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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Department of Labor, but the Army and Navy for years had paid the union rate in the area where they worked. They didn't go out and make a survey of the prevailing rate, which included the non-union as well as the union. When They, were deciding what to pay various metallurgical workers, they talked with John Frey in the Metal Trades Department of the AF of L. They didn't make an agreement with them, but they talked the matter over. They got information. So they had something to do with the labor employed by them.

I don't think any other agency had anything to do with labor. There was a Defense Labor Adjustment Board started before the attack on Pearl Harbor. That was appointed originally under the auspices of the Department of Labor in an effort to cope with the increasing number of industrial disputes that arose in 1939-1940, after the war began, and as it became obvious that the United States would be the arsenal of democracy. There was a great increase in the amount of employment in all of the armament and related industries. Contracts were being made by our government for supplies, which were either to be used for ourselves, or to be sold or traded to our allies on one term or another. Because there was so much employment, because the wages were high and new people were being attracted into these jobs, there began to be this pressure for more wages, for the





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