Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/324/244/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 20:29:15+00:00

Document:
Under § 8(f) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Administrator has authority, as a necessary means of making effective a minimum wage order for the embroideries industry, to prohibit industrial homework. Pp. 324 U. S. 254, 324 U. S. 269.
Certiorari, 323 U.S. 695, to review a judgment affirming a wage order promulgated by the Administrator under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce," and to reach this level as rapidly as was "economically feasible without substantially curtailing employment." Section 8(a). Accordingly, Section 6 established basic minimum statutory wages, to be stepped up from 25 cents an hour to 40 cents generally [Footnote 2] during the seven years from the section's effective date, October 23, 1938. Limited flexibility was provided in accordance with the declared purpose to reach the 40 cent level earlier if "economically feasible." Cf. 83 Cong.Rec. 9256. Section 8 empowers the Administrator to convene industry committees which, after investigation, report to him their recommendations concerning minimum wages [Footnote 3] and reasonable classifications. Section 8(a), (b), (c), (d). The Administrator is then required by order to approve and carry into effect the committee's recommendations, after notice to interested persons and opportunity to be heard, if he finds they "are made in accordance with law, are supported by the evidence . . . and . . . will carry out the purposes" of the section; otherwise he must disapprove them. Section 8(d).
of 2 1/2 cents over the previously prevailing "committee" rate. [Footnote 6] Petitioners have not contested this, the primary term of the order.
"(f) Orders issued under this section shall define the industries and classifications therein to which they are to apply, and shall contain such terms and conditions as the Administrator finds necessary to carry out the purposes of such orders, to prevent the circumvention or evasion thereof, and to safeguard the minimum wage rates established therein. No such order shall take effect until after due notice is given. . . ."
Petitioners do not dispute the Administrator's findings of fact, or that the evidence fully sustains them. Nor, indeed, do they question his conclusions in any respect except that he has no legal authority to make the prohibition. [Footnote 10] The petition for certiorari conceded, as does also the brief, that the prohibition was included solely because respondent found "he could not [otherwise] enforce the minimum wage rate as to the home workers employed in the industry." The brief states further that petitioners, "during the entire course of the proceedings, . . . challenged only the statutory authority" of the respondent to include the prohibition.
not only as true, but as conceded, apart from the single question of authority to include the prohibition notwithstanding it is so buttressed in fact. [Footnote 11] The posture of the case therefore compels acceptance of the Administrator's position that, without the prohibition, the wage rate cannot be maintained, and that circumvention and evasion cannot be prevented.
for the Administrator, without the prohibition, to follow the statute's mandate (Section 8(d)) to "carry into effect" the recommendations of the committee as to 8,500 to 12,000 homeworkers who generally are part-time pieceworkers. [Footnote 14] He neither can do so as to factory workers, who generally are full-time workers.
minimum wages by regulating homework have failed generally of their purpose. This failure, after fair trial, is responsible for the Administrator's resort to prohibition in the present order.
In this light, petitioners' position is, in effect, that the statute cannot be applied to this industry. Their argument is not put in these terms. It comes to that. So to state it is to answer it. The industry is covered by the Act. This is not disputed. The intent of Congress was to provide the authorized minimum wage for each employee so covered. Neither is this questioned. Yet it is said, in substance, that Congress, at the same time, intended to deprive the Administrator of the only means available to make its mandate effective. The construction sought would make the statute a dead letter for this industry.
The statute itself thus gives the answer. It does so in two ways -- by necessity to avoid self-nullification and by its explicit terms. The necessity should be enough. But the Act's terms reinforce the necessity's teaching. Section 8(d) requires the Administrator to "carry into effect" the committee's approved recommendations. Section 8(f) commands him to include in the order "such terms and conditions" as he "finds necessary to carry out" its purposes. These duties are backed up by other provisions. [Footnote 19] When command is so explicit, and, moreover, is reinforced by necessity in order to make it operative, nothing short of express limitation or abuse of discretion in finding that the necessity exists should undermine the action taken to execute it. When neither such limitation nor such abuse exists, but the necessity is conceded to be well founded in fact, there would seem to be an end of the matter.
