STATEMENT OF HARRY H. COOK, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FLINT GLASS WORKERS UNION OF NORTH AMERICA

Mr. Cook. Harry H. Cook, international president of the American Flint Glass Workers Union of North America, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor, Toledo, Ohio.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Cook.

Mr. Cook. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am president of the American Flint Glass Workers Union of North America, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor, and speak for the American handmade glass industry and the union workmen who manufacture glass and glass products and whose interests are in serious jeopardy today because of the imports of competing foreign products.

The portion of the industry primarily affected by imports is the handblown and handpressed tableware, stem and artware section. The employers and workers in this industry are vitally interested in H. R. 1.

The union workmen that I represent strongly oppose the enactment of H. R. 1. It would delegate to the executive branch complete and ultimate control of the tariff and trade and this we object to most strenuously.

It is our understanding that the Constitution of the United States provides in Article 1, section 8, that "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises ***" and "To regulate commerce with foreign nations."

Basically the reason why the handblown and handpressed glass industry cannot meet foreign competition is the incredible wage differential between United States producers and those of foreign competing industries located particularly in Japan, England, West Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, and France.

This unfair price competition is clearly reflected by the following data compiled by the Division of Foreign Labor Conditions of the United States Department of Labor, setting forth the average wages in the glassware industry, United States and foreign countries:

The higher the labor-cost content in the total cost of production, the greater is the advantage to the foreign manufacturer who pays lower wages. Labor constitutes 65 percent of the cost of production of handmade glassware. Therefore, this industry is in greater need of tariff protection than most industries.

It must be pointed out that this is a highly skilled hand operation. It is not adapted to mass-production methods and the principal cost is labor. Therefore, unless our domestic producers are given fair pro

tection, they will be driven out of business and their several thousand workers will be added to the list of the unemployed, where many of them presently are.

Already the domestic production has declined some 50 percent since 1946 and all plants report they are simply living from day to day on current orders.

It would be a very short-sighted policy to allow highly skilled craftsmen, so necessary to our national defense, to be thrown out of their jobs as a result of economic appeasement.

Imports are steadily on the rise, having increased from $5,200,000 in 1949 to $8,100,000 in 1953.

The plight of the industry has been further accentuated by the rejection by the President of the United States on September 9, 1954, of the Tariff Commission's recommendation for relief under the escape clause. Thus, any action from this source has been exhausted.

This rejection was a source of great disappointment to our industry and our general membership of fine American workers. Needless to say, this decision has not only weakened confidence in the escape clause, but also in the recommendations to the President by the Tariff Commission.

Such a state of affairs could not possibly exist if the power to regulate our foreign commerce and to protect our industries were to be returned to Congress where, as I have already stated, it belongs in the first place.

On the subject of the escape clause, the President, in his special message to Congress on January 10, 1955, said:

The 3-year extension of the Trade Agreements Act should authorize subject to the present peril and escape clause provisions: 1. Reduction through multilater and reciprocal negotiations of tariff rates **

This is all very interesting, but let us take a look at the record and the futility of escape-clause action. During the present administration and as of January 7, 1955, the Tariff Commission, after exhaustive investigations, recommended nine cases to the President for remedial action. How many were approved? Two-the watch case and, in part only, a case of no great importance in our overall economy, namely, Alsike cloverseed. That is a startlingly low batting

average.

The President, in his special message to Congress, also said:

I request a 3-year extension of Presidential authority to negotiate tariff reductions with other nations on a gradual selective and reciprocal basis.

This authority would permit negotiations for reductions in those barriers that now limit the markets for our goods throughout the world. I shall ask all nations with whom we trade to take similar steps in their relations with each other.

In this respect I would like to call the committee's attention to the old adage "charity begins at home."

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the American glassworkers are not seeking charity. They are seeking protection, the right to work at their trade and to earn an honest living as a result for themselves and for their families.

A tabulation that appeared in the June 7, 1954, issue of Foreign Commerce Weekly, published by the United States Department of Commerce, shows that out of some 88 countries or customs areas in the

world, 64 require prior import permits, while 41 require exchange permits for goods imported from the United States or other dollar countries.

