Montana labor news., 1936-10-29
speech OF 0'D0NNELL
lover kGIR DEFENDING
MEASURE
My Fellow Montanans:

Va hioiitoiia ShtSiidiiB Tic CiSill-ilOul
working day to include all employees
except those engaged in farming and
~stock-raising.
Many people are under the i'm
preston that such an eight-hour day
is now in effect. Propaganda by the
Standard and the Butte Daily Post,
L. A. Campbell, Secretary of Mon
tanan's Incorporated, and George |.
Martin, of the Associated Industries
nave created many erroneous i'm
pressions about the legal effect and
purpose OF the amendment. There is
not a lawyer in the State who will
endorse the opinion of these gentle
men, either as to the contents or
legal effect of the proposed law.
The Standard and Post publish the
speeches of Martin and Campbell.
they publish them as news-with-
out charge-while no mention is
made of the thoughts and opinions
OF the great majority of the people
who favor the amendment. This one-
sided publicity given by the A. c. M.
Press and the falsity of the impress
sions created by it, should be your
greatest reason for voting for an
eight-hour day.
If you vote 100 per cent for the
amendment you will not create a
six-hour day-nor a five nor seven
uay-al that you will have
4o.ie Is 10 enact an eight-hour day.
The present provision of the con-
stitution was enacted in 1868
years ago. 1t provides an eight-hour
day for State and City employees
and for miners, millmen and smell
termen.
Since then the Legislature has
enacted an e%ight-hour day for City
firemen and for Clerks. The Su-
preme Court in Kerns VS.. the Mayor
of Missoula has last year decided,
that the Legislature has no power to
decree an eight-hour day for en-
ployes. (Vol. 100, Montana Reports,
p. 346.) The Clerks eight-hour day
will be declared unconstitutional by
the first Court in which suit is
brought. With the exception of the
firemen in Butte and Anaconda,
firemen work ten hours day shift
and fourteen hours night shift.
There r many employees who work
over eight hours. The drivers of the
new West Side Buses in Butte work
nine-hour shifts. Many others enjoy
an eight-hour day. But they do SO
by the sufferance of their employ
ers and can only maintain their right
by virtue of the strength of their
labor organizations,
The passage of the proposed coma
stitutional amendment would take
the eight-hour law out of the range
of industrial strife.
The amendment expressly excerpts
those engaged in farming and stock
raising. They are not affected at all.
As to the other false impression
created by propaganda, the miners
have worked under a similar con-
stitutional eight-hour day since 1908.
We know the conditions that have
existed for the miners; the Supreme
Court has interpreted them; and the
new amendment has exactly the
same wording as the present consti-
tuition except al to the persons af-
fected. ALI that the provision means
to a miner is that he gets a days
pay for eight hours work. With or
without an emergency he can work
overtime. There is hardly a day that
he does not. The Supreme Court has
held that a man kept in the mine
for more than forty consecutive
hours was still in the course of his
employment and there was no yio-
lation Of the eight-hour law. Wirta
VS.. North Butte Mining Company
Volume "a Montana Reports 279, at
page 289.) No one has ever heard of
a complaint about overtime, if it was
paid for. A man working IL hours
would simply get a shift and a half.
That is not mere conjecture. It is
the settled law Of the State.
Martin and Campbell say that a
miners wife getting his breakfast at
Z in the morning must not get meals
for him after 3 in the afternoon.
They don't seem to realize that the
miner and his wife had had an
eight-hour day by constitutional pro-
vision since 1903. Our wives are
classed neither as servants nor
slaves. If l may put the legal posi-
ton this way-employes and en-
ployers won't have any more diff
Guilty getting along under the pro-
posed amendment, than the miners
and their employers have had in
getting along under the eight-hour
law in force since 1903. You will
then understand the application of
the new eight-hour law.
And so Messrs. Campbell and
Martin have built themselves a
castle of sand-and have endeavored
to haunt it with all the ghosts and
bogies which threatened you when
you voted for the 1903 amendment.
None of their fears we're then real