[PEN-L:9447] FW: BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D <Richardson_D@xxxxxxx>]

BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1997

A bipartisan alliance of lawmakers is on the verge of making a new
push to consolidate the three major federal statistical agencies,
according to statements before a Senate Governmental Affairs
subcommittee.  Sen. Brownback (R-Kan), chairman of the Subcommittee on
Government Management, Restructuring, says that he intends "to move
forward aggressively to address the problems" created by a
decentralized federal data system.  Brownback, along with Rep. Horn
(R-Calif) and Sen. Moynihan (D-NY), favor naming a commission to map a
plan for pulling together the Labor Department's BLS and the Commerce
Department's Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis ....(Daily
Labor Report, page AA-1).

Labor Department officials formally present the agency's budget
request for fiscal year 1998 to congressional appropriators ....With
the bulk of the department's budget request dedicated to mandatory
spending, only $12.7 billion of the $37.9 billion total is subject to
the appropriations process.  This portion of the request is aimed at
helping workers get more education and build their job skills; funding
programs that support worker rights; and maintaining key economic
statistical programs ....(Daily Labor Report, page A-12).

Wage data compiled by BNA in the first 14 weeks of 1997 show that
median negotiated first-year wage increases for all industries equaled
3 percent an hour.  The comparable percentage figure in the
corresponding period last year was the same ....(Daily Labor Report,
page D-1).

"Is the wage-gap widening?" asks the "Trendlines" column of the
Washington Post (page C1).  It depends on how you measure it.  While
the gaps within men's wages and women's wages are getting bigger,
economist Robert Lerman of the Urban Institute, using the "Gini"
index, found that overall wage inequality has remained virtually
unchanged for more than a decade when wages of men and women are
considered together.  The reason:  Rising wages of college educated
women offset the losses of men with only a high school education ....

Hoping to jump-start the nation's effort to move large waves of
welfare recipients into the work force, President Clinton will
announce that the federal government will hire thousands of new
employees off public assistance rolls, administration officials say.
 An early projection circulated inside the administration showed that
federal agencies are expected to hire at least 5,000 welfare
recipients and perhaps significantly more, one official said.  Clinton
intends to direct the government to start hiring recipients
immediately and hopes to meet his target by the time he leaves office,
the official said ....(Washington Post, page 1).

__Leading representations of the U.S. apparel industry, responding to
an anti-sweatshop initiative by President Clinton, have reached what
they call a "historic" agreement with labor and human rights groups on
a code of conduct for factories at home and abroad.  Under the accord,
clothing and shoe companies would voluntarily adhere to guidelines
concerning wages and working conditions in factories they own or
contract with.  The guidelines include a maximum 60-hour workweek,
according to members of the panel ....(Washington Post, page A19).
__Now that a presidential task force has reached an agreement aimed at
banishing clothing sweatshops worldwide, the question remains:  Will
the biggest beneficiary of this compromise be the garment workers
toiling overseas -- or the apparel makers' image? (The Wall Street
Journal, page A2).

DUE OUT TOMORROW:  Producer Price Indexes -- March 1997