"the distinct separation of the functions to be performed by the committee under § 8(a), (b), (c), (d), from that to be performed by the Administrator after submission of the committee's report. . . ."
Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U. S. 126, 312 U. S. 147.
of a wholly independent subject beyond the purview of the statute, and therefore of the Administrator's power.
This argument is closely interlaced with the contentions drawn from the legislative history and the statute's enforcement provisions, presently to be noted. Insofar as it is independent of these, however, it rests on wholly untenable premises. One is that the prohibition is merely an "enforcement" measure. It is, rather, primarily preventive in character, intended to aid in making the order effective, and to eliminate the need for enforcement. But, in accordance with their "enforcement" conception, petitioners' larger fallacy is that the Administrator can take no action toward making his order effective which, if taken as a matter of independent legislation not expressly related to the Fair Labor Standards Act's objects, would produce substantially the same social and economic effects apart from those objects. In this view, the Administrator's power is so restricted that he can do nothing if, in addition to making the rate effective and safeguarding it against circumvention, other social and economic consequences would result.
The answer is obvious. Section 8(f), in directing the Administrator to include "such terms and conditions" as he "finds necessary to carry out the purposes of such orders," did not forbid him to take the only measures which would be effective merely because other consequences necessarily would follow. The language neither states expressly nor implies that he is to do only what will achieve the stated ends, and nothing more. The statute does not direct the Administrator to make the rate effective by all necessary means except those which may have other social or economic consequences.
His power, it is true, is not one of social or economic reform, except as that power relates to maintaining authorized minimum wages and the statutory hours of labor.
The argument from the legislative history undertakes, in effect, to contradict the terms of Section 8(f) by negative inferences drawn from inconclusive events occurring in the course of consideration of the various and widely differing bills which finally, by compromise and adjustment between the two Houses of Congress, emerged from the conference as the Act. The plain words and meaning of a statute cannot be overcome by a legislative history which, through strained processes of deduction from events of wholly ambiguous significance, may furnish dubious bases for inference in every direction. This is such a case.
homework among other specified practices the Administrator was authorized to restrict or prohibit, [Footnote 26] and this clause was omitted from the final conference draft.
of such consequences. [Footnote 27] Those provisions are therefore not merely means of putting into effect and maintaining the wages required by the Act, as is the Administrator's prohibition of homework. The former would apply regardless of any effect upon the wage structure. The latter can apply only when it is clear that such effects require this in order to maintain and safeguard that structure.
This difference is, in fact, the difference between end and means, made such by the terms of the statute itself. Congress, by stating expressly its primary ends, does not deny resort to the means necessary to achieve them. Mention of child labor therefore gives no ground to infer, from failure expressly to mention homework, that the latter was not included within the general language which comprehends all necessary means to achieve the Act's primary objects. Exactly the opposite conclusion must be drawn on the record, in view of the Administrator's uncontested findings concerning the effects of homework in producing hidden child labor at substandard wages, thus circumventing the Act in two of its primary objects. [Footnote 28] These findings, therefore, give added reason to sustain his conclusion that homework was not put beyond his power to prescribe the means necessary to achieve the purposes of the order and of the Act.
The second objection fares no better. It is mere negative inference drawn from the bare fact that the illustrative parenthetical clause was omitted from the final conference draft which became the Act. Nothing in the committee or conference reports or in the debates indicates a purpose to put homework, or the other practices enumerated at one time or another within the parentheses, beyond the purview of the Act or of the Administrator's power wherever these practices are shown to prevent achievement of the statute's ends.
The answer to the argument microscopically made from the long course of legislative events is obvious. From the beginning, the parenthetical clause was but illustrative of the general authority conferred by the provision of which it was a part. [Footnote 29] It "grew up through step by step additions, among which "homework" was one," 144 F.2d 624, until the parenthetical illustrations threatened to swallow up the general authority. If nothing more had occurred than elimination of the illustrations from a bill otherwise accepted, the change well might be put down, as Judge Hand suggests, 144 F.2d 624, "to the belief that it was unwise to specify so much, lest the specification be taken as exhaustive."
