair Labor Standards Act, is now pending in the Congress. Another effect of the war experience on legislation grows out of the relaxation of standards during the war period. Some States handled the adjustment of working hours with more careful and orderly arrangements than others. In some States "the lid was off." In spite of standards promulgated by all agencies of the Federal Government connected with the procurement of war materials, long hours and careless standards were allowed to prevail in many areas. This situation has reflected itself in backward steps in two States since the end of the war. In Ohio, the 8-hour day was for all practical purposes abolished in all except a few occupations last year. In Pennsylvania, where an 8-hour day and a 44-hour week had been in effect, the law was changed in 1947 to a 10-hour day and a 48-hour week. In the early campaigns against sweatshop conditions, it was comparatively easy to enlist the support of at least a few of the prosperous and privileged members of society to help improve the lot of women workers. It was comparatively easy to arouse the conscience of the public against the dangers of industrial home work in tenements, to create sympathy for the overworked shop girl who tried to live in a hall bedroom on $5 a week, and to evoke pity for the plight of the immigrant mother who worked at night to eke out the family income. As the standards of living of the working population have improved, partly as a result of legislative measures, the philanthropic and benevolent attitude toward working women has changed. This is all to the good. At the same time there has developed considerable indifference toward the problems which still exist, which are not as dramatic and colorful as those which aroused sympathy some decades ago. In 1944, in the midst of the war, the International Labor Conference held its meeting in Philadelphia, at which it adopted a set of principles to guide the nations in the postwar period. In this socalled Philadelphia Charter there is this significant statement: "The Conference recognizes the solemn obligation of the International Labour Organisation to further among the nations of the world ... . policies in regard to wages and earnings, hours, and other conditions of work calculated to ensure a just share of the fruits of progress to all." What should the fruits of progress include for women workers? A rising standard of living, leisure, safety at work, healthful conditions, widening opportunities, security. Certainly these are goals which challenge all of us. see that the standards and policies adopted by the International Labor Organization become implemented throughout our country. By recent amendment of the constitution of the ILO, the United States will be obligated to work for compliance with ILO conventions on the part of the States. The ILO conventions include such basic standards as the 8-hour day, minimum wage, protection of youth against hazardous occupations. I profoundly wish that more national women's organizations would take a position on such a basic measure as the Fair Labor Standards Act, the amendment of which is now under consideration by the Congress. The philosophy of the whole minimum-wage idea is now under bitter attack by certain organizations, which are taking advantage of what they undoubtedly consider the postwar reactionary spirit, to get rid of this legislation. A large employer recently stated the role which minimum wage should play in this period: If we review what happened in the 15 years after the ending of the last war, we note that once the pent-up war demands had been filled and competition had become more intense, it was common practice to cut wages in order to procure specific orders at narrowing margins. This was frequently offered to labor as an alternative to idleness and finally wound up in a deflationary spiral which brought the average wage in the country to such a low level that the entire economy almost became stalled-want and misery were everywhere. No thinking business man would like to risk such a spiral as a prospect for the 1950 decade. The surest way to avoid a recurrence of such tragic happenings would be a revision upward of minimum-wage levels to bear some reasonable relationship to labor's present-day living costs. Unbridled wage cutting is a practice which should be forever removed from the arena of legitimate competitive activities. Some of the organizations which worked for State minimum-wage laws many years ago are silent now while this major struggle is going en in Congress. I wish, also, that more effort would be made by State branches of women's organizations to see to it that legislative standards for women workers are raised in their own States. There are some notable exceptions but, by and large, there is little activity in State legislation now, either to improve existing standards or to defend them when they are under attack. I recognize the preoccupation with legislation in the field of foreign affairs on which women have worked hard and successfully, but in considering our international obligations, let us not forget our share of responsibility for implementing the programs for domestic standards involved in our own membership in the United Nations. 3 From a statement filed by J. Spencer Love, President of the Burlington Mills, in North Carolina, with the House Committee on Education and Labor, COMMENTARY Irma Rittenhouse, Division of Placement and Unemployment Insurance, New York State Department of Labor Madam Chairman and members of the conference, while I was listening today-and I am very much of an amateur, I might as well point out, in this field of the economic problems of women-I was much impressed by one keynote that seemed to be struck over and over again. In order to explain why this was so, I ought to tell you that some years ago when I lived in Washington I had as a great friend an old-time suffragette, one of those women who had been on a hunger strike here in the local jail, had picketed the White House, and so on, many, many years ago. And I remember she told me that back in 1848 and in the following years when the first struggles for women's rights were initiated, one of the strongest arguments for permitting women to have the vote was that women would purify the political picture. Now, I was delighted to find today that taken by and large we working women are holding out for the right to be as great rapscallions as ever men have been, and I am sure that we can count on the same kind of behavior on the part of our women in political life. We even managed to drag in a union jurisdictional dispute at this meeting where we were supposed to talk about how