In on-site school construction, the Bureau or Labor Statistics findings for job and skill classifications are: Carpenters___. Plumbers.. Bricklayers Electricians.. Other crafts__. Laborers____ Helpers and tenders- Other Total. Percent 18. 7 9.4 9.3 7.1 18.6 24.0 5. 1 7.8 100.0 Specific job and skill requirements differ widely from one type of construction to another. Requirements for unskilled workers seem to be about 25 percent to 30 percent of total on-site labor requirements. Source: Based on "Labor Requirements For School Construction" (1961) and "Labor Requirements for Highway Construction" (1961), published by BLS, U.S. Department of Labor. APPENDIX C Unemployment rates in the Nation as a whole and in construction Mr. FALLON (presiding). Ladies and gentlemen, after a brief recess, the Public Works Committee is in session for the further consideration of H.R. 10113 and H.R. 10318, known as the Standby Capital Improvements Act of 1962. We have on this committee a very valuable member from the great State of Pennsylvania, Mr. Clark, and I would like to ask him to present the next witness. Mr. CLARK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The next witness is the Honorable Governor David Lawrence, and I would like to have him come up to the witness chair. STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID LAWRENCE, GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA, ACCOMPANIED BY WALTER W. GIESEY, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNOR, AND RALPH WIDNER, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, STATE PLANNING BOARD, STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA Mr. CLARK. Governor Lawrence is known all over, not only in the United States, but also all over the world. He is known for his leadership, as a man with the highest integrity, a man of action, and a man who can always be depended upon to come up with the solution at the right time. He is more than that. He is a man known for the renaissance of Pittsburgh, and, I am sure, Governor Lawrence, that you will add much to this program today. We are very happy to have you with us. Mr. FALLON. Governor Lawrence, on behalf of the full committee, I would like to welcome you here today and thank you for giving of your time to come down here to testify on this bill. Governor LAWRENCE. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I want to express the thanks of Pennsylvania citizens for this opportunity to present testimony on the President's request for an antirecession public works measure. We are emphatically in favor of this proposed legislation, for we believe it is an integral part of the comprehensive and continuing effort we must make to put America's workers back to work and keep them there. In particular, we want to place on the record wholehearted approval of the amendment providing extra moneys for public works grants this year. President Kennedy asked the Congress on February 19 to provide legislation authorizing an emergency program of Federal, State, and local public works to counteract new periods of recession. The amendment would add to the $2 billion originally requested a sum of $600 million earmarked for use as quickly as possible. I want to commend the leadership of Senator Clark and Representative Blatnick in pressing for this public works program. From past experience we have learned the bitter lesson that each day of delay in the attempt to head off rising unemployment may require months of painful struggle later on. Pennsylvania's annual average unemployment has ranged high, consistently, since the serious national recession of 1958. During that year nearly 500,000 of our workers were without jobs-a total of 101/2 percent of our labor force, on an annual average. A large part of Pennsylvania unemployment can be traced to the severe nationwide recessions of 1960, 1958, and the earlier recession in 1954. The hardest effects of joblessness in recent years have come as a result of cutbacks in the major, basic industries that still form the foundation of Pennsylvania economy. Those cutbacks have been national, rather than local, in origin. Because we have suffered long-term, lingering unemployment problems in our State, 51 of our 67 counties are now listed as qualifying as distressed areas eligible for the Area Rehabilitation Administration program. It is imperative, from our standpoint, that some positive Federal action should be taken to help us in the effort to revitalize the economy of the State. We have done an extraordinary job, thus far, on programs of our own-but there is enormous work still before us and I believe the Federal Government can play an important role in getting it done. It might seem, at first glance, that the sums involved in the bill now before this committee are large. A closer look at the record of unemployment-and the cost of joblessness-proves otherwise. The President has been conservative in his recommendation for funds to be used this coming fiscal year for public works projects. It cost. Pennsylvania nearly that much-$341 million-for unemployment compensation last year, alone. If we had made no effort, as a State government, to help ourselves and our people in these past few years, I would not feel that we have a right to urge passage of this legislation. Pennsylvania does not come before the Congress with its hat in hand, however. As befits the Nation's most industrial and individualistic State, we have taken long and substantial steps to meet our own problems. In the past year, alone, we have cut over 100,000 from our jobless rolls. We have found, for one thing, that the acceleration of public works is both feasible and necessary, when we are forced to deal with unemployment. Just 4 years ago, Gov. George M. Leader, my predecessor in the Governor's chair in Harrisburg, initiated a program to speed up public works and develop jobs in Pennsylvania. In the first 5 months of 1958, State projects amounting to more than $292 million were accelerated. At the same time, Governor Leader was able to secure acceleration of nearly $38 million in local projects so that the total amount of projects affected was over $330 million. In some cases the projects were speeded up only a few weeks-but in most of them, the projects were advanced as much as a year or two. The effect on employment was, as expected, beneficial. Aided by this comprehensive acceleration program and a mild national economic upturn, Pennsylvania's average unemployment declined 15 percent by the end of the following year. Pennsylvania is not troubled by a lack of necessary projects. I can assure you that we have now-and shall always have a large volume of necessary public works projects at various stages of the planning process, nearly all of which could be logically and beneficially accelerated in a time of emergency if adequate construction funds were available. This past year, for instance, I submitted a capital budget of more than $241 million to the general assembly, a budget, incidentally, which does not include highway construction. The assembly approved funds for both planning and construction of most of those projects. As a result, we now have 90 projects under design with a total construction cost of about $102 million and planning will soon be initiated on a second