The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-12-31

Peter EdSOM is In War LapOf Board General Order No. {. It covers small stores, filling stations and the like. But any employer. such as the operator of q chain Of stores who may have eight or less employees in every orc of his stores, is not exempt if the total number of his employees is nine or more, 4 man running two businesses a hot dog stand and shoe shine par Tor, for instance-wth only four employees in oEs and five in the other would have to get government permission to give the heip c raise,
 Similarly, in, the case Of c feeo- tiatcd wage agreement for say all the printing shops In any city. or all the plumbing repair shops, then oil the workers employed in any Of these shops would come under gov~ ernment control, even if there were only two or any number Of employees less than eight working in an ifI~ dependeutly owned establishment entering into the trade association agreement.
 DoMEsTICs EXCLUDED
 The two million domestic servants of the country are also excluded from wage control orders. Another big group of employees whose pay may be normally increased arc the three million employees Of state, District of Columbia, county. iIiuni- cipal or territorial governments, That covers garbage collectors, and the like. The federal government Is given wartime jurisdiction over local government wages and salaries under the stabilization order, but this authority is delegated to the heads Of local governments by VILE General order No. 12. All the local officials must do is see that four copies of the wage increase order are sent to the Joint Committee on Salaries and Wages. Department Of of Labor.
 Wages and salaries fixed by fed- eral or state statutes are completely exempt. Control over the pay scales of the more than e million civilian employees of the War and Navy De- partments has been delegated to the secretaries of War and Navy by VILE General Order Nos. 13 and IS,
 Wages paid in any territory ex- cept Alaska are exempted from stabilization control by WLB Gen. eral Order No. 8. That would of course apply to places like Hawaii, Puerto Rico ana the Virgin Islands.
 Wages of all farm workers receiv- ing less than $2400 a year-which would take in over three million hired hands-are similarly exempted from control Of VILE and placed under the jurisdiction Of the secre- tary of agriculture.
 FLEXIBILTTY PROVIDED
 Machinery for federal wage stab- ilization enforcement has been set up SO that 1t would not interfere with previously established agen- cies having control over wage stan Gards or wage mediation boards. This is part of the original Presi- dential order establishing the wage stabilization program. It means that new decisions of the Wage and Hour Division, setting a new minimum wage up to 40 cents an hour in some industry previously not under the Fair Labor Standards act provisions, would stand. Wage increases called for by state mtri- imum wage laws are similarly ex- empted. This also applies to wage scales paid to private companies holding government contracts ard working under the Walsh-Healy act, as we'll as to holders Of contracts on government construction projects under the Davis-Bacon act.
 Wages of women may te increased to the same rates paid men doing similar work without prior govern ment approval, under WLB Gen. eral Order No. IS. Ultimately, this may serve to increase the wages of 1 from four 10 ten million women ir1- dustrial workers.
 Tn all the exceptions mentioned above. there is one important con- dition. An employer may make any of these permitted increases hc likes, but he cannot use these fn- creases as a basis for demands that the prices of the goods he makes or the services he performs be tn- creased in any way. That's to con trol imitation.