However, as he points out, the course of events was quite different, and even more conclusive against the petitioners' view. The section containing the parenthesis began, and continued, as a feature of the Senate bill. This followed an entirely different plan from the one eventually adopted, which was a compromise of Senate and House proposals. The Senate bill placed administration of the Act in the hands of a board, which was by order to fix all minimum wages. In this form, including the parenthetical reference to homework, [Footnote 30] the Senate adopted the bill.
The House Committee to which the measure was referred likewise approved it. But the House itself declined to do so. It adopted a different scheme, substituting statutory wages for wages fixed by order as the Senate bill proposed. [Footnote 31] There was therefore no need for, and the House bill did not contain, the parenthesis or the general provision of which it formed a part.
When the two bills came to conference, compromise was worked out by writing around the conference table the final measure combining features of both bills. [Footnote 32] The House provisions for an administrator and for statutory wages were retained. But the latter were modified by providing for "committee" wages, to be fixed by order of the Administrator, by including the provisions of Section 8, including 8(f), and also of Section 6(a)(3) and (4).
was inserted in the Senate, without discussion or controversy. It was likewise eliminated without discussion or controversy. So far as appears, it was never separately considered. Not the clause alone or particularly, but the entire bill containing it, was rejected by the House.
"It would indeed be a far cry to infer from that that all the items which, by accretion, had made their way into the parentheses were in this way excised from the Administrator's powers. Indeed, if so -- as he argues -- he could not even regulate labels. . . ."
drawn from the Act's enforcement provisions misconceive their effect.
United States v. Morgan, 307 U. S. 183, 307 U. S. 194; Warner & Co. v. Eli Lilly & Co., 265 U. S. 526, 265 U. S. 532. But certainly the absence of such authority cannot be assumed, closely related as it would be to enforcement of the order's primary term. Congress did not include authority to prescribe "terms and conditions" merely as a preachment. Cf. California Drive-In Restaurant Assn. v. Clark, 22 Cal.2d 287, 140 P.2d 657. We do not therefore consider further these assumptions.
"absurd to assume that Congress intended that the Administrator could make so disruptive but temporary a regulation as the prohibition of homework would entail."
authority conferred by Section 8(f) is to be read not as if it were given as of the date of the order (August, 1943) or the time when it may become effective, [Footnote 40] but as of 1938, when the section took effect. Accordingly, at the minimum, the authority given was to apply over a period of seven years. And these were the most crucial, because the initial, years in the statute's anticipated life. The scope of the power was not cut down because the Administrator chose to try first the less effective, but similarly conferred though less extensive, power of regulation.
"by a preponderance of the evidence . . . that the continued effectiveness or the issuance of the order, as the case may be, is necessary in order to prevent substantial curtailment of employment in the industry."
And Section 6(a)(3), perhaps also 6(a)(4), expressly contemplates continuance of wage orders issued under Section 8 after the initial seven years. The exact scope of these provisions need not now be determined. It is enough, for present purposes, that they leave some room, and it may be considerable, for the issuance or continued effectiveness of wage orders after October 23, 1945.
Finally, it is not necessary in this case to decide whether the power to prescribe "terms and conditions" applies only to "committee" wages, and not to "statutory" wages. Strong reasons have been suggested for believing it applies to both. [Footnote 41] But this case involves only "committee"
wages. The power to make them effective and to prevent evasion would not be cut down, were it more clear than it is that there is no authority to prescribe "terms and conditions" for "statutory" wages or were it true that authority to require "committee" wages would expire altogether with the initial seven-year period. The question whether the authority to prescribe "terms and conditions" applies to "statutory" wages may be left for decision when it arises. Uncertain as the answer now is, it cannot give solid ground for inference that the power to prohibit homework was not a necessary means of making effective the minimum wage prescribed by the order.
Petitioners' arguments have been directed chiefly to the power to prohibit. If valid, they would apply equally to the authority to restrict or regulate. They would nullify the Administrator's power to establish or maintain minimum wages in the embroideries industry. They can have no such potency.
* Together with No. 369, Maretzo et al. v. Walling, Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor, and No. 370, Guiseppi et al. v. Walling, Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division., U.S. Department of Labor, also on certiorari to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The petition sought review also on questions of due process and delegation of legislative power. Cf. note 10 infra.
"Sec. 6(a). Every employer shall pay to each of his employees . . . (3) after the expiration of seven years . . . , not less than 40 cents an hour, or the rate (not less than 30 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8, whichever is lower. . . ."
"The committee shall recommend to the Administrator the highest minimum wage rates for the industry which it determines, having due regard to economic and competitive conditions, will not substantially curtail employment in the industry."
Section 8(b). Recommendations for classifications are covered by Section 8(c).
The Industry Committee (No. 45) was appointed June 6, 1942, and, on June 30 following, submitted its unanimous report and recommendations for the 40 cent rate to the Administrator. Published notice of public hearing was given September 16. The hearing extended over ten days of the following November. The Administrator broadened its scope to include the question "what, if any, prohibition, restriction, or regulation of home work in this industry is necessary to carry out the purpose of such order," etc.
Industry representatives who appeared were unanimous, with one exception, in supporting the committee's recommendation, but divided on restricting or prohibition industrial homework. Labor representatives supported both proposals, as did representatives of federal and state agencies, including the Departments of Labor of the United States and of the States of New York and Rhode Island.
Extensive testimony was taken and many exhibits were received in evidence. In many of its aspects, the Administrator found the evidence repetitious of that upon which previous findings were based approving the recommendations of an earlier industry committee (No. 15), which resulted in establishing the 37 1/2 cent rate by order effective January 27, 1941. Oral argument was restricted to the question of homework, to which the greater part of the record of 1,691 pages relates. The procedure was substantially that which had been followed, upon the same question, in the cases of six other industries. See the Administrator's Findings and Opinion on the minimum wage recommendation of Industry Committee No. 26 for, and industrial home work in, the Jewelry Manufacturing Industry, dated October 16, 1941, and in relation to the Knitted Outerwear Industry (March 30, 1942), Women's Apparel Industry (July 8, 1942), Gloves and Mittens Industry (August 22, 1942), Button and Buckle Manufacturing Industry (September 19, 1942), and Handkerchief Manufacturing Industry (January 22, 1943).
The provision for the 40-cent rate became effective September 20, 1943. The order provided the prohibition of homework should become effective after November 15, 1943. But the date was postponed successively until July 26, 1944, when the Circuit Court of Appeals stayed enforcement until this Court should act on the petition for certiorari.
"the estimated direct increase in the wage bill resulting from the establishment of a minimum wage rate of 40 cents an hour would be 1.2 percent in the three main areas and 2.6 percent in the other areas."
"almost 90 percent of the embroidery establishments are located in the New York City (including northern New Jersey), Chicago, and Philadelphia metropolitan areas. . . ."
The Administrator concluded that "the insignificant rise in operating costs which will result from the recommended minimum will not cause substantial curtailment of employment." Cf. Section 8(b), (d).
Cf. Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U. S. 126.
The exceptions relate to persons obtaining special homework certificates who are "unable to adjust to factory work because of" age, physical or mental disability, or are unable to leave home because their presence is required to care for an invalid, and were engaged in industrial homework in the industry prior to November 2, 1942 (except that this requirement is not to be applied in cases of unusual hardship) or are engaged in such homework under the supervision of a state vocational rehabilitation agency or a sheltered workshop as defined in the Code of Federal Regulations.
The Administrator's opinion reviews at length the conditions surrounding homework in the industry inevitably tending to produce violation of minimum wage requirements, and the efforts previously made under both state and federal legislation to overcome these tendencies by regulatory measures.
His conclusions, upon the evidence, were in general that both state and federal efforts at regulation had been ineffective; that violations were widespread, of great variety, and in great part concealed, and that these were due to factors inherent in the conditions under which industrial homework is performed, and impossible to correct by the regulatory measures applied.
