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premium on the employment of children Minnesota established the same minimum rates for all ages.

The employment of slow or infirm workers at lower rates is generally permitted only by special license from the commission. For further protection against the abuse of the privilege, certain of the laws specify the proportion of such workers in a single establishment for whom licenses may be issued.

In Australia, as the scope of wage boards widens and the fixing of a legal minimum becomes a common method of setting wage standards instead of merely a remedy for sweating, a variety of factors become more and more important in determining such standards. The relative skill and training required in different occupations is considered, the responsibility exercised, the danger of illness or accident and the probable perquisites or deductions. In America such elements as these have so far not been considered in determining wage standards. Minimum wage standards in the United States as yet do not go farther than an attempt to insure the individual woman worker the bare necessaries of life.

4. METHODS OF OPERATION

There are two types of minimum wage law. One, the "flat rate" law, prescribing the legal minimum in the statute itself, is very rare, while the other type, under which a board or commission after proper investigation fixes rates for one industry or group of industries at a time, includes the vast majority of these laws now in existence.

(1) Flat Rate Laws

Laws which directly fix the flat minimum rate are found only in certain of the Australian states, in Arkansas, and in Utah. In Australia, in addition to the system of wage boards, laws sometimes establish very low flat-rate minimums, frequently of not more than 2 or 3 shillings a week, intended principally to protect children, learners, and ap

prentices from being put to work without wages and dismissed when they ask for pay. In America, only the Utah statute, which requires a daily wage of 75 cents for females under eighteen, 90 cents for inexperienced women, and $1.25 for experienced women over that age, fixes a universal flat rate.1 In Arkansas a flat rate of $1.25 a day for experienced workers and $1 a day for females having less than six months' experience is fixed by the law, but the commission may, after investigation and public hearing, either raise or lower these rates. This method of fixing uniform flat rates prevents the more careful adjustment for various industries and localities which is elsewhere undertaken by wage boards, and the method is therefore held by most students of the problem to be disadvantageous.

(2) Wage Board Laws

Representative of the second type of minimum wage laws, those which fix rates for various industries through wage boards, are the laws of Great Britain and of most Australian and American states. In Great Britain the board of trade is authorized to appoint representative "trade boards" to fix minimum rates in any industries in which wages are "unreasonably low" as compared with other trades and where "other circumstances" make the appointment "expedient." Trade boards may fix general minimum time rates or minimum piece rates which may differ for different classes of workers, for different districts, and for different processes. District committees may be appointed to advise the trade board in fixing rates for their respective localities.

When a trade board proposes to fix a certain rate, three months' notice must be given, within which period objections to the rate proposed may be raised. On the conclusion of this period the rate comes into operation to a limited extent, being obligatory for all firms engaged on public contracts, and

Utah, Laws 1913, C. 63. Enforcement is placed with the commissioner of labor.

2 Arkansas, Laws 1915, No. 291. '9 Edw. 7, C. 22,

for other firms in the absence of a written contract signed by the worker providing for a lower rate. Six months later the board of trade has power to make the rate obligatory in all cases. Special exemptions can be procured under the act for old or infirm workers.

The act provides for the appointment of inspectors for enforcing the payment of the minimum rates, and for fines for employers not paying the rate. An employee who has not received the legal minimum rate may recover the balance due him.

In Great Britain the board of trade, which is the general administrative body, has less power over the work of its trade boards than have American administrative commissions over their wage boards. A British trade board fixes a rate and the board of trade decides only whether or not the rate shall be made obligatory. An American wage board has power to recommend rates which the commissions may declare effective, or modify, or reject altogether. In some states the commission may fix minimum rates without the intervention of a wage board. So far the American method is rather a regulation by commissions than by wage boards pure and simple.

