The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-06-21
BEHIND T I THE SCENES WASHINGTON UV RODNEY DuTcHER-& Waterbury Democrat Washington
 COrFesnOndentl
New Wage Hour Bill Will Start
 Fur Flying; Lobbyists And
 Unionists Are Ready For Fray

Ready For Fray
 Washington, June 21.-You may expect an immediate drive in sev- eral industries for prompt raise of the 25-cents-an-hour minimum fixed in the wage-hour law.
 Unions in the textile and gar- ment industries, for instance, will be gin demanding a Accent minimum as soon as the new administrator of the law is appointed. That's the top which may be fixed as mini mum after investigation and recom- mendation by board for any in- dustry.
 Actually those unions will hope to get minimum of from 30 to 35 cents. Under the new 44-hour maximum work week, that would mean a minimum weekly wage of from $13.2O to S15.40.
 c. I. O. unions will open an ir- formation office in Washington, de- signed especially to advice morgan ized workers of their rights under the bill and of reaching or approach ing the maximum weekly wage of $17.60 which it Is possible for the administrator to set after four months. (Few such minimum wage schedules-40 cents an hour for A hours-are anticipated.)
 SHADES OF THE
 BLUE EAGLE
 Although the hourly wage mini mum is below the scale in most in- duStries and depression curtailments make the hour maximum beside the point in many, Washington is look ing forward to a period similar to the old NRA code days as hundreds of industry boards are created and their members and lobbyists for en- ployers and labor start Hooking to Washington.
 The new law provides for a virtual resurrection of the old MIRA scheme as it was envisaged by labor leaders and liberals in congress. Its big diff ference from MIRA is the absence of provisions for trade practices and price-fXing agreements by indus tries.
 BILL REALLY
 HAS TEETH
 Considering the fact that wage hour legislation was thought to have been killed for this session of Con- gress when the House buried it last December, and that only drastic modification of the Senate bill passed last year was thought to have any chance at all, the pro- visions of the law are so drastic as to be surprising-even amazing. It's stronger bill than the Senate bill. Labor and administration lob- byists worked feverishly in the last few days and nights to make it so. The wage-hour board which the
 original administration plan and
 the Senate bill contemplated now
 becomes an administrator of 8
 division in the Labor Department
 with power to approve or disap-
 prove recommendations of indust
 try committees representing em-
 ployers, labor and public-or to
 set up new committees.
 But whereas administration brain trusters never dared write in a flat minimum wage floor and the Sen- ate would have permitted minimum wages as low as its proposed board wanted to set them, the law writes in 25-cent floor for one year, a 30- cent floor the next and virtually 40-cent floor after seven years. The Senate bill exempted many more in- dustries than the final House-Senate version.
 TOUGH FOR
 VIOLATORS
 Pending possible but unexpected invalidation by the liberalized Su- preme Court, the law will be hard to beat. The administrator will have his own legal staff, cooperating with the Justice Department on en- forcement. Criminal prosecution with maximum $10,000 fine penal ty and possible jail sentence for the second is provided. The administrator is entitled to oCCh eVuA hJuHCtiOIiS dS diuSt VAO-
 lators, contempt of which would
 mean fine or imprisonment. Elm
 plOyers appealing wage decisions
 to courts must post bond to cover
 wage payments.
 Finally, employees or unions rep resenting them are enabled to sue violating employers for damages amounting to double the wages in volved plus court costs.
 POLITICAL
 IMPLICATIONS
 The law will have certain, but immeasurable political effects, since it will begin to apply to affected industries around the middle of Co., tober, two or three weeks before the November election. By that time, also, the administrator will be able to boost the 25-cent figure in some industries. For this reason few mem bers cared to vote against the bill and it was passed overwhelmingly in more effective form than many of the legislation's warmest advo- cates had expected.
 Copyright 1888, NEA Service, Incl