Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

to close one's eyes to the fact that she still looks to her brother and depends upon him-that her physical structure and a proper discharge of her maternal functions-having in view not merely her own health, but the well-being of the race-justify legislation to protect her from the greed as well as the passion of man.

In that celebrated case the court turned aside from a consideration of mere legal precedent and "took judicial cognizance" of the "facts of common knowledge" that unduly long hours were detrimental to women and to the race and under these circumstances decided that it fell within the sphere of the police power of the State "to abridge the privileges of citizens" guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. When the rulings of the Industrial Welfare Commission fixing a legal minimum wage became effective, certain employers and their legal advisors felt that the courts might be made to see a profound difference between the grounds for interfering with unduly long hours and the grounds for prohibiting indecently low wages. Consequently a paper box manufacturer in Portland sought to restrain the Commission from enforcing its order because it interfered with his constitutionally guaranteed right of contract. The injunction requested was denied by Judge Cleeton of the Circuit Court and the case was carried to the Supreme Court of the State, where both sides were ably presented. On March 17, 1914, the Supreme Court of Oregon unanimously concurred in a comprehensive decision written by Justice Eakin sustaining the constitutionality of the act. The court said:

Every argument put forth to sustain the maximum hours law or upon which it was established, applies equally in favor of the constitutionality of the minimum wage law as also within the police power of the State, and as a regulation tending to guard the public morals and the public health.

Another suit was subsequently brought against the Commission in the name of an employe of the manufacturer who figured in the first case, alleging an interference with the employe's right of free contract. On April 28, 1914, the Oregon Supreme Court handed down a decision on the employe's case, written by Chief Justice McBride affirming the previous decision of the court. The case was then appealed to the court of last resort. The argument before the Supreme Court of the United States was heard on December 17, 1914; a rehearing of the case has been ordered for the fall of 1916. We may observe in passing that minimum wage legislation does not really interfere with freedom of contract. reverse is the truth. As Justice Higgins justly observes:

The

The imposition of a minimum wage implies of course, an admission of the truth of the doctrine of economists of all schools, I think, that freedom of contract is a misnomer as applied to the contract between the employer and an ordinary individual employe. The strategic position of the employer in a contest as to wages is much stronger than that of the individual employe. "The power of the employer to withhold bread is a much more effective weapon than the power of the employe to refuse to labor." Low wages are bad in the worker's eyes, but unemployment, with starvation in the background, is worse.

To speak of freedom of contract under such circumstances is the height of irony. The purpose of minimum wage legislation with its conferences or wage boards is to substitute to a limited degree a system of compulsory collective bargaining which will give to the contract between employer and employe some character of freedom by placing the contracting parties on a comparatively equal basis.

An important provision of the Oregon act which makes the findings of the Commission conclusive on all questions of

fact, was attacked as denying to the employer "due process of law." The Supreme Court held that "due process of law merely requires such tribunals as are proper to deal with the subject in hand. Reasonable notice and a fair opportunity to be heard before some tribunal before it decides the issues, are the essentials of due process of law."

VII. EFFECTS OF THE WAGE LAW

The Oregon wage rulings have now been in effect two years, and when proper deductions are made for the financial depression through which we have been passing, the general tendencies of the legislation should be apparent. Fortunately, a painstaking investigation was undertaken jointly by the Federal Industrial Relations Commission and the U. S. Department of Labor concerning the effect of minimum wage determinations in Oregon, especially in the mercantile industry. The report of this investigation was published as Bulletin 176 of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, July, 1915. The investigators examined the records of forty department, drygoods, five and ten cent, specialty and neighborhood stores for March and April, 1913, and the same months of 1914periods ending five months before and beginning five months after the first minimum wage determinations went into effect. It was confidently predicted that the wage rulings would supplant female labor by male labor; that the higher paid employes would be reduced in wages and that the average wage would not be increased. The investigators report on these points as follows:

1. Men have not taken women's places.

2. The minimum rate of pay for the experienced adult workers was raised in all occupations. The per cent of the force receiving $12.00 and over increased after the wage determinations.

3. Average weekly earnings increased ten per cent for the total number of women employed in 1914. And this, it will be observed at a time of financial depression when a ten per cent cut in wages would have occurred except for the wage rulings.

There was a widespread belief that minimum wage legislation in causing a rise in the wages of the lower paid workers would react badly on the better paid and cause their wages to be scaled down. This opinion was in line with the old "wage-fund theory" according to which the entire sum available for wages was fixed and consequently the increase in the wages of any group could be brought about only by a decrease in the wages of another group. No respectable economist today holds this view. It is recognized that the wages of the most poorly paid group sets the standard for all. All experience under minimum wage legislation in the United States and abroad supports the same conclusion, namely, that to ameliorate the condition of the most poorly paid group of workers is to better the condition of all.

A point to bear in mind in all wage discussion is that there is an important difference between the wage rate and the contents of the pay envelope. Unemployment plays havoc with income. Some occupations seldom furnish a full week of employment; others have seasons of rush alternating with seasons when a large part of the working force is let off. In either case a worker whose wage rate while actually employed borders on the subsistence minimum will find her actual annual income far below her necessary cost of decent subsistence. An interesting item in the report on the result of the wage determinations in Oregon is that which shows that while the wage law caused an advance in the wage rate it resulted in a still more marked increase in the contents of the weekly pay envelope, indicating a tendency to regularize employment and to reduce the evils of unemployment.

Another result of wage legislation in Oregon has been to stimulate the movement for vocational education. The elimination of the unregulated apprenticeship system with its miserable pittance of a wage and generally inadequate training has been altogether wholesome. It has brought employers and the technical school authorities together in conference with the promise of good both to the schools and the shops. As Justice Higgins well observes, in the face of the modern factory system the old apprenticeship arrangement is an anachronism; the modern substitute for it must be sought in a closer relation between the shop and the technical school.

A weakness of importance in the early rulings of the Commission has been remedied in the revised orders effective September 1, 1916. This defect consisted in the failure to provide a rising scale during the year allowed for apprenticeship. Under the former rulings a girl might be kept on at a wage rate of six dollars a week for the entire year. In many occupations requiring little skill the employers took advantage of this provision by dismissing the girls at the end of the year and replacing them by others at the apprentice wage; in some cases the same result was obtained by transferring the girls to other departments in which they would have to begin their apprenticeship over again. The adoption of a rising scale during the apprenticeship term was seen to be the only effective method of preventing this evasion. Under the system which is now adopted when the period of apprenticeship is drawing to a close, the apprentice will be receiving a wage closely approximating the legal minimum for experienced workers, and the motive for dismissing her will have lost its force. It is felt, too, that the gradual rise in wages during the apprenticeship year will encourage the worker to better efforts and be a just return for the increased efficiency which may fairly be expected by reason of the added months of experience.

[ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »