also forbid a company store from selling to an employee at a price higher than the reasonable or current market price for cash.

While the three subjects of this article are separately covered in some States, in others they overlap and are generally covered in one law.

Labor Laws Enacted Following French Strikes1

STRIKE movement in France started in the second week of May with three strikes in small aviation factories. Ten days. later a series of strikes broke out in the Paris metallurgical industry, including many automobile plants, and spread to practically all other industries and trades in the Paris district with the exception of the essential city services. Practically the same situation occurred in Lille, the most important textile manufacturing center of France. There was a general strike among the miners in the north of France, and the movement extended to many other provincial centers. The strikes in almost all instances took the form of "stay-in" strikes, the workers appearing to regard this as more effective than picketing, while it also prevented them from being locked out. However, in the latter part of June (when this article was prepared) lock-outs of employees occurred in a number of places, notably in hundreds of hotels in the French Riviera.

Shortly after M. Leon Blum took office as Premier on June 4, he announced that he would take in hand the defense of the workers' interests but he asked for their confidence in return on the ground that "the law must be obeyed." He thus obtained the cooperation of the Confédération Générale du Travail in negotiations with the employers. An agreement was reached on June 7, at a conference between the Premier, the Minister of the Interior, and representatives of several of the principal employers' organizations and of the Confédération Générale du Travail, providing for the recognition of full political freedom of the workers and their right to belong to the trade unions recognized by law; immediate application of collective contracts; in view of the fall of real wages, wage increases ranging from 7 percent for the highest-paid workers to 15 percent for the lowest paid; negotiations to be opened for fixing the minimum wage in different parts of the country; and election of workers' delegates.

Wage increases were granted in many instances in which the strikes were settled. In the Paris stores a scale of minimum salaries was fixed, and increases were granted which ranged from 25 percent for

1 Reports from Edwin A. Plitt, American Consul, and John H. Fuqua, American Vice Consul, at Paris; issues of the New York Times through June; The Economist (London), June 13; Manchester Guardian (Manchester, England), June 8; and Le Figaro (Paris), issues of June 1-16, 1936.

? Trade-union unity was established in France at a conference between the two factions in the trade-union movement in March 1936. See Monthly Labor Review, June 1936 (p. 1566).

employees' receiving less than 6,000 francs a year to 5 percent for those earning between 18,000 and 20,000 francs. Various other concessions were granted to workers in the different strike settle

ments.

Five bills were introduced in the Chamber of Deputies during the second week in June, covering the principal claims of the workers. These bills provided for: (1) A 40-hour week with no reduction in weekly pay; (2) vacations with pay amounting to 15 days annually, 12 of which must be work days, in industry and commerce with the anticipated extension to the liberal professions, servants, and agriculture; (3) extension of the conditions of application of collective contracts, the Minister of Labor being empowered to appoint a mixed commission to draw up a collective agreement when requested to do so by employers' or workers' organizations in a particular industry, while collective agreements may also be made compulsory for all employers and workers in the industries and localities included in the field of application of the agreements; (4) removal of the tax on war veterans' pensions, with the understanding that before the end of the year the pension fund will be created; (5) repeal of the decree-laws which instituted levies on wages and salaries, indemnities, and retirement allowances of Government employees and permission to increase, by decree, the minimum salaries or pay or pensions of such employees. These bills were passed by the Chamber on June 12 and 13 and sent to the Senate. The vote for the measures was nearly unanimous, with the exception of the one providing for increase in pay of Government employees which was passed by a vote of 404 to 200, and the bill establishing a 40-hour week which was the subject of more debate and was finally passed by a vote of 385 to 175. The bills were introduced in the Senate on June 13 and the bills providing for a revision of the deflation decrees affecting the pay of Government employees and the tax on the pensions of war veterans, and granting vacations with pay were passed on June 17. The two remaining bills-40-hour week and collective agreements were enacted into law on June 19.

MINIMUM WAGE

United States Supreme Court Decision on New York Minimum-Wage Law

1

HE United States Supreme Court on June 1, 1936, in a five to four decision upheld the New York Court of Appeals which declared the minimum-wage law of that State unconstitutional. (Morehead v. Tipaldo, 56 Sup. Ct. 918). The law 2 was adopted in 1933 and, like several other similar laws passed in that year, was based upon the standard minimum-wage bill drafted to meet the constitutional objection raised by the United States Supreme Court in 1923.3 The New York law did not attempt to fix a living wage. It did, however, provide that whenever a substantial number of women and minors in any occupation were receiving less than a subsistence wage, the industrial commission was empowered to conduct. an investigation to determine whether the wages were "fairly and reasonably commensurate with the value of the service or class of service rendered." The law defined an unreasonable wage as one that is "less than the fair and reasonable value of the services rendered and less than sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health." By the provisions of the New York law, authority was vested in the commissioner of labor to enforce the act by making his order mandatory after a directory minimum-wage order had been in effect for 9 months. For failure to observe the act and the orders of the labor department the employer was liable to fine and imprisonment. It was under this provision of the act that one Joseph Tipaldo, the manager of a laundry, was indicted in the Kings County Court of New York and imprisoned to await trial for failure to obey a mandatory order of the industrial commissioner prescribing minimum wages for woman employees. In the lower court of New York, Tipaldo had petitioned for his release but was denied relief. He based his right of release from the custody of the warden, Frederick L. Morehead, on the ground that the law under which he was indicted was contrary to the due-process clause of the

