NAB reports (Mar-Dec 1933)

REPORT OF DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR November 14, 1933. To tlic National Recovery Administrator: General Statement On August 29, 1933, there was submitted to the National Re¬ covery Administrator a proposed Code for the Radio Broadcasting Industry. Such proposed Code was signed and submitted by the National Association of Broadcasters, Inc., the membership of which is rep¬ resentative of all sections of the country and includes some 275 broadcasting stations. Statistics are not available to determine with accuracy the percentage of the total broadcasting business which is done by the members of the Association, but it is believed to be in excess of 83 per cent of the total volume of business done by the entire industry. The Public Hearing A Public Hearing was held and completed on September 27, 1933, in the Ball Room of the Raleigh Hotel, Washington, D. C. A list of witnesses is contained in the transcript of record of such Public Hearing. Upon the Public Plearing the following sat with your Deputy as Advisors: G. E. Renard, Consumer Advisor; Edward Nockles, Labor Ad¬ visor; L. M. C. Smith, Legal Advisor; James Baldwin, Industrial Advisor; Donald K. Wallace, Research and Planning Division; and John Shepard, III, Special Advisor. All elements of the Industry were heard and the statistical posi¬ tion of the Industry was satisfactorily presented. Communications received from interested parties who had not requested to be heard were read into the record. CONFERENCES AFTER THE HEARING Following the Public Hearing, conferences were held with the representatives of all groups present, together with the Advisors. As a result of these conferences each and every matter was con¬ sidered, involving employers, labor and the consumers, and with the unanimous approval of all parties was agreed upon. THE CODE AS REVISED For the first time in the history of this Industry, minimum wages and maximum number of hours of employment are provided for, together with a guaranteed minimum weekly wage. The im¬ mediate effect of these will be to increase existing payrolls at the estimated rate of $1,328,000 per year. Compliance with the Code, plus voluntary plans for increasing the network employment, will increase by approximately 765 the number of persons regularly employed in the Industr}'. This will exceed by about 350 persons the total for any previous period. The total payrolls under the Code will be more than double those of 1929, the peak year in most industries, and will equal 93.2 per cent of the payrolls of 1931, the peak year in the Radio Broadcasting Industry, notwithstanding the salary cuts in the higher brackets. My best information is that there will not be an increase in rates charged for facilities so that the consumers should not be adversely affected. The Industry will be required to absorb the greater operating costs. BRIEF ANALYSIS OF THE PROVISIONS OF THE REVISED CODE Hours (a) Forty hours is established as the working week except as to employees in managerial or executive capacity, outside salesmen, employees on maintenance and emergency repair work, persons em¬ ployed on special event programs of public interest, but in this case the hours averaged over a six weeks’ period shall not exceed the maximum for their class, and broadcast technicians who are per¬ mitted to work 48 hours per week. Concerning the latter class of employees there was a total lack of reliable statistics covering the number of hours that such employees worked, and faced with this lack of statistics, your Deputy deemed it necessary to allow this 48-hour week pending the report of the Code Authority after a study to be made within ninety (90) days. The hours of such employees vary from a minimum of 36 hours per week to a maxi¬ mum of over 80. Approval of a 48-hour work week for the next ninety (90) days has been given by the Advisors. To preserve the gains made through any employers signing the President’s Reemployment Agreement and reducing hours to 40 per week (before the approval of a substitution allowing 48 hours per week for this class of employee), a clause has been inserted in the Code as follows: “Working conditions in any broadcasting station or network shall not be changed to frustrate the intent and purpose of this Code. Where on November 1, 1933, any broadcaster paid broadcast technicians wages in excess of the minimum herein provided for or worked such employees a lesser number of hours per week than herein permitted, such higher wages and such lesser number of hours shall be deemed to be and are hereby declared to be the minimum scale of wages and maxi¬ mum number of hours with respect to such stations.” Overtime is not permitted within the Industry except in the case of emergency maintenance and emergency repair men. Wages (6) Non-technical employees are guaranteed the wages provided in the President's Reemployment Agreement. The guaranteed wage for broadcast operators and control men varies in amount accord¬ ing to the Federal Radio Commission classifications of the station by which they are employed, as follows: (а) Clear channel or high-power regional stations, not less than $40 per week; (б) Clear channel part-time or low-power regional stations, notless than $30 per week ; (c) Low-power part-time regional local unlimited or local parttime stations, not less than $20 per week. Such employees in the past have been paid as little as $9 per week in some small stations. Announcers and program production employees are to receive $20 per week, except that in small stations where not more than ten persons were regularly employed on July 1,. 1933, the rate is $15 per week. The employers agree not to reduce the compensation for employment now in excess of the minimum wages, notwithstanding that the hours may be reduced, and to increase the pay for such employment by an equitable readjustment. No persons under sixteen years of age is to be employed within the Industry, except as talent on programs and then for not more than three hours per day, and those hours to be such as will not interfere with school hours. In the proposed Code there is constituted a named Code Author¬ ity comprising representatives of independent stations, the Special Advisor, the Industrial Advisor, and the Labor Advisor on the Code, two representatives of the broadcasting networks, and three members to be appointed by the Administrator. The members of the Code Authority were named because of their experience and training in the Industry so that there might be no delay in institut¬ ing the investigations which are required of that body and in recom¬ mending to the Administrator a permanent form of organization for the administration of this Code. To insure further that the Code Authority shall be truly repre¬ sentative of the entire Industry and all its component parts there is a provision that when any question directly or indirectly affect¬ ing any class of employees engaged in the Radio Broadcasting Industry is to be considered by the Code Authority, one repre¬ sentative of such class selected by the Administrator from nomina¬ tions made by such class in such manner as may be prescribed by the Administrator shall sit with and become for such purposes a member of the Code Authority with a right to vote. Open price schedules are provided for among the trade practices by requiring each broadcaster and network to publish and file with the Code Authority a schedule of all of its rates regularly and cur¬ rently charged to advertisers for the use of broadcasting time, to¬ gether with all discounts, rebates, refunds and commissions which shall be allowed to the users of such time. :jc The revised Code is adopted by the authorized representatives of the Association and by authorized representatives of employees, as appears from their adoption in writing appended hereto. There are also appended hereto the reports on the Revised Code of the Industrial Advisory Board, Labor Advisory Board, Con¬ sumers’ Advisory Board, Research and Planning Division, and Legal Division. Your Deputy finds that: (a) The Code as revised complies in all respects with the perti¬ nent provisions of Title I of the Act, including, without limitations, subsection (a) of Section 7 and subsection (b) of Section 10 thereof ; and that ( b ) The National Association of Broadcasters, Inc., imposes no inequitable restrictions on admissions to membership therein and is truly representative of the Radio Broadcasting Industry ; and that (c) The Code is not designed to eliminate or oppress small enter • Page 237 •