Resolved, That local No. 622 of the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers at Conda, Idaho, does hereby petition Congress, through its Representatives and United States Senators, to take emergency remedial action along the following lines: 1. Adoption of legislation to provide unemployed workers with direct assistance over and above present inadequate unemployment compensation standards. Removal of present restrictions and waiting periods. 2. Protection of small-mine operations through passage of premium-price legislation. 3. Legislation to expand domestic metals markets through new public works, such as river valley developments, highways, schools, hospitals, and rural electrification. 4. Legislation to broaden world trade in order to open up vast new markets for United States metals. Yours truly, [SEAL] REX W. WEAVER, STATEMENT OF LOCAL 10-119 INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA, CIO Local 10-119 International Woodworkers of America (CIO affiliate) has prepared the following statement. We request that it be made a part of the record in the hearing of the lead and zinc mining industry of northern Idaho and eastern Washington, held in the Davenport Hotel, Spokane, Wash., April 27, 1953, before the Select Small Business Committee. Local 10-119 International Woodworkers of America, CIO is composed of men and women who work in the lumber mills and logging camps of northern Idaho. We are vitally concerned with the present situation that exists in the lead and zinc industry of northern Idaho. We are fast becoming alarmed at the fact that hundreds of miners and smelterworkers are being laid off because of the price of lead and zinc. These layoffs will soon reflect in the lumbering industry. The mines in this area, when in full operations, use several million feet of timber each year. The producers, while small in comparison with regular lumber operators, employ several hundred workers full time. The curtailment and layoffs in the mines not only will affect a large number of woodworkers, it also affects a group of small farmers who cut mine stulls and timbers each winter during the slack period from their own timber patches. Failing to find a market in the mines for their product, those small farmers are forced on the labor market in competition with members of our organization who follow the woodworking trade the year around. We wish to point out that closing of mines in the Coeur d'Alene district has already affected the woodworking industry. Clyde Shay, route No. 2 Saint Maries, Idaho, has employed 15 to 20 men each year in the production of mine stulls. This winter 1952-53 he has reduced his crew to 4 men and is getting out saw logs in place of mine stulls. Several other small operators, who employed 6 to 12 men each year have not shipped any mining timbers since November 1952 and have no prospects of starting this spring. Connelly and Kroetch, of Harrison, Idaho, operators of a mine stull treating and processing plant, were shipping approximately 6 cars of stulls per week last summer and fall, have reduced their output to 4 cars per month. This has resulted in a cut in their crews and reduction in their work week from 6 days per week to 3 days per week for their remaining employees. A copy of a letter signed by W. B. Russell, president of Russell and Pugh Lumber Co., Springston, Idaho, is attached to this report and should be entered into the record. This letter will give the committee a very clear picture of the affect the closing down and curtailment of mining is having on some of the lumber mills in this area. The closing of this mill would affect the entire community of Harrison, Idaho, as a majority of the employees of the Russell and Pugh mill reside in Harrison, about 3 miles from Springston, Idaho. In order to protect the jobs of our members as well as the miners and smelterworkers in the Coeur d'Alene area, we urge the committee to seriously consider the following suggestions as a solution in aiding the miners and mineowners. Continued prosperity for all, including the small-business men in the various communities of northern Idaho can only come from full employment of the people who live, work, and play in this area. 1. Immediate passage and enactment of Premium Price Plan (S. 1539) by Senator James Murray, of Montana. 2. Relief of lead and zinc workers, through higher unemployment compensation or establishment of public works projects to provide the unemployed miners with jobs at the going wage rates in similar private works. 3. A construction program including the building of Hells Canyon Dam, river valley, and rural electrification. 4. Broaden world markets and expand our foreign trade with all countries that will use lead and zinc and zinc products. FRED SIEFKEN, For Local 10-119 International Woodworkers of America, CIO. Mr. FRED SIEFKEN, SPRINGSTON, IDAHO, May 5, 1953. International Woodworkers of America, CIO, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. DEAR MR. SIEFKEN: In reply to your letter of April 28 requesting information to place before the Select Small Business Committee, we are intensely interested in what happens in the Coeur d'Alene mining district since the existence of the district is primarily the reason for our being here. Through the years from 1892 on we have relied on the mines for a steady reliable local market for a great share of our output. In these later years, as our output increased, the ratio of what we sell to the mines has sometimes been smaller but the mines are still the foundation of our business. As to your specific questions I will give you as nearly as possible the approximate answers. 1. Has the present curtailment in the mines affected your mill cut to any extent? Answer. It has cut us to a 5-day week, cut the price of lagging, and cut our shipments of mine timbers and lagging from not less than 5 cars a week at this time of year down to 1 car a week. This one car does not represent an order but is a concession by the mines to our situation and may be cut off at any time. 2. If so, were any employees laid off? Answer. We generally use four more men when cutting lagging. It might be reasonable to suppose that we are now getting along without those four. Beyond that, however, we find it necessary to keep a crew together-a full crewso long as we operate at all. 3. If the mines you sell to were forced to close down entirely would your company lay off any employees and if so how many? Answer. We might find it extremely difficult to stay in business in such an eventuality in the light of the fact that we are geared to selling a large amount of timber, rough green. By this I mean we lack kiln capacity to dry all the lumber our plant produces and so long as a large portion of it goes out rough green we are able to dry the remainder. A changeover would require not only another kiin but increase boiler capacity, a new hog for fuel, dry sort chain, additional drying sheds-total of $85,000—an expenditure not now justified by general conditions of the lumber market. If we close down it would idle 100 employees with another approximately 100 employees of loggers who serve us. 4. How many carloads of lagging does your company ship to the mines each month? Answer. Our lagging business is sometimes heavier than at other times. Our yearly mine timber and lagging cut runs from 3 to 5 million feet. Last year it was about 31⁄2 million. 