These import restrictions can be used very handily to nullify or impair concessions that have been granted the United States in trade agreements.

Quite aside from exchange controls and import permits foreign countries frequently change their import tariffs and control regulations, oftentimes without adequate warning. As a consequence, the United States Department of Commerce advises United States exporters to make certain before shipping that the foreign importer has conformed with the various ever-changing trade barriers.

Getting back to H. R. 1, the bill in its present form prelegalizes the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, better known as GATT. It would retroactively approve the adherence by the Department of State to that international organization which sits in judgment on acts of Congress and Presidential proclamations thereby placing the authority for regulating American industry in the hands of foreign nations. The President also in his special mesage on January 10 said:

When the current negotiations on the revision of the organizational provisions of the general agreement are satisfactorily completed, the results will be submitted to the Congress for its approval.

This will be a sham since the organizational features only apply to setting up a permanent secretariat, and any approval would simply lay the grounds for appropriations by Congress of funds toward its bureaucratic support.

The substantive features that confer the powers of action are the ones that should be of interest to Congress. These are found in this bill, H. R. 1, and we think they are entirely too broad.

One provision of H. R. 1-section 3 (E)-is apparently designed to assure maximum tariff reductions under the Japanese negotiations scheduled to begin next month under the framework of GATT.

We strongly object to the glass items classified under paragraphs 218 (c), 218 (f), 225, 226, and 229 of the Tariff Act of 1930 being included in the list of items to be negotiated with Japan on a multilateral basis under GATT.

If these items are nevertheless to be negotiated with Japan, it should be done on a bilateral basis. In this way necessary quota a rarements, which are prohibited under GATT, could be included in the agreement.

We also object to the power that would be given to the President to reduce all tariff rates to the level of 50 percent. This would be like making no men's suits to fit men over 6 feet tall or some similar senseless limitation.

Considering these objections to the bill, we protest against its passage. The time has come when the executive arm of the Government should return the authority to shape our tariff back to Congress. In our view the Tariff Commission should make its recommendations to Congress rather than to the President.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, there are in this hearing room several representatives of the workers in the flint glass industry who had hoped that they might testify to the deplorable conditions brought about by the heavy importation of handmade glassware.

These people come directly from the factories and are in the position to give a firsthand report of the competition or competitive effect of imports on their employment.

I was hopeful, as the president of the American Flint Glass Workers Union, that they could all be heard. However, we appreciate the pressure of time and we have, therefore, concluded that, in lieu of testifying, the record may at least note the names of some of these spokesmen and their place of employment.

These men, Mr. Chairman, have prepared statements. Three of them are listed in today's program. One, Mr. Barrett, has consented to have me file with your committee his statement. And we would like to file for the record the statements of Mr. Edward N. Walk, president of the Glass Workers and Pottery Workers Protective League of West Virginia, and Mr. Alvin Barrett, president of the Glass Workers Protective League of Indiana.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to receive them. You may hand them to the reporter.

Mr. Cook. We will hand copies to the reporter. And we will appreciate it if you will make them a part of the record, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. They will be included in the record.

(The documents above referred to are as follows:)

STATEMENT OF EDWARD N. WALK, PRESIDENT, WEST VIRGINIA GLASS WORKERS AND POTTERY WORKERS PROTECTIVE LEAGUE BEFORE THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE ON TRADE AGREEMENTS EXTENSION BILL H. R. 1, JANUARY 27, 1955

Mr. Chairman, I represent the West Virginia Glass Workers and Pottery Workers Protective League, which is an affiliate of the American Flint Glass Workers Union of North America and the American Federation of Labor.

It is estimated that there are 200,000 unemployed in the State of West Virginia which represents approximately 14 percent of the total empolyable population. These unemployed workers have had to resort to surplus Government food rations.

Glass and pottery workers figure prominently in the breadlines.

The principal factor contributing to this unemployment in these industries is low-priced imports made possible by cheap labor abroad, principally in Japan. We object to the passage of H. R. 1 because it would give the President authority to reduce duties further on glassware and pottery, which action would increase the present unemployment.

