United States Secretary of Labor

“ The Department of Labor should be rebuilt and strengthened and those units properly belonging within that department should be placed in it.
The health of our economy and its maintenance at high levels further require that the minimum wage fixed by law should be raised to at least 75 cents an hour.
If our free enterprise economy is to be strong and healthy, we must reinvigorate the forces of competition. We must assure small business the freedom and opportunity to grow and prosper. ”

“ I will appoint a Secretary of Labor who fully supports the mission of the Department and who will protect working Americans and their families. An Obama Department of Labor will fight to protect overtime rights for millions of Americans, enforce wage and hour laws, and ensure that OSHA enforces workplace safety laws. ”

“ We have not only seen minimum wage and maximum hour provisions prove their worth economically and socially under government auspices in 1933, 1934 and 1935, but the people of this country, by an overwhelming vote, are in favor of having the Congress--this Congress--put a floor below which industrial wages shall not fall, and a ceiling beyond which the hours of industrial labor shall not rise. ”

“ The consistent policy of the National Government, so far as it has the power, is to hold in check the unscrupulous man, whether employer or employee; but to refuse to weaken individual initiative or to hamper or cramp the industrial development of the country. We recognize that this is an era of federation and combination, in which great capitalistic corporations and labor unions have become factors of tremendous importance in all industrial centers. ”

“ It is greatly to be wished that the Department of Commerce and Labor, through the Labor Bureau, should compile and arrange for the Congress a list of the labor laws of the various States, and should be given the means to investigate and report to the Congress upon the labor conditions in the manufacturing and mining regions throughout the country, both as to wages, as to hours of labor, as to the labor of women and children, and as to the effect in the various labor centers of immigration from abroad. ”

“ Meanwhile, the Department of Labor is at once beginning work to devise further specific recommendations for your consideration.
In the careful working out of legislation, I know you will give thoughtful consideration--as will we in the executive branch--to the views of labor, and of management, and of the general public. In this process, it is only human that each of us should bring forward the arguments of self-interest. But if all conduct their arguments in the overpowering light of national interest--which is enlightened self-interest--we shall get the right answers. ”

“ In both the executive and the legislative branches we must make arrangements which will permit us to formulate the Government program in that light. Such an approach has become imperative if the American political and economic system is to succeed under the conditions of economic instability and uncertainty which we have to face. The Government needs to assure business, labor, and agriculture that Government policies will take due account of the requirements of a full employment economy. ”

“ The Federal Government should continue to set a good example for all other employers.
In the industries the condition of the wage earner has steadily improved. The 12-hour day is almost entirely unknown. Skilled labor is well compensated. But there are unfortunately a multitude of workers who have not yet come to share in the general prosperity of the Nation. Both the public authorities and private enterprise should be solicitous to advance the welfare of this class. ”

“ But there is one matter with which the Congress should deal at this session. There should no longer be any paltering with the question of taking care of the wage-workers who, under our present industrial system, become killed, crippled, or worn out as part of the regular incidents of a given business. The majority of wageworkers must have their rights secured for them by State action; but the National Government should legislate in thoroughgoing and far-reaching fashion not only for all employees of the National Government, but for all persons engaged in interstate commerce. ”

“ The objections to the Senate bill in the House were such that a new measure was reported establishing fixed minimum wages and maximum hours and granting the Secretary of Labor only the power to declare that a particular industry was 'an industry affecting commerce' and so subject to the Act. ”

“ Full employment and full production may be achieved only by maintaining a level of consumer income far higher than that of the prewar period. A high level of consumer income will maintain the market for the output of our mills, farms, and factories, which we have demonstrated during the war years that we can produce. One of the basic steps which the Congress can take to establish a high level of consumer income is to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to raise substandard wages to a decent minimum and to extend similar protection to additional workers who are not covered by the present act. ”

“ I believe that under modern industrial conditions it is often necessary, and even where not necessary it is yet often wise, that there should be organization of labor in order better to secure the rights of the individual wage-worker. All encouragement should be given to any such organization so long as it is conducted with a due and decent regard for the rights of others. ”

“ During this period, economic change in the United States and globally, technological developments, and the failure to modernize Federal organizing and labor-management relations laws to respond appropriately to the reality found in American workplaces, have made worker organizing exceedingly difficult. ”

“ We have made great strides toward the objectives of the National Industrial Recovery Act, for not only have several millions of our unemployed been restored to work, but industry is organizing itself with a greater understanding that reasonable profits can be earned while at the same time protection can be assured to guarantee to labor adequate pay and proper conditions of work. ”

“ The most dangerous occupations are often the poorest paid and those where the hours of work are longest; and in many cases those who go into them are driven by necessity so great that they have practically no alternative. Decisions such as those alluded to above nullify the legislative effort to protect the wage-workers who most need protection from those employers who take advantage of their grinding need. They halt or hamper the movement for securing better and more equitable conditions of labor. ”

