Evening star., 1936-03-15
Minimum Wage Tests.


In rendering the opinion of the United
States Supreme Court in the famous case
of Adkins VS.. Children's Hospital. in
validating the District minimum wage
law for women in 1923, Justice Suther-
land seemed to leave a loophole for
enactment of later statutes on the sub
ject when he said that:
A statute requiring an employer to
pay in money, to pay at prescribed and
regular intervals, to pay the value OF
services rendered even to pay with fair
relation to the extent of the benefit
obtained from the service, would be
understandable.
The New York minimum wage law.
enacted in 1888. required payment of a
fair wage to women and minors, defined
fair wages as being fairly and reasonably
commensurate with the value Of the
service or class of service rendered, and
left to the State Industrial Commission
the duty of prescribing such wages in
each industry. 1t thus differed from the
invalidated District law, which based
minimum wages on the living necessities
of the workers without regard to the
type of work or value of services rem
dered. New Yorks law, said to have
been drafted by Felix Frankfurter, was
used as the model for eight of the
seventeen State minimum wage laws for
women and minors now in force.
Early this month the New York Court
of Appeals held the law to be unconsti-
tutional, dividing four to three. The de-
cision was based almost entirely on the
United States Supreme Court decision
in the District case, which was flve-to-
three decision Justice BrandeiS not par
ticipating because of his previous advo-
cacy of the law, Chief Justice Taft sid
ing with the minority. BY such narrow
margin does the right Of a State to pre-
scribe minimum wages for woman work
ers depend.
Most interesting development in con-
nection with invalidation OF the New
York law is the attitude of the laundry
operators, directly involved in the test
case as the only industry amenable to
provisions of the law at the time OF the
decision. The laundry operators were
represented by counsel, who appeared as
amici curiae, filing brief when the case
was argued asking that the law be up
held to preserve gains to the employers
and employees made under the law. For
the employees these gains represented an
average minimum wage of sl3.42 a week
for $4,000 women and minors employed
in the State as against the former aver
age of Sl04l a week. For the employers
the law had put an end to some of the
price-cutting "chiseling" in a highly
competitive industry, much OF the price
cutting having been at the expense OF
underpaid, cheap labor. Now that the
law has been invalidated, according
to a letter to the New York Times from
the secretary of the Laundry Board Of
Trade, the industry is faced with
chaotic condition" unless the Supreme
Court reverses the decision Of the lower
court. In the New York laundry indus
try, as in many other industries, honest
employers are apparently prevented
through ruinous competition with ruth
less wage-cutting employers from paying
fair wages. They we're only too glad to
have a minimum fair wage established
which placed all operators on an even
footing.
1t is desirable, of course, that the New
York law be studied by the United States
Supreme Court. Many State laws de-
pend on the validity of the New York
statute. No such important principle
should be left uncertain through four
to-three decision of State court which
In turn is based on what was, to all in
tents and purposes, a flve-to-four de-
cision by the United States Supreme
Court.