to improve our social and general moral, esthetic, and cultural outlook. Miss Dickason remarked when she opened her address that she thought many of the gains which she referred to were being taken for granted in the field of women's rights on the economic front. From what I heard here today, particularly from women who are working in industry throughout the country, I would say that there are still a number of problems, some of them somewhat new in character, some of these of course developing out of the fact that women now represent a large part of the labor force, others developing out of the fact that we are in a period of acute demand for labor at present (in a large number of fields at any rate)-new kinds of problems for women workers, who, speaking broadly, are in a weak position. see. How anyone, after hearing the kind of discussion that has gone on here this afternoon, could feel that we ought to take gains for granted, I must admit is something that I as somewhat of an outsider cannot Miss Magee further emphasized this impression when she began to quote figures on current hours legislation that sounded like the hours legislation she had described in the early part of her address as existing about a hundred years ago. I was frankly surprised to find how few see that the standards and policies adopted by the International Labor Organization become implemented throughout our country. By recent amendment of the constitution of the ILO, the United States will be obligated to work for compliance with ILO conventions on the part of the States. The ILO conventions include such basic standards as the 8-hour day, minimum wage, protection of youth against hazardous occupations. I profoundly wish that more national women's organizations would take a position on such a basic measure as the Fair Labor Standards Act, the amendment of which is now under consideration by the Congress. The philosophy of the whole minimum-wage idea is now under bitter attack by certain organizations, which are taking advantage of what they undoubtedly consider the postwar reactionary spirit, to get rid of this legislation. A large employer recently stated the role which minimum wage should play in this period: If we review what happened in the 15 years after the ending of the last war, we note that once the pent-up war demands had been filled and competition had become more intense, it was common practice to cut wages in order to procure specific orders at narrowing margins. This was frequently offered to labor as an alternative to idleness and finally wound up in a deflationary spiral which brought the average wage in the country to such a low level that the entire economy almost became stalled-want and misery were everywhere. No thinking business man would like to risk such a spiral as a prospect for the 1950 decade. The surest way to avoid a recurrence of such tragic happenings would be a revision upward of minimum-wage levels to bear some reasonable relationship to labor's present-day living costs. Unbridled wage cutting is a practice which should be forever removed from the arena of legitimate competitive activities.' Some of the organizations which worked for State minimum-wage laws many years ago are silent now while this major struggle is going en in Congress. I wish, also, that more effort would be made by State branches of women's organizations to see to it that legislative standards for women workers are raised in their own States. There are some notable exceptions but, by and large, there is little activity in State legislation now, either to improve existing standards or to defend them when they are under attack. I recognize the preoccupation with legislation in the field of foreign affairs on which women have worked hard and successfully, but in considering our international obligations, let us not forget our share of responsibility for implementing the programs for domestic standards involved in our own membership in the United Nations. 3 From a statement filed by J. Spencer Love, President of the Burlington Mills, in North Carolina, with the House Committee on Education and Labor. COMMENTARY Irma Rittenhouse, Division of Placement and Unemployment Insurance, New York State Department of Labor Madam Chairman and members of the conference, while I was listening today-and I am very much of an amateur, I might as well point out, in this field of the economic problems of women-I was much impressed by one keynote that seemed to be struck over and over again. In order to explain why this was so, I ought to tell you that some years ago when I lived in Washington I had as a great friend an old-time suffragette, one of those women who had been on a hunger strike here in the local jail, had picketed the White House, and so on, many, many years ago. And I remember she told me that back in 1848 and in the following years when the first struggles for women's rights were initiated, one of the strongest arguments for permitting women to have the vote was that women would purify the political picture. Now, I was delighted to find today that taken by and large we working women are holding out for the right to be as great rapscallions as ever men have been, and I am sure that we can count on the same kind of behavior on the part of our women in political life. We even managed to drag in a union jurisdictional dispute at this meeting where we were supposed to talk about how to improve our social and general moral, esthetic, and cultural outlook. Miss Dickason remarked when she opened her address that she thought many of the gains which she referred to were being taken for granted in the field of women's rights on the economic front. From what I heard here today, particularly from women who are working in industry throughout the country, I would say that there are still a number of problems, some of them somewhat new in character, some of these of course developing out of the fact that women now represent a large part of the labor force, others developing out of the fact that we are in a period of acute demand for labor at present (in a large number of fields at any rate)-new kinds of problems for women workers, who, speaking broadly, are in a weak position. How anyone, after hearing the kind of discussion that has gone on here this afternoon, could feel that we ought to take gains for granted, I must admit is something that I as somewhat of an outsider cannot see. Miss Magee further emphasized this impression when she began to quote figures on current hours legislation that sounded like the hours legislation she had described in the early part of her address as existing about a hundred years ago. I was frankly surprised to find how few |