"the nearly unanimous viewpoint of Federal and State officials having experience in the administration of labor laws, . . . regulation, restriction or prohibition of industrial home work must be on a nationwide basis if minimum wage standards are to be preserved and upheld."
"[e]xperience under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 [to November, 1942] has also indicated that labor conditions in industrial homework in this Industry are not susceptible to regulation that will guarantee that the home worker will be paid the established minimum rate. . . . Compliance with the Act has been the exception, rather than the rule."
"mere regulation . . . including regulation of the recordkeeping practices of employers or governmental establishment of piece rates, will not be adequate to secure enforcement of the minimum wage order for the Embroideries Industry."
"solely because of the inability to enforce the minimum wage rate applicable to homeworkers, without regard to the social and economic character of such employment."
Cf. note 1 and text supra.
"The review by the court shall be limited to questions of law, and findings of fact by the Administrator, when supported by substantial evidence, shall be conclusive."
"It was testified at the hearing that home work is cheaper in terms of labor costs than factory work, and is used by employers to reduce production costs despite the advantages derived from the direct supervision over production, standardization, and specialization which are possible in the factory. The evidence . . . conclusively shows that large proportions of home work employees . . . are paid less than the applicable minimum. It is apparent that, if some employers are allowed to utilize home workers at sub-minimum wage scales, other employers compelled to pay a 40-cent minimum will be placed at a competitive disadvantage."
The nature of homework, it was said, is such that estimates of the number of homeworkers in this industry are difficult, whereas, by contrast, employment figures for factory workers may be ascertained with ease and definiteness. The estimates stated are from data submitted by the Economics Branch, Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor. The figures concerning the number of establishments and of factory workers were derived from the Census of Manufacturers.
According to the report of the Economics Branch, cf. note 13 supra, entitled The Current Status of Home Work in the Embroideries Industry, October, 1942, one of the most important factors affecting earnings of homeworkers is "the great multiplicity of designs and styles." Variations are constant and short-lived. Piece rates must be determined and applied with every change. Few operations lend themselves to standardization, especially for homework. In one instance, during a period of six months, a "lace-cutting firm received work requiring the cutting of 300 different designs, each of which had a different piece rate." The report further states: "Piece rates for plant workers can readily be checked. . . . The setting of piece rates to yield the minimum wage for home workers is a much more complex problem than for plant workers."
"a review of 211 showed that 80, or 37.9 percent, fixed piece rates for home workers upon the basis of arbitrary estimates; 73, or 34.6 percent, based the rates for home workers on time tests of plant sample workers, and only 40, or 19 percent, based the rates for home workers on time tests of some of the home workers themselves."
Cf. also note 16 infra.
"The Economics Branch found that, even during the boom period from January 27, 1941, to July 1942, 61.2 percent of the home workers in the Industry as a whole were paid less than 37 1/2 cents an hour, in violation of the applicable minimum wage order. It was found that 52.6 percent of the home workers received less than 35 cents an hour; nearly 30 percent less than 25 cents, and 17.4 percent less than 20 cents. Fifteen home workers, or 1.8 percent of the total number, were paid as little as 10 cents an hour or less. The percentage receiving less than 37 1/2 cents an hour was highest, 90.2 percent, in lace cutting and lowest, 23.3 percent, in crochet beading. Miscellaneous embroidery had 81.3 percent of the home workers receiving less than the wage order minimum, passementerie, 74.1 percent, hand embroidery, 72.6 percent, and Schiffli and Swiss handmachine embroidery, 31.1 percent."
"The evidence in the record, including the report of the Economics Branch, which showed low sub-minimum earnings for the bulk of the home workers in this Industry, was not seriously contested at the hearing,"
and his further conclusions that, in view of competitive relationships, mere regulation of homework would not be adequate to secure effective enforcement of the order and, likewise, that this could not be had by applying the prohibition to only part of the industry.
