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the importance the necessity-of the change of approach in the handling of the home-work problem which our newer home-work laws represent, so that we no longer limit ourselves to the old and valid objection that home work is a health hazard, but that we recognize that it is basically an economic problem whose existence continues to trouble us primarily because home-work production is cheaper for the employer indulging therein, and therefore obviously it is necessary for us to iron out those economic inequalities if we are to diminish and if possible to get rid of home work. Unquestionably, that is more difficult than it is merely to attempt to control the sanitary conditions in places where home work is done. One of the things that makes it difficult is that certain types of home work are so free to move about. I know perfectly well, from seeing them in subways, that lampshades are not going very far, as it takes only a dozen to fill a packing box as big as a trunk, but when manufacturers of knit goods have only sales rooms and packing rooms, and employ as many as 3,000 home workers--many of them contractors, who receive bales of wool that come back as baby sweaters and bootees and carriage covers, and all those things that look so attractive in shop windows-then I think you will agree with me that the problem of the State administrator, who is charged on the statute books with the responsibility of seeing that the health and well-being of the home worker and the standards of the factory employee in the industry are maintained under a home-work order, is serious. It is a problem that no State administrator can handle alone so long as that type of industry employs home work.

For the period extending from October 23, 1935, to August 26, 1936, there were listed 194 manufacturers in New York State who were sending home work to 1,661 home workers in 16 States and 1 Territory: Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. As shown in the attached tables, 93 percent of the 1,661 home workers in other States to whom New York manufacturers were distributing work were located in 3 States: 49 percent in New Jersey, 25 percent in Maine, and 17 percent in Pennsylvania. Approximately 29 percent of the 1,661 home workers lived in States with no homework laws.

Sixty-one percent of the home workers living in other States who received work from New York manufacturers were working on knitted wear (mostly infants' knitted wear). Ninety percent of these 1,017 home workers lived in 3 States-Maine, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania -with scattered home workers reported in all other States, except Kentucky. In all other industrial groups it was reported that home work was sent almost entirely to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The second largest group of 192 home workers worked on embroidery and

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art needlework-185 in New Jersey, 6 in Connecticut, and 1 in Puerto Rico. The third largest group worked on infants' wear-129 home workers-111 in Pennsylvania and 18 in New Jersey. The fourth largest group worked on women's and children's clothing, including neckwear, underwear, and hosiery-113 home workers-108 in New Jersey, 3 in Pennsylvania, 1 in Maryland, and 1 in Kentucky. Fortyeight home workers in New Jersey received work on artificial flowers. Forty-one in New Jersey received work on powder puffs. Thirty-five in New Jersey received work on men's neckwear.

On dolls, dolls' clothing, and other stuffed toys, home work is prohibited by statute in New York State. Twenty manufacturers were sending home work to 37 home workers living in New Jersey.

On men's and boys' factory- and custom-made clothing, home work is prohibited in New York State by administrative order, home-work order no. 1, which took effect on April 25, 1936, for the factory-madeclothing industry and July 1, 1936, for the custom-made branch of the industry. Five merchant and custom tailors were reported as sending home work to eight home workers in New Jersey.

TABLE 8.-Geographical distribution of home workers receiving work from manufac turers in New York State, October 23, 1935-August 26, 1936

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TABLE 9.-Industrial distribution of home work sent outside New York State, October 23, 1935-August 26, 1936

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* Except knitted wear.

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1 Home-work order no. 1-Apr. 25, 1936. Prohibited some work after July 1, 1936.

• Prohibited by statute of New York State.

TABLE 10.-Distribution of home workers outside New York State receiving work from New York State manufacturers, by State of residence and by industry

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1 Less than 4 home workers residing in each State: Delaware 3, Kentucky 1, Michigan 2, Ohio 3, Rhode Irland 2, Tennessee 2, West Virginia 1, Puerto Rico 2.

States to which New York manufacturers send work have no home-work laws: Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia.

