Evening star., 1939-10-23
Work Week Cut
Will Affect
$500 Here
700 to Get Raises
As Law Enters
Second Year

SeCOn0 1eof
Fifty-six hundred wage earners
In the District will obtain short
ened work weeks and 700 will have
their pay increased by the Fair Labor
Standards Act, entering its second
year at midnight tonight.
The Wage-Hour Administration
expects that the new regulations
will bring wage increases to 26,6O0
Virginians and $4,000 workers in
Maryland. The shorter hours pro-
vision, it is calculated, will benefit
43 400 in Virginia and 36,200 in
Maryland. Nationally, the hours OF
labor will be cut for 1880 900 per-
sons and 100000 will get pay in.
creaSes.
The minimum pay scale of Is
cents an hour becomes 3O-the rate
due to prevail for six years, after
which it goes to 40. The work week
is cut from A to AZ hours. the base
that will be maintained for a year,
when the 40-hour week is inaugu.
rated. The law contemplates this
figure will be permanent. Over
time, at the rate of time and q
half, will be payable after AZ hours.
Omcials said that approximately
three-fourths of the workers now
receiving less than 80 cents an hour
are concentrated in II Southern
States and five Northern industrial
States. Slightly more than 1000.
600 OF those working longer than
AZ hours a week are in the indus.
trial States of Illinois. Michigan,
New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Massachusetts,.
Many Working Short Week.
About 25,000 additional workers in
the District are included under pro-
visions of the Federal vage-hour
law. but are now working AZ hours
or less a week and receiving 80 cents
or more an hour, Wage-Hour Ad.
ministration officials said.
Nearly half Of those in the Dis.
trict who will benefit by the new
regulations are women and minor
workers, according to Miss Gwen
Geach, executive secretary of the
District Minimum Wage Board.
Miss Geach emphasized that the
Federal wage-hour law affects only
those engaged in occupations classi.
fed in interstate commerce. Tho
only local employees subject to both
the local minimum wage law and the
Federal act are certain Office workers
and number of others engaged in
manufacturing and wholesale occu.
pations.
Under the Districts law ONCE
workers now receive a minimum Of
SIT for 44-hour week. Under the
second-year clauses of the Federal
law, their hours will be cut to A
or. if the employer wishes to con-
tinue the 44-hour schedule, the
workers will receive time and one.
half for the two additional hours.
For workers in the manufacturing
and wholesale occupations who now
receive SIG for a 44-hour week, tho
new provisions mean 42-hour week
at the same wage or a wage increase
OF 36l2 cents week for the two
extra hours.
Miss Geach said most of the WON.
en- and minors affected are employed
in telephone and telegraph Offices,
banks, and branch offices of outside
manufacturing firms Those employed
IN hotels, restaurants, retail stores,
beauty parlors and other industries
purely local in nature are not gov.
erned by the Federal law. she said.
Sawmill Pay Low.
Omcials said that in Virginia
and North Carolina one out of
seven workers covered by the act was
now getting less than 80 cents an
hour; in South Carolina, Georgia
and Florida, one out of four; Ten
nessee, Alabama and Louisiana, one
out of five; Arkansas, one out Of
three, and Mississippi, four out of 10,
The largest single concentration
OF workers below the 30-cent mimi
mum was found IN Southern saw
mills. where it was estimated that
$4,000 out of $4,000 were below the
30-cent level.
During the first year tho
Wage-Hour Administration brought
charges against 81 employers for
alleged violation of the act. The
administration said the litigation re-
suited in imposition of s73.350 in
fines, collection of 100000 in back
wages and the jailing of one EN-.
ployer for failing to produce his rec.
ordS.
Enforcement activities, wage-hour
officials said, disclosed hourly wages
as low as 3 and 4 cents paid to home
workers.
Fleming to Be in Charge
At the start of its second year.
the wage-hour administration will
be directed by an Army engineer.
Col. Philip Fleming, who ran p. w,
AS $1,000, 900 900 construction pro-
gram for time, and then took
charge of the tide-harnessing prof.
ect at Passamaquoddy, Me. He was
named to succeed Elmer F. Andrews,
who resigned
AS the new year starts, officialf
were hopeful test case would be
brought to get decision on its con-
stitutionality by the Supreme Court,
believing enforcement would be cas-
ier If the constitutionality were
established
A case in New Orleans may be the
means of bringing a showdown. A
committee there representing 800
cotton mill operators obtained an
injunction against a special wage
order in the textile industry under
which wages go to 1914 cents an
hour instead Of 30. The petitioners,
challenging the constitutionality Of