“ Without more specific provisions than this Act contains, we cannot interpret it as excluding, or as granting, authority to executive officers to exclude, employees in such plants from the benefits of the general wage and hour provisions which Congress has established in the Walsh-Healey Act and more fully and recently in the Fair Labor Standards Act. ”

“ Justice and fairness dictate that in any modification of our present laws relating to revenue the industries and interests which have been encouraged by such laws, and in which our citizens have large investments, should not be ruthlessly injured or destroyed. We should also deal with the subject in such manner as to protect the interests of American labor, which is the capital of our workingmen. Its stability and proper remuneration furnish the most justifiable pretext for a protective policy. ”

“ Over the past year, our Task Force on Private Sector Initiatives has successfully forged a working partnership involving leaders of business, labor, education, and government to address the training needs of American workers. Thanks to the Task Force, private sector initiatives are now underway in all 50 States of the Union, and thousands of working people have been helped in making the shift from dead-end jobs and low-demand skills to the growth areas of high technology and the service economy. ”

“ In the interest of American labor and the upbuilding of the workingman as the cornerstone of the prosperity of our country, we recommend that Congress create a Department of Labor, in charge of a Secretary, with a seat in the Cabinet, believing that the elevation of the American laborer will bring with it increased production and increased prosperity to our country at home and to our commerce abroad. We are proud of the courage and fidelity of the American soldiers and sailors in all our wars; we favor liberal pensions to them and their dependents ”

“ Such temporary unemployment is probably unavoidable in a period of rapid change. The unemployed worker is a victim of conditions beyond his control. He should be enabled to maintain a reasonable standard of living for himself and his family.
The most serious difficulty in the path of reconversion and expansion is the establishment of a fair wage structure.
The ability of labor and management to work together, and the wage and price policies which they develop, are social and economic issues of first importance. ”

“ Several other types of social legislation have made considerable progress in Europe, but have found little or no foot-hold in this country, such as minimum wage laws, health insurance, old age and widows' pensions, and unemployment insurance. The minimum wage law, establishing a level below which wages must not go, has been adopted by Massachusetts and a few other states in a restricted form. The unemployment problem has hardly been touched, although the federal Department of Labor since its establishment in 1913 has gathered and made public information in regard to opportunities for work. ”

“ In any great labor disturbance not only are employer and employe interested, but a third party--the general public. Every considerable labor difficulty in which interstate commerce is involved should be investigated by the Government and the facts officially reported to the public.
The question of securing a healthy, self-respecting, and mutually sympathetic attitude as between employer and employe, capitalist and wage-worker, is a difficult one. All phases of the labor problem prove difficult when approached. ”

“ Moreover, while Washington is not a great industrial city, there is some industrialism here, and our labor legislation, while it would not be important in itself, might be made a model for the rest of the Nation. We should pass, for instance, a wise employer's-liability act for the District of Columbia, and we need such an act in our navy-yards. Railroad companies in the District ought to be required by law to block their frogs. ”

“ The determination of labor policy must be governed not by the vagaries of political expediency but by the firmest principles and convictions. Slanted partisan appeals to American workers, spoken as if they were a group apart, necessitating a special language and treatment, are an affront to the fullness of their dignity as American citizens.
The truth in matters of labor policy has become obscured in controversy. The very meaning of economic freedom as it affects labor has become confused. ”

“ Protection against the hazards of temporary unemployment should be extended to some 6Ѕ millions of workers, including civilian Federal workers, who now lack this safeguard. Moreover, the Secretary of Labor is making available to the states studies and recommendations in the fields of weekly benefits, periods of protection and extension of coverage. ”

“ The majority of the members wanted immediate gains in wages or the reduction of hours; when their hopes were not realized they drifted away from the order. The troubles were increased by the appearance of the American Federation of Labor, a still mightier organization composed mainly of skilled workers who held strategic positions in industry. When they failed to secure the effective support of the Federation in their efforts to organize the unskilled, the employers closed in upon them ”

“ The strained and too often disturbed relations existing between the employees and the employers in our great manufacturing establishments have not been favorable to a calm consideration by the wage earner of the effect upon wages of the protective system. The facts that his wages were the highest paid in like callings in the world and that a maintenance of this rate of wages in the absence of protective duties upon the product of his labor was impossible were obscured by the passion evoked by these contests. ”

“ These standards include as a minimum the establishment of fair wages and fair employment practices.
Labor also has its own new peacetime responsibilities. Under our collective bargaining system, which must become progressively more secure, labor attains increasing political as well as economic power, and this, as with all power, means increased responsibility. ”

“ Labor legislation is a matter of State concern, and while in America the laws of one State have frequently been enacted bodily by other States, there is still much diversity among the States. In reviewing the labor legislation in force in the United States, we must content ourselves with a general account of the various types of enactments, without attempting to specify where such laws are in force. The most usual subjects of legislation concern the hours of labor, mode of paying wages, and protection of machinery to avoid accidents. ”