Files Protest at Lumbcr Code Recovety Administration Holds

Hearings

Protest and recommendations of the Coos Bay Lumber Company were filed on July 24, L933 with the Administrator of the National Industrial Recovery Act by William Denman, a director of the company, at the lumber code hearings held in Washington.

Objection to the Code is based on the hours of labor and the minimum wage of 22f cents an hour, or $10'80 per week of 48 hours, as unfair competition to West Coast forest products where the timber is heavily taxed. They propose 5 working days of 6 hours each in sawmills and 6 working days of 6 hours each in logging camps, at a minimum wage of 50 cents per hour. As to the effect of the 6 hour proposal on unemployment in the Douglas fir region, they state no one can accurately forecast what the aggregate volume of future orders will be but according to the best available estimate it takes 16 hours' labor to produce 1,00O feet of fir lumber, that is, 2 men working one 8-hour shift, or 2 Z/3 men working one 6-hour shift which would require 33 l/3% more men at wages substantially above those now being paid. In 1930, the company states, all of their men were working steadily 48 hours a week at a minimum wage of 50 cents an hour, or $24 per week, and the adoption of the Code proposal would result in the minimum weekly income of loggers being reduced 331/3% and millmen 37%% as compared with 193O'

To efiectuate their 6-hour day proposal for maximum hours and minimum wages in the Douglas fir region, the company says, would require immediate protection against other species of lumber manufactured at low wages, and high miximum hours per week as proposed by-the Code, alJo protection may be necessary against invasion of our domestic markets.

Under Control of Production, objection was made on the ground that quotas for the units of the West Coast fir industry will be relatively small, because the footage should be -divided among all the mills, also that they include lumber for export. If the Administrators are ready to face the execution of mandatory quota provisions in the codes, the company offered the following recommendations for quota fixing: (a) that the full hourly capacity of each sawmill in the industry be ascertained and reported to each member of the industry, (b) that when the regional quota for domestic sale has been established, -each sawmill which desires to so operate be given the right to operate at full hourly capacity for exactly the same number of hours (during p&iod for producing the-r-eglonll quota) as every othel iawmill in the region which desires to so ooerate. and (c) that there be added to the domestic quota tlie amount of 'bona fide foreign orders taken for cutting or sale from stock, provided, (1) that if not exported the addition to the domeltic quota be withdrawn' and (2) that production incidental to cutting foreign orders but not ixported be not included in the addition to the quota.

Price fixing even under Government supervision was obiected to as this means Government sanction and super'niriott, and if applied to lumber will have to be applied to.all the thousands of industries of the country.

If price fixing is insisted upon, the company recommended that'each producer be required to publish a price list (exclusive of export offerings) estimated by.him to average at least his immediate cost of production (fixed charges to be prorated over annual single- shift-capacity), which price list shall be adhered to until publicly changed' and increased each month if found to average less than cost durine the previous month.

"Protest was made against the failure to place labor and consumer representatives onthe Emergency National

Lumber Code Meetings

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McAghon, Master Carpenters' Association of New York City, and FI. G. Klopp, in behalf of the woodworking factories of the Inland Empire.

E. J. Curtis, a member of the Emergency National Committee, supported the code, speaking for the millwork industry which he said employed 90,000 men normally, paying wages of $116,000,00O a year, expending $296,000,000 annually for materials and turning out products valued at $553,000,000.

A. Noral of Seattle, representing the National Lumber Workers Industrial lJnion, asked that a minimum wage of 55 cents an hour and a 30-hour week be written into the code.

Mark E. Reed. member of the Emergency National Committee, testified as to labor conditions in the West Coast industry and des'cribed the present unrest and the strike,in the Grays Harbor district due to the uncertainty of labor as to the "new deal". He believed the situation might be helped if the Industrial Recovery Administration would issue a statement urging ne,cessity of cooperation between employers and workmen and urging all workmen to keep employed at a reasonable wage until the details of a definite program might be completed.

Some objections were presented to the rules of Fair Trade Practice on the ground of restricting the wholesalers' field of ,customers, and shipment practices.

Hearings were adjourned Wednesday night for the time being by Mr. Cates, who recommended that the code-drafting committee take. further action in the refinement and development of the code, in the light of the information developed at the hearings and that the code be completed for presentation as soon as possible.

Golf Tournament August 16

The Orange County Lumbermen's Club will hold their next golf tournament at the Lakewood Country Club, Long Beach, on Wednesday afternoon, August 16, 1933. Lunch and dinner will be served at the club. All lumbermen are invited to attend.

Committee and on all quota, price fixing and other committees affecting labor and employment. They recommended that such representation be provided for in the Code.

Further protests were made against the Code on the ground that there are no specific provisions for publicity to the members of the industry controlled by the codes, to labor and to the public. Objection was based on the ground that the codes constitute the Articles of Co-Partnership enforced by criminal law upon competitors and that the affairs of these code-controlled industries should have full publicity. They recommended that the Code should be revised to the end that each one of the partners affected by quotas or price fixing or anything else should have the right to full access of all his partners' figures affecting such inter-partnership relationship.

On July 27, the company filed an additional brief with the Administrator, which confined itself to three subjects and their relationship to the Douglas fir lumber business. in which the company is engaged; maximum hours of labor and minimum wages, restriction of production, and

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