The Daily Alaska empire. [volume] (Juneau, Alaska) 1926-1964, 1942-02-12

time and issued new Interpretation, holding that
the computation Of daily overtime was violation
of the law and many employers who, relying on the
first Interpretation and upon the insistence Of their
employees had computed and paid overtime daily
were penazed and required to pay huge sums in
additional overtime, which really amounted to double
overtime.
Another instance is the definition of the term
executive" contained in the law. The law exempts
from its provisions those who are employed in an
executive capacity The Administrator issued an
interpretatve bulletin defining executive This
Interpretation has been generally accepted through
out the country, but in the last mail we received
from the Administrator and very different
Interpretation of the term executive If the pres
ent Interpretation is correct, the former nterpreta
ton was wrong, and if the former Interpretation
was wrong all those who have relied upon it have
been violating the law.
In Alaska, where high wages generally paid
and especially in the mining industry-there prob
ably have been actual violations of the spirit of
the law but the Administrator and his assistants are
seeking to subject practically all mining operators
and many Others to huge penalties simply because
they have not kept their books and time records
in accordance with these changing and fluctuating
interpretations of the Wage-Hour Administrator
done in the administration of this law is found in
item which appeared in the newspapers the
second week in January, wherein the WageHour
officials in Seattle exulting the fact that
they had penalized the American Tin Fields, Inc,
to the extent of $405683 in back wages not because
they had not paid high enough wages, with time
and half for overtime, but because they had not
kept their records according to the DEGREES and
orders of the WageHour officials. The whole mat
ter was not of failure to pay than the
minimum, but of failure to keep their time books
and records according to certain formulas pre-
scribed by the WageHour Administrator.
The tragedy of this so-caled victory of the
WageHo officials lies in the fact that the country
is desperately short of tin and the Bureau of Mines
and all other agencies Of the government concerned
with National Defense and with the prosecution of
life and death struggle with Germany and
Japan, have been holding out every inducement to
those who would prospect for tin Here is little
company in Alaska whose resources were very limit
ed and who engaged in searching for tin de-
partment of the government is seeking to do every
thing humanity possible to encourage prospecting for
tin yet here is another department, the Wage-Hour
Division, which comes along and penalties the little
tin company for not keeping its books according to
standard, and takes away from it over $4OOO-prob-
ably all the money it had hand-whch should
have been used in prospecting for the valuable and
desperately needed tin. 1t does not to make
sense; and while bending every effort to de-
fend country against Germany and Japan, it
would that the industries of the country whose
every effort is needed in preparing the country for
what is in store for it should not have to fight the
government itself for its very existence. The war
can never be won if have to fight on these two
fronts at the same time.
When the Tokyo radio broadcasts wild claims OF
sinking U. S. Naval vessels we ought to keep in
mind British experience.
The British Broadcastne Corporation has
shown that according to Axis claims the British
Navv now consists of