The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1938-06-16
Lack Funds to Set
Minimum Wage In
Retuil Industry
State Fuils To Protect Sixty
Thousand Women. Minors
In Stores
(By Ohio Labor News Service)

/
Columbus, O.-Failure of the Ohio
Senate to approve $4,000 appropri-
alton measure for the Department of
Industrial Relations, and subsequent
failure of the state emergency board
of control to supply necessary funds,
has subjected approximately 10000
women and minors employed in retail
stores in Ohio to exploitation and
starvation wages.
Although a survey which disclosed
an urgent need for the establishment
of a minimum wage in the retail in
dustry was completed more than six
months ago, Director 0. B. Chapman
of the Department of Industrial Re-
lations has been prevented by lack Of
funds from appointing a board which
would formulate a wage for the in
dustry.
That the Division of Minimum
Wage and the establishment of protec-
tive minima are necessary to the well
fare of women and minors in industry
is proven by the record of the Division
in the enforcement of mandatory
wage scales in effect in three indus
tries now covered by the minimum
wage law.
Since the law was declared constitu-
tional in 1886, the Division of Mini
mum Wage has collected $43,148.04 in
wages due employees in the three COW
cred industries-laundry, dry cleaning
and hotel and restaurant. In the first
four month of 1888, $16,854.58 was
collected from employers who paid en-
ployes less than the minimum set by
law.
A staff of Is, including Miss Elaine
Shelter, superintendent, ten investi-
gators and one special investigator in
charge of prosecutions, has been
hampered in its efforts to enforce the
minimum wage law now effecting ap-
proximately $4,000 women and minors,
due to the limited personnel Of the Di-
vision.
Director Chapman declared last
week that at least four additional in
vestigators were necessary to ade-
quately police the industries already
covered, but if they were provided,
work could go ahead on establishing a
minimum wage for the retail industry,
with the hope that necessary funds for
additional investigators would be pro-
vided by the 93rd General Assembly
next year.
Possibility that the statistical report
based on a seven-months' survey of
wage and working conditions in 1889
retail establishments in 72 of the 88
counties, frSnARhich nine-member
board would establish minimum
wage, would have to be scrapped as
of-date was cited as another dan
ger of the continued delay.
Conditions revealed by the survey
as in need of correction included ex-
amples such as:
Employment of 45-year old woman
at five cents an hour in one of the
states largest cities.
Payment of a weekly wage of $3.48
to sales girl in a city Of more than
100000 population.
Employment, of a boy to work 80
hours week performing the heaviest
kind of work in large grocery store.
The survey Of the retail industry
also revealed that:
Nine per cent of women and minor
workers were being paid less than SIS
a week.
Fourteen per cent of the workers
were receiving less than SO weekly.
Thirty per cent received less than
$13.
Ninety per cent received less than
SIT.
Only 10 per cent, including women
holding executive positions ARE earn
ing more than SIT weekly.
While the establishment of a mini
mum wage would unquestionably
ameliorate conditions existent in the
retail industry, the real solution lies
in the organization of retail store
workers into a bona fde Union, and
obtaining improved wages and work
ing conditions through collective bar
gaining.
Retail store workers in number of
cities throughout the state have
solved their own problem through or
ganization and affiliation with the Re-
tail Clerks international Protective
Association, affiliated with the AFL.
But the fact remains that the Ohio
Senate and the state emergency board
; stand indicted for gross neglect OF
duty to those unorganized women anC
minors who are forced to work under
the conditions revealed by the survey
FIGHT WAGE CUTS