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
