Evening star., 1936-06-02
Blow to Minimum Wages.

preme Court yesterday invalidating the
New York minimum wage law for women
and children is peculiarly devastating
in its effect. 1t not only throws out
the New York law, but will kill
sixteen State laws modelled on the
New York statute. 1t presumably closes
the door for some time to come to
legislation of this type for the opinion
of the court attached little weight to
the argument that New York had been
able to overcome the objections to mini
mum wage laws for women as voiced
in the famous case invalidating the
District minimum wage law, known as
Adkins VS.. Childrens Hospital, thirteen
years ago.
Felix Frankfurter has been credited
with having helped to draft the New
York law. Unlike the invalidated Dis
trict statute, the New York law did not
attempt to apply wholesale an arbitrary
minimum wage for women in industry,
or base that wage on an arbitrary con-
struction of the essential wage to meet
q given cost of living. The New York
law was to decide, by inquiry, the
fair, minimum wage for specified types
OF work, of which laundry work-which
produced this test-was the first.
Curiously enough, the law was not
contested by the laundry employers Or
ganization, which, at the time Of the
laws test in the lower court, appeared
as friend of the court and petitioned that
the law be allowed to remain in effect.
Under the law, the laundry employers
declared, a source of constant trouble
in the industry had been eliminated.
Once the State had declared a fair
wage, the organized laundry owners and
operators were willing enough to pay it.
thus escaping the Wage-cutting and
chiseling practices by competitors too
ducing the very small wages of their
women employees. The law put laundry
operators on an even competitive footing,
as far as wages to women were concerned,
and succeeded in producing substantial
increase in women's wages. The law
had been functioning in manner gen.
orally satisfactory to employer and en-
ploye alike in New York, and one reason
for eXpediting the appeal to the United
States Supreme Court was the manifest
feeling of confidence that it would there
be upheld.
Now that the law has been invalidated,
on the theory that interference by the
State in such matters is an abridgement
OF the freedom of contract-between
employer and employe-and thus vio-
Iates the due process clause of the
fourteenth amendment, one might hope
that organizations of employers would
voluntarily assume the payment of such
"fair wages" as some official body might
determine. The probable answer is that
such voluntary agreements cannot pre-
vent the chiseling and wage-cutting
practices of the black sheep employers
present in every industry.
The original District Of Columbia
minimum wage law for women was
thrown out by what was, in effect,
1ve-to-four decision of the Supreme
Court, Justice BrandeiS withdrawing
from the case. Had he participated
he would have thrown his previously
expressed views with the dissenting
minority of three. The present case was
thrown out by majority of one de-
cision in the New York Court of Appeals.
And another majority of one decision
yesterday invalidated the New York
statute and other State laws modelled
on the New York law. The vigorous
dissent written by Chief Justice Hughes
eccentuates the narrowness of that mar
gin between what may be held as valid
under the Constitution and what may be
held to violate the interpreted spirit, If
not the written letter, of the Constitution.
Yesterdays opinion seems to cast its
shadow, along with that of the decision
in, the Guffey coal case, over coming
events in connection with the Wagner
labor relations law-which might be con-
sidered as doomed.