We particulary object to the inclusion of glass and pottery items in the list of products to be negotiated with Japan next month at Geneva under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

We also resent the treatment we have received by the President in turning down the recommendationss of the Tarif Commission for relief in the handblown and pressed-glass case under the escape clause provisions of the Trade Agreements Act.

The workers in West Virginia cannot understand how on one hand our taxpayers can support a program, namely, the so-called point 4 the purpose of which is to raise the standards of living in foreign countries, while on the other hand no protection is given our own people, causing a lower standard of living and unemploymemnt problem in our own country. Such a policy just does not make

sense.

Secretary of Labor James P. Mitchell in his testimony on January 18, 1955 before this committee said "even after analysis is made of those special situations in which imports have in fact risen, points to only a small fraction of current unemployment as being traceable to the effects of imports."

We would like to invite Mr. Mitchell and members of this committee to visit, for example, the ghost town of Paden City in West Virginia and see for themselves what havoc unfair import competition can bring about.

STATEMENT OF ALVIN BARRETT, PRESIDENT, INDIANA GLASS WORKERS PROTECTIVE LEAGUE BEFORE THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE ON TRADE AGREEMENTS EXTENSION BILL, H. R. 1, JANUARY 27, 1955

Mr. Chairman, I am president of the Indiana Glass Workers Protective League and I represent the great majority of glass workers in the State of Indiana. The Indiana Glass Workers Protective League is an affiliate of the American Flint Glass Workers Union of North America and the American Federation of Labor. The membership of the Indiana Glass Workers Protective League is composed not only of workers but also of the manufacturers themselves.

We are deeply concerned over the unemployment in our ranks, which can be attributed to low-wage competition from abroad.

The passage of H. R. 1 would give the President power to make additional reductions in the tariff, which would be disastrous to our industry. Consequently we object to its passage.

We are also concerned with the coming negotiations of a trade agreement with Japan on a multilateral basis under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Our legislators may think that our workers don't understand tariff issues and the complexities of trade-agreement negotiations. It does not require a college degree to understand that our workers are being deprived of jobs as a result of low-wage price competition from abroad. How can the American glassworker possibly compete with, for example, wages of 22 cents and hour in Japan as compared with $1.82 an hour in our industry in the United States?

We had hoped for some relief under the escape clause provisions of the Trade Agreements Act. This hope has now been completely extinguished in view of the President's refusal to invoke a remedy for our situation in the hand-blown glass case, despite the recommendations of our experts on the Tariff Commission.

The situation is so bad, that there are members of our organization that are, at present, only working from 16 to 24 hours a week. How can a worker even live, not to speak of supporting a family on a 24-hour a week pay basis? It is impossible.

Glass plants operating for over 40 years have been forced to close down with consequent unemployment. These workers are skilled workers and because of their specialized craft and age, they cannot obtain employment elsewhere.

Under H. R. 1 the President can control the destiny of these workers by a mere stroke of the pen and thereby sell out the American worker to cheap labor abroad.

These skilled workers are necessary to our national defense and are just as important as the workers in the watch industry in this respect. During World War II these same glassworkers were called upon to contribute their skills in thhe production of prisms, rangefinders, bushings, electronic glassware, glass gages, lenses, and innumerable hospital and laboratory articles.

Complete details concerning our plight are contained in the statement submitted by Harry H. Cook, President of the American Flint Glass Workers Union of North America.

In closing, I would like to reiterate our objection to the passage of H. R. 1, which bill would authorize such broad powers to the Executive that our livelihood, already affected by import competition, could be placed in even greater jeopardy.

Mr. Cooк. That completes my statement, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. We thank you for your appearance and the information given the committee.

Mr. Cook. Mr. Harry C. Hatch, until recently, was secretary of the Indiana Glass Workers Protective League. He has a statement to file in behalf of the Indiana Glass Co. of Dunkirk, Ind., and the workers employed by that company.

The other two gentlemen, Mr. William A. Daugherty of Newark, Ohio, and Mr. Alexander J. Balcerek of Mount Pleasant, Pa., will present their statements to the committee according to schedule. (The statement of Mr. Hatch above referred to follows:)