large block of projects for which construction funds are available. There was, however, a group of 32 projects in the capital budget for which only planning funds were provided. On these projects— ranging from libraries and science buildings in education to conservation projects we are moving rapidly ahead on planning but construction funds cannot be made available before the 1963 legislative session. Their total cost will be slightly more than $50 million. If this act is passed, I assure you we would find matching funds. As you can see, there is a variety of public works projects now in planning stages in Pennsylvania. Nearly all of them could be accelerated if construction funds were available; and the same rule applies to public works programs of our local governments throughout the State. I want to emphasize, again, that the funds I am discussing do not include programs of highway construction. While I am on the subject of highways, however, I feel I should add that we have been able to use acceleration to great advantage in this field, also. Last year, for example, the Pennsylvania Department of Highways expended $10 million in a speeded up program of hazard removal and general highway betterment. The program was late in starting, but as a direct result, 2,000 employable workers were actually working in jobs from the last of May to the first of December. This year the highway department plans to initiate a similar program earlier. We are hopeful that its effect will be even more beneficial than last year's, in terms of its effect on unemployment and toward improvement of Pennsylvania's roads. We do not deny that we have faced serious problems in unemployment in our State. We have tackled them, however, in the way that we feel they must be tackled-imaginatively and on a broad front, rather than in some timid, halfhearted, limited fashion. The most notable of our efforts to solve our own problems, of course, has been the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority. Since it was signed into law in 1956, the authority-better known as PIDA has worked with local citizens and local financial institutions to create 32,558 job opportunities for Pennsylvania workers. PIDA participation in the industrial projects has amounted to nearly $2512 million, but the total estimated payroll from the jobs created will be nearly $120 million annually. It should be evident, therefore, that Pennsylvania's pioneering industrial development program is paying dividends now and shall continue to do so for many years to come. We have made excellent progress in retraining workers, also, carrying on an intensive drive to prepare those who were once employed in mines and closed factories for other kinds of work. The retraining program has been extraordinarily effective; placement of retrained workers has ranged consistently from 85 to 95 percent. When the ARA program went into effect, Pennsylvania was ready to move with additional projects for retraining. We now have more training courses submitted and approved by the ARA than any other State. We have 200 workers enrolled in retraining under ARA at the present time. Half of them had been unemployed 6 months or more and one-third had been unemployed more than a year. It is our belief that each of the steps the Federal Government has taken is valuable. ARA is an important complement to the statewide effort we have made through PIDA. Federal participation in the retraining of workers is essential. And, by the same token, a program to empower the President to launch public works when recession threatens is a powerful deterrent to increasing unemploy ment. The program now before this committee is a strong and effective proposal. It is a positive program and I urgently request that the Congress react positively to it, for the sake of the national economy and for Pennsylvania's citizens. As I have mentioned, previously, we have many public works projects in our State that are now in planning stages. They lack only the necessary construction funds. There are others for which planning money, too, needs to be made available. As an example of the kind of project Pennsylvania could put into action and press to completion within the allotted deadline in this bill, I want to discuss the Pennsylvania plan for area technical schools. This is a proposed system of schools similar to those already constructed in Williamsport and Bucks County designed to give Pennsylvania students and workers superior instruction in the skills they need to seek employment in modern industry. The preliminary program drawn up by the State department of public instruction calls for construction of 10 area technical schoolsall but one of them in areas qualifying under ARA as economically distressed. The schools are essential to the Pennsylvania education system but they are also a necessary part of our statewide effort to retrain adult workers and place them in gainful employment. The estimated cost of constructing and equipping each school would be $12 million. Since nearly all of them will be located in areas of economic distress, the local school districts are unable to meet the burden of constructing and equipping them alone. It is our belief, therefore, that the acceleration of public works programs proposed by this legislation could be most profitably and logically applied to construction of this school system in Pennsylvania. The need for improved technical training in public schools grows with each passing year. Modern industry, the kind of industry that grows with time, developing new products and meeting new demands, needs a far more skilled and intellectually trained worker than ever before. The area technical schools, with equipment for training in electronics, chemicals, design and other advanced skills, represent a major advance. In addition to this continuing need for education of our young people, we will have the persistent demand for reeducation for workers whose specialized skills have become obsolete. We estimate that, within 3 years, the demand for such retraining will reach as high as 50,000 persons. Our vocational educational departments are bursting at the seams and we believe construction of area technical schools offers the best solution to the growing problems of matching educational offering with technological demands. I want to make one thing perfectly clear. Pennsylvania does not favor the public works bills now before this committee because the program would offer us a handout. We approve of this proposal because we feel that there is much work to be done-work that needs to be done. There is a wide variety of projects that will benefit the citizens of our own State and this entire Nation. They are not projects to "make work." They are not being "taken off the shelf" to prime pumps or shuffle statistics. They are necessary programs of public work designed for the good of the public. We are not asking the Federal Government to build monuments or memorials; we are not seeking favors or charity. We believe that the public works program proposed by the President is an essential investment in the sound future of this Nation. If we can build the public projects our State and Nation should have and, at the same time, relieve the pressures of persistent unem $301362—— -20 |