1 See Monthly Labor Review, April 1936 (pp. 995–997).

See analysis of law in Monthly Labor Review, June 1933 (pp. 1268-1272). See also principal provisions of this and other minimum-wage laws in Monthly Labor Review, March 1936 (pp. 655-666). Adkins v. Children's Hospital 261 U. S. 525.

State and Federal Constitutions. He also based his claim on the ground that the State minimum-wage law was in substance the same as the District of Columbia minimum-wage law which had previously been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (Adkins v. Children's Hospital). The court dismissed his plea for release and he thereupon carried the case to the Court of Appeals of New York which held the act repugnant to the due-process clause of the State and Federal Constitutions. The State then appealed to the United States Supreme Court. In defense of the validity of the act it was argued that the State law provided that wages should be at least the value of the services rendered, in contradistinction to the District of Columbia act which fixed a wage based solely on the necessities of the workers. Seven of the 17 States having minimum-wage acts also petitioned the Supreme Court to sustain the New York act.

4

The majority opinion was written by Mr. Justice Butler and concurred in by Justices Van Devanter, McReynolds, Sutherland, and Roberts. A dissenting opinion was delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, which also presented for the most part the views of Justices Brandeis, Cardozo, and Stone.

Majority Opinion

Mr. JUSTICE BUTLER, rendering the majority opinion, reviewed the provisions of the District of Columbia and the New York minimumwage acts. The State contended that since the two laws were vitally dissimilar they should be distinguished. The question arose as to whether there was such a difference as to compel the court to hold other than it had in the well-known Adkins case. The District of Columbia act provided for a board to ascertain and declare standards of minimum wages for women in any occupation the wages in which were "inadequate to supply the necessary cost of living to any such woman workers to maintain them in good health and to protect their morals." On the other hand, the New York act declared it to be against public policy for any employer to employ any woman at an oppressive and unreasonable wage.

In regard to these two acts, it was observed

Thus it appears: The minimum wage provided for in the District act was one not less than adequate "to supply the necessary cost of living to any such woman workers to maintain them in good health and to protect their morals." The New York act defines an oppressive and unreasonable wage as containing two elements. The one first mentioned is: "Less than the fair and reasonable value of the services rendered." The other is: "Less than sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health." The basis last mentioned is not to be distinguished from the living wage defined in the District act. The exertion of the granted power to prescribe minimum wages is by the State act conditioned ⚫ California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.

upon a finding by the commissioner or other administrative agency that a substantial number of women in any occupation are receiving wages that are oppressive and unreasonable, i. e., less than value of the service and less than a living wage. That finding is essential to jurisdiction of the commissioner. In the State court there was controversy between the parties as to whether the "minimum fair wage rates” are required to be established solely upon value of service or upon that value and the living wage.

The majority opinion pointed out that, contrary to the contention of the State, the Court of Appeals of New York had held that the minimum wage must be based on both elements, also that the New York court could find no material difference between the act passed by the Congress and the one enacted by the Legislature of New York and had said that there was a difference in phraseology but not in principle.

In answering the contention that the New York court misconstrued the act, it was shown that

This Court is without power to put a different construction upon the State enactment from that adopted by the highest court of the State. We are not at liberty to consider petitioner's argument based on the construction repudiated by that court. The meaning of the statute as fixed by its decision must be accepted here as if the meaning had been specifically expressed in the enactment.

The State court was held to have been right in holding that the Adkins case controlled this one and that Tipaldo had been indicted and imprisoned in violation of the due-process clause of the fourteenth amendment. As to the extent of the law, in covering only women and minors, no other class of workers was involved, the Court declared. The question arose also "whether the State may impose upon the employers State-made minimum-wage rates for all competent experienced women workers whom they may have in their service"; and again, "that question involves another one": Has the State the power similarly to subject to State-made wages all adult women employed in trade, industry or business, other than house and farm work? These and other questions were decided in the Adkins case, the Court opined. Especially was this the case as to the right of contract, which, it was declared was a part of the liberty protected by the due-process clause. Within this liberty are "provisions of contracts between employer and employee fixing the wages to be paid." The parties have equal right to obtain the best terms by private bargaining. In amplifying this view the opinion stated:

Legislative abridgment of that freedom can only be justified by the existence of exceptional circumstances. Freedom of contract is the general rule and restraint the exception. This Court has found not repugnant to the due-process clause statutes fixing rates and charges to be exacted by businesses impressed with a public interest, relating to contracts for the performance of public work, prescribing the character, methods and time of payment of wages, fixing hours of labor.