Omaha daily bee., 1917-03-11
Nebraska
HOUSE COMMITTEE
JOINS LABOR BILLS
Shannon and McAllister Meas
ures Combined With Pro-
vision for 56-Hour
Week.
FARM LABOR NOT LIMITED
(From a Staff Corresyondent.j

tfTOm q Sthli NoiicSFNhNN"''f
Lincoln, March 10.-(Special,) y
While the hired man on the farm is
earning his daily wage by the sweat
Of his brow, working sixteen hours
a day, and the domestic in the home
is drudging away from 6 in the morn
ing until 9 at night, all other people
who work for a living will be privi-
legged to work but eight hours a day
for seven days Of the week, or fifty
seven hours for the entire week,
This is the way which the COM
mittee on labor in the house has
finally fixed up the Shannon bill,
House Roll 28l, and the McAllister
bill, House Roll II, combining the
two and hyphenating the names OF
the two introducers into one bill I'M
der the former number.
Call It Class Legislation.
Considerable comment has arisen
as to just why the farm laborer and
the domestic should be left out Of
the operation OF the law when all
other classes OF labor, which includes
manufacturing, mechanical or mer-
camille establishment, laundry, hotel,
restaurant, office, or by any public
service or municipal corporation, etc,
should be favored, and the question
comes up and is being expressed by
members that it is simply class legis.
lation and cannot stand the test Of
the courts from a constitutional
standpoint, and some Of them are Of
the opinion that the people asking
for legislation Of this kind do not
really represent the laboring classes.
They call attention to the fact that
two years ago people appeared be-
fore the legislature claiming that they
represented the working girls Of
Omaha and secured the passage Of a
bill calling for nine hours a day and
a limit OF fifty-four hours each week.
Immediately after the law went into
effect the labor bureau received a
number Of letters from girls working
in establishments in Omaha claiming
that the bill deprived them OF the
Saturday half-holieay. They had been
il the habit Of taking a short noon
hour and working short time after
5 o'clock, a proposition perfectly sat-
isfactory to their employers, and had
thus been able to put in enough extra
time during the week to give them
the halliday off on Saturday. Under
the nine-hour-a-day law they were
compelled to give up the halliday off
on Saturday because they could not
work overtime during the week.
Time and Half for Overtime.
Some Of the members insist that
the present bill will work the same
hardship on the class of working peo-
pie who are perfectly satisfied to have
the matter left to any contract they
may make with the people for whom
they work.
Under the present bill, as 1t stands
amended by the committee, an EN-.
ploye and his employer can make a
contract for overtime work, but the
pay shall be for time and half.
The proposition which is causing
comment, more than anything else,
is just why legislature composed
so largely OF those interested in ag-
riculture should favor law fixing the
hours of labor for everybody else
who employees men and women and
leave their own hired hands entirely
unprotected and forced to work as
long as they may desire to force them
so to do.