"[i]n view of the competitive relationship between different types of embroidery, any regulatory, restrictive, or prohibitory order affecting only certain operations would create a competitive disadvantage would the employers engaged in those operations."
Noting that twelve states had legislated before 1900 to regulate tenement workshops, the Administrator found that "[e]ffective enforcement was impossible, however, and home work remained a serious problem." The subsequent period of legislation by a few states "achieved little effective control prior to 1930." New state laws, enacted during the 1930's, providing for abolition of homework by administrative order, "became the only effective statutory approach to a problem generally considered beyond regulation." Under the National Industrial Recovery Administration, 118 of the 556 codes included homework provisions, and 86 percent of the 118 prohibited homework. Homework, in consequence, was greatly reduced, but its volume turned sharply upward when the National Industrial Recovery Act was declared unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495.
No reason is apparent which would make any factor in the homework situation effective to nullify the 40-cent rate that would not apply also to the 37 1/2-cent rate or any other minimum, however fixed, except one placed so low that even homeworkers would seek other kinds of employment or accept idleness in preference. The Administrator made no findings or conclusions concerning this self-evident matter.
Cf. text at note 38ff infra.
"This proceeding is not concerned with the question whether home work is desirable or undesirable from a social point of view or as a form of economic organization. It is concerned solely with whether the home work system in the Embroideries Industry furnishes a means of circumventing or evading a wage order putting into effect the minimum wage recommendation of Industry Committee No. 45, so that it is necessary to provide in the wage order for its regulation, restriction, or prohibition in order to carry out the purposes of such order and to safeguard the minimum wage rate established therein."
Cf. Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U. S. 381, 310 U. S. 392; United States v. Powers, 307 U. S. 214, 307 U. S. 217; Armstrong Paint & Varnish Works v. Nu-Enamel Corp., 305 U. S. 315, 305 U. S. 333; Bird v. United States, 187 U. S. 118, 187 U. S. 124.
Cf. notes 12 13 and text at notes 324 U. S. 14 and 324 U. S. 16, supra. Other relevant findings of the Administrator need not be quoted or noted specifically, reference being made to his opinion for them.
The Administrator's opinion devotes some seventeen pages to review of the evidence in this aspect of the case, including previous experience with ability of both employers and homeworkers to adjust to the prohibition. This experience related to the effects of prohibitions under various state laws and the National Industrial Recovery Act, 48 Stat. 195. With reference to the latter, of 75 firms investigated by the Children's Bureau, Department of Labor, only one discontinued the line of goods on which homeworkers had been employed, and, of 3,135 homework employees prior to the prohibition, 2,588, or 82 percent, were employed in factories after the prohibition. ,Similar results were shown in the experience with state laws in New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.
Petitioners presented contrary evidence, largely statements of individual homeworkers in embroidery that they could not or would not make the transfer, for various reasons, if the prohibition were adopted. The Administrator found some of this evidence unacceptable "as furnishing a sound basis for predicating their actual conduct when faced with actual prohibition," and concluded that reasonable adjustment could be made to the prohibition both by employees and by the employers.
Cf. note 8 supra. Because "relatively few home workers will be eligible to continue home work under this exception," the Administrator found that "no threat to the standards of the wage order" would be presented by making it.
S.Rep. No. 884, 75th Cong., 1st Sess.; cf. 81 Cong.Rec. 7658, 7659.
The clause assumed various forms in the course of consideration of the Senate bill. The section comparable to Section 8(f) was 9(6). The original parenthesis, apparently, was inserted in committee in the form "(including the restriction or prohibition of such acts or practices)." S.Rep. No. 884, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 8. This was amended on the floor, without debate or record vote, to read, "(including the restriction or prohibition of industrial home work or of such other acts or practices)," thus introducing the first specific reference to homework. 81 Cong.Rec. 7891. The bill passed the Senate with the clause in this form. 81 Cong.Rec. 7957.
"(including the restriction or prohibition of industrial home work or such other acts or practices and such requirements as the keeping of records, labeling, periodic reporting and posting of orders and schedules)."