The chairman of our committee has suggested that in considering the report of your home-work committee you favor the continuance of work in a bill for the direct control of interstate traffic in home work. I suggest that there is another approach that we might work on with the hope of at least somewhat affecting that situation. One day recently when I was in a little rural post office that is the general store, station, etc., ready to board a train, I saw in the post-office window a notice asking the postmaster please to put up the sheet in a conspicuous spot. I read the name of one of our well-known homework manufacturers of knit goods, conspicuously printed on the sheet. He said, "Wanted, skilled knitters to do some work for good prices." He was using the facilities of the United States post office to do free advertising for himself, and it seemed to me that that was another thing that might interest the United States Department of Labor. It was interested and took the matter up with the Post Office Department, which suggested that anyone seeing such posting should call it to the attention of that Department, and if there was fraud involved it would be glad to deal with the matter. It seems to me we can go further than that. All of us who have had to deal with home work know that there is so much that is fraudulent that if we wait until the facts have been established we will simply be aiding and abetting the whole thing. Farm women in rural sections do not know how to check on the persons making such advertisements. It would be well, if we could, to get the Post Office Department to act at least as cautiously as the newspapers have been willing to in checking on home-work advertisements in New York. All the metropolitan papers have an agreement with the labor department whereby any material that is submitted to them as a home-work advertisement to be inserted in their columns is checked with us before it is accepted for insertion. It is checked as to whether the person is genuinely an employer, whether he has his proper permit to give out home work, and how he stands. In that way we are able to keep out of the newspapers many advertisements that would mean fraudulent exploitation that we could never trace afterward. The mere reporting to us by the newspapers of proposed advertisements means that we can inspect and follow up a good many situations that are definitely legal and prevent them taking on home workers. I do not see why it is not possible for this organization to ask that kind of cooperation of the Post Office Department in checking with the issuing authorities in any State from which such material comes, so that we can be informed at least of the sources and prevent publicity by the employer who is seeking to undercut wages by this procedure.

Finally, there is one other aspect of the problem that goes beyond State limits. We have, as I told you, issued, as the first order prohibiting home work under our new law, an order against home work in men's and boys' clothing. In conjunction with the Brooklyn

Navy Yard there is a supply company which makes sailors' clothing and which gives this home work, prohibited to any private employer in New York State, to 18 home workers. I have not had an opportunity to check, but I should like to know whether, under the WalshHealey Act, that sort of a situation cannot be eliminated, thus bringing up to State standards situations in which the Federal Government itself is the employer. I think it would simplify the problems in any industry for which the State governments are setting up standards that are intended to eliminate home work.

Mr. FLETCHER. Commissioner Toohey of the New Jersey Department of Labor was to have been here tonight, but unfortunately he could not attend, and he has designated Mr. Lorenz of his department to represent him.

Mr. LORENZ. I have a paper handed me by Mr. Toohey before I left New Jersey. He has requested me to read it to you and then I will comment on some of the things stated by Miss Miller.

[Mr. Lorenz read Mr. Toohey's paper, as follows:]

Mr. ТооHEY: There is very little new thought that can possibly be presented on this subject, for the conclusion reached that industrial home work in all its phases seriously menaces the social and physical well-being of large groups of our population is generally accepted by governmental officials and social workers who are familiar with its ramifications. While this problem has been given very serious consideration in the State of New Jersey for the past 16 years, and a great deal of informative data has been collected that clinches our opinion on the disastrous effects of this evil, I cannot say truthfully that legislative action in our State has been broad and enlightening enough to grant the commissioner of labor the needed authority to abolish it. In 1930 the State legislature passed an act known as the "homework law." The preamble declared that it was "An act to regulate and in certain cases to prohibit the manufacturing or altering or repairing or finishing of goods and the distribution thereof for such purposes in tenements, dwellings and buildings situated immediately in the rear of tenements or dwellings, and all similar places, and thus to protect the employment, safety, and working hours of persons, employees and operatives employed therein; to provide for the enforcement thereof and punishment for violations thereof."

This law gave the commissioner of labor the authority to license persons who wished to engage in home work. In certain cases, where the work is on a factory basis and all features of the factory laws are applicable to it, under the broad powers given to the commissioner it has been possible to prohibit practically the establishment of factory employment in dwellings, buildings, and places that are used by human beings for habitation purposes. While this act permitted the manufarture of dolls' clothing and infants' wearing apparel in two-story

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