5. What grades of lumber do you put into mine timbers or lagging? Answer. Most lagging and timbers require No. 1 grade. In practice, however, the entire sound log is cut up into lagging except for the side lumber which can't be cut into lagging. Actually, the side lumber is generally of the better grades but we realize less for it because it is a heavy shipper for the eastern markets. 6. What species of timber do you use most? Answer. In this there is naturally a greater variation since we attempt to gear our buying to the needs of the market. Last year's figures reveal the following: 5.4 million red fir and larch, 4.1 million Idaho white pine, 3.5 million ponderosa pine, 2.4 million white fir, 0.5 million cedar and spruce—total, 15.9 million. It is quite apparent that the lead and zinc industry locally faces a most serious price situation. We hope this information will in some small degree help them in their fight for a fair market. Very truly yours, W. B. RUSSELL, President. (Whereupon, at 4: 45 p. m., the committee recessed, to reconvene at the Westward Ho Hotel, Phoenix, Ariz., Wednesday, April 30, 1953.) PROBLEMS IN THE METAL-MINING INDUSTRY (LEAD, ZINC, AND OTHER METALS) WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 1953 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SELECT COMMITTEE TO CONDUCT A STUDY AND Phoenix, Ariz. The committee met at 10 a. m., pursuant to recess, in Spokane, Wash., in the Saratoga Room, Westward Ho Hotel, Hon. Craig Hosmer, presiding. Present: Representatives Hosmer and Multer. Also present: Bynum Hinton, committee counsel; and Carl Davis, director of the committee staff. Mr. HOSMER. The committee will please come to order. This is a metting of the Small Business Committee of the United States House of Representatives. The chairman of the committee, Mr. William S. Hill, of Colorado, is unavoidably absent on business in Washington. The subchairman, Representative William McCulloch, Ohio, was to preside today, but he was suddenly taken ill. I am Representative Craig Hosmer of Long Beach, Calif. With me for this hearing is Congressman Abraham Multer of Brooklyn, N. Y. I am a Republican; Mr. Multer is a Democrat. The problems of small business are nonpartisan or bypartisan, I don't know which, so we want you to feel that there is no atmosphere here except trying to get to the facts to take back to Washington with us that will be of benefit to the mining industry. This hearing has been scheduled for 1 day only. It is going to be necessary, therefore, for the witnesses to confine their oral statements to the shortest possible time. We will really appreciate your observing this rule. If the time goes on too far, we may have to call you and ask you to submit the balance of your testimony in writing. In all cases we request that if there is anything that you want to place before the committee, that you do not have a chance to place before us today, send it to the Small Business Committee, House Office Building, Washington, D. C., and it will be included in the record and will be given the same consideration as if it were stated orally here today. With the committee today is a part of the committee staff. Our counsel is Mr. Bynum Hinton, and Mr. Carl Davis is staff director. We hope that through this session we will have your cooperation and your patient understanding that your Government is coming to you to hear your problems so that you may have them answered. Our purpose is to secure information. We do not want to argue. We 34376-53- -25 are an investigating committee. We take the facts as we find them, as you present them to us, and put them together, assemble them, and pass them on to the proper legislative committee of Congress so that those legislative committees will have the necessary information upon which to deliberate and come out with whatever legislation is dictated. The hearing today will be divided into categories, more or less. We will call the witnesses who have been scheduled for the various categories. If there is time at the end of the hearing, we will hear anybody who has not already been scheduled. I repeat again that we invite you to file your written statements, if you don't get a chance to talk today, or you don't get a chance to talk about all you want to talk about. If there is anybody present now who has a written statement that he wishes to file with the committee, let him come forward and we will receive it at this time for the record. Will you identify yourself for our record. STATEMENT OF D. W. JAQUAYS, PRESIDENT, JAQUAYS MINING CO., GLOBE, ARIZ. Mr. JAQUAYS. I am D. W. Jaquays, president of the Jaquays Mining Co., producer of asbestos. (Statement follows:) COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS, Phoenix, Ariz. (Attention of Representative Hill, Chairman.) APRIL 29, 1953. GENTLEMEN: The following is respectfully submitted by the undersigned in connection with the production of asbestos fiber in the State of Arizona. Our operation, the Jaquays Mining Co., Globe, Ariz., has been producing under its present corporate form since June 1, 1952. During the period June 1, 1952, to the present, we have been confronted with many problems concerning mine development and expansion of plant facilities. Although our funded debt is comparatively small, we were at times put to task to make regular payments due thereon due to the fact that a good deal of money was needed for exploration and development and also to construct some necessary buildings and install equipment. It is our opinion that if our operation were relieved from paying income taxes for a period of 3 years, we would be able to secure private financing to carry out our program. If we had been able to do this, our ability to reach full production would have been greatly aided. Also, the private investors would have had greater assurance of return of their capital at a stated time. On the other hand, a reduction in income taxes would be of great benefit to our operation. At this time we are allowed depletion on the percentage basis of 10 percent of our gross mining income of 50 percent of our net mining income, whichever is lower. The copper industry is allowed 15 percent instead of 10 percent. We feel that if our depletion allowance were increased to 15 percent and was not limited to 50 percent of our net mining income, we would be able to carry out our exploration and development programs without Federal aid. We are now receiving funds from the Defense Mineral Emergency Agency and are using them to proceed with exploration of one of our properties. At the same time we are setting up a surplus reserve to provide for Federal and State income taxes. We sincerely feel that if our taxes were reduced, we could use the money saved in this manner to do our exploration work without the money received from the Defense Mineral Emergency Agency. Very truly yours, JAQUAYS MINING CO., Mr. HOSMER. Will you identify yourself? |