INCHING TOWARD THE METRIC SYSTEM, 1959-79 469 



Dr. Roberts dodged the question by stating: 



I think what you are going to have is a distribution of times. 



On the other hand, not all committee members accepted the firm 

 selection of the date of January 1, 1984, proposed in the McClory- 

 Pickle bill. Mosher, a metric advocate, nevertheless warned that 1984 

 as a target had an "Orwellian" ring to it and "would just increase 

 popular resistance and derision.*' 



LABOR INSISTS ON TOOL SUBSIDY 



On March 20, Kenneth T. Peterson, legislative representative of 

 the AFL-CIO, threw a bombshell with a strong statement that: 



Any legislation dealing with metric conversion must provide compensation and 

 adjustment assistance to workers for the cost of tools, the costs of education and 

 retraining, and other conversion transition costs, including relocation, job loss, 

 downgrading, and loss of income or promotion opportunities as a result of workers' 

 lack of familiarity with the metric system. 



Peterson also asked for a restudy, on the grounds that the Commerce 

 study did not adequately consider the problems of the workingman. 

 To this, Mosher observed that he hated to see the progressive AFL-CIO 

 "in the position of the people who resisted the steam engine, or steam- 

 boat when it came, or resisted the airplane." 



Among other witnesses were John P. Roche, president of the 

 American Iron and Steel Institute, who opposed conversion as planned 

 in the legislation because of the cost, and Lord Ritchie-Calder, former 

 chairman of the British Metrication Board. 



You could count on Representative H. R. Gross (Republican of 

 Iowa) to come out fighting whenever any metric bill showed its 

 head, and that's exactly what he did when he testified before the 

 Science Committee on May 10, 1973- Gross told the committee that 

 he had had the General Accounting Office evaluate the Commerce De- 

 partment's report, and that the GAO had " confirmed my fears that the 

 report was biased," on several grounds: that conversion would dra- 

 matically increase imports; that the "tremendous costs" of conversion 

 would increase prices for American consumers; and that a 10-year 

 conversion plan would cost far more than a voluntary, no-time limit 

 plan. 



Chairman Davis expressed agreement with Gross that any con- 

 version should be voluntary and without Federal subsidy. Immediately 

 following Gross, Dr. Roberts, the National Bureau of Standards 

 Director, returned to refute the GAO letter. He put the emphasis on 

 the "significant barrier to the export of our products if U.S. industry 

 remains out of step with respect to measurement practices." He con- 

 tended that the original report included an adequate sampling of small 