House Confidential Subcommittee Print "A" of February 18, 1938. The clause disappeared entirely from the House bill when, shortly before passage, that body changed the entire scheme by substituting "statutory" for "committee" wages. Cf. H.Rep. No. 2182, 75th Cong., 3d Sess.; cf. also text, infra at notes 32 33.
"ship or deliver for shipment in commerce any goods produced in an establishment situated in the United States in or about which within thirty days prior to the removal of such goods therefrom any oppressive child labor has been employed. . . ."
See also note 17 supra.
The Administrator, referring to the prohibition of § 12, cf. note 27 supra, noted that the employment of children in either factories or homes in the production of goods for commerce must be hidden, and commented: "This, in itself, contributes to the deterioration of minimum wage standards."
Cf. note 26 supra; Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177, 313 U. S. 188ff, 313 U. S. 211; Federal Land Bank v. Bismarck Lumber Co., 314 U. S. 95, 314 U. S. 100.
The House bill also substituted an administrator for the Senate's board. Petitioners argue from the fact that substitution of "statutory" for "committee" wages was made because the House objected to the discretionary powers given the board in the Senate bill, H.Rep. No. 2182, 75th Cong., 3d Sess., and because it later rejected substitute bills patterned after the Senate Measure, cf. 83 Cong.Rec. 7389, 7378, 7373, that Congress, in effect, rejected every feature of the bills which the House refused to enact. The non sequitur is apparent. But it may be noted the contention ignores entirely the Senate's part in legislation, as well as the compromise effected in conference between the two bodies and the fact that this reintroduced some of the discretionary features contained in the bills the House rejected.
Cf. 83 Cong.Rec. 9256; H.Rep. No. 2738, 75th Cong., 3d Sess. (Conference Report).
Sections 6(a)(5), 6(c), 5(e), added by Act of June 26, 1940, 54 Stat. 615, 616. Section 6(a)(5) deals in detail with homeworkers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Cf. H.R. 5435, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., § 4; H.Rep. No. 522, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 8; 84 Cong.Rec. 3498; 86 Cong.Rec. 5122.
It is not altogether clear, from the terms of the proposed amendment, cf. note 35 supra, whether its purpose and effect were to clarify preexisting provisions or to extend the Administrator's authority. The debate, 84 Cong.Rec. 6620-6622, indicates that opposition in the House was due primarily to belief that the amendment, if adopted, would "take away some of the exemptions that so-called farm people enjoy under the Act."
It is said that Section 8(f) does not provide for a hearing with reference to the "terms and conditions" of a wage order and the failure of the Act to provide expressly for their enforcement, as it does for enforcement of orders issued under Sections 11(c), 12 and 14, indicates "the statute did not include the prohibition of homework as a term and condition' of a wage order." The argument, it may be noted, applies to all "terms and conditions." In effect, it urges that all are unenforceable, and therefore none was intended.
"The Administrator . . . may investigate . . . such facts, conditions, practices, or matters as he may deem necessary or appropriate to determine whether any person has violated any provision of this Act, or which may aid in the enforcement of the provisions of this Act. . . . Except as provided in section 12, the Administrator shall bring all actions under section 17 to restrain violations of this Act."
Cf., e.g., Walling v. Helmerich & Payne, 323 U. S. 37; Walling v. Belo Corp., 316 U. S. 624.
"No order issued under this section with respect to any industry prior to the expiration of seven years from the effective date of section 6 shall remain in effect after such expiration, and no order shall be issued under this section with respect to any industry on or after such expiration, unless the industry committee by a preponderance of the evidence before it recommends and the Administrator by a preponderance of the evidence adduced at the hearing finds, that the continued effectiveness or the issuance of the order, as the case may be, is necessary in order to prevent substantial curtailment of employment in the industry."
Cf. the opinion of L. Hand, C.J., 144 F.2d 608, 623, and the reservation in that of Frank, C.J. at 614 of 144 F.2d with the authorities he cites in note 7.
"such terms and conditions as the Administrator finds necessary to carry out the purposes of such orders, to prevent the circumvention or evasion thereof, and to