These commissions - called minimum wage commissions, industrial welfare commissions, or industrial commissionsare usually unsalaried and composed of from three to five persons, one of whom must usually be a woman, appointed by the governor. Their jurisdiction extends over females and male minors up to eighteen or twenty-one, and over all industries, except in Colorado and Arkansas where specified lists exist. Arkansas, also, is the only state specifically exempting certain industries, those excluded being cotton factories, fruit and vegetable canning, and establishments employing fewer than four women at the same sort of work. The commissions are authorized to subpoena witnesses, administer oaths, and examine books and papers, and employers are required to keep records of the names, addresses, and wages of women and minor employees. If the commission learns by investigation-which is sometimes compulsory on petition -that wages are insufficient to maintain the specified standard of living, it must proceed either to determine a minimum rate or to establish a subordinate wage board for the industry.

The subordinate board must be representative of employers, employees, and the "public." Unlike the foreign acts, which provide for the nomination of representatives by employers and employees, American laws generally leave the method of selection to be determined by the commission. The commission may, of course, ask both parties to elect, and this democratic method is required in the Minnesota law "so far as practicable." While in theory it has been felt desirable that in the interests of democracy employers and employees should elect their representatives to the wage boards, in practice it has proved exceedingly difficult to depend entirely upon election for securing proper representatives for unorganized workers. Their lack of acquaintance and the fear of losing their places on account of their service on the boards make them reluctant to serve, and timid in conference. For the present it has therefore been found more effective to leave the enforcing authority free to select representatives from lists submitted by the employees or from those formerly in the trade as well as through election. Employers, also, have often been unwilling to elect their representatives.1

The subordinate wage board may use the investigations of the commission in determining wage rates or may make further investigations of its own. It must make a report of its work with recommendations to the commission, which may accept the recommendations in whole or in part or may refer them back to the board for further consideration or may convene a new board. When the report of the wage board has been accepted by the commission a public hearing must be held; if after public consideration no change is deemed necessary in the recommendations they are promulgated as orders which become effective in thirty or sixty days. Nearly all the laws grant rehearings on petition of either side. Copies of orders issued by a commission must in most cases be forwarded to the employer concerned, who is required to post them in a conspicuous place. Minimum wage rates may apply either to time or to piece work, and in Kansas, Minnesota, and

In Minnesota the commission was obliged to choose representatives of both employers and employees for the wage boards, and to select several of the latter from outsiders. See John A. Ryan, "The Task of Minimum Wage Boards in Minnesota,' The Survey, November 14, 1914, p. 171.

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In

Oregon orders may be issued for a given locality or area. Wisconsin the industrial commission has power to classify industries for the purpose of adjusting wage rates.

The commissions are authorized to make special exemptions_ for women, and in Wisconsin for minors also, who are physically handicapped. Special licenses may be issued to learners and apprentices in all states except California and Colorado, and in Oregon and Washington the life of these licenses may be limited. In Kansas, minors may be employed at lower rates than adults only by special license.

The interests of employers and employees are usually further safeguarded by provisions for a court appeal from the commissions' rulings, the procedure and the subjects for court review being carefully specified. In most of the states rulings may be set aside if unreasonable or unlawful; in Oregon and Washington only questions of law may be reviewed, while in Massachusetts and Nebraska an employer may have an award set aside in his particular case by filing a declaration under oath, in Nebraska that compliance would "endanger the prosperity of his business," but in Massachusetts that it would prevent a "reasonable profit." In most instances, the findings of fact by the commissions are held prima facie reasonable, and any new evidence must be referred back to them for consideration.

The commissions, except in Colorado and Arkansas, are authorized to enforce their own rulings. Most of the states provide fines of $10 to $100 for employers who fail to pay the minimum wage or who violate any sections of the act or any commission ruling. It has also been found necessary to penalize by a fine of $25 to $1,000 employers who discriminate against employees because they have testified in wage investigations or served on wage boards. In Massachusetts and Nebraska, however, the commission must rely on the compulsion of publicity to enforce its wage rulings. In these two states employers cannot be compelled to pay the minimum; and the mere publication in a given number of newspapers throughout the state of the names of those paying less than indicated as a minimum is mandatory in Nebraska but only optional in Massachusetts. Publishers in either state refusing to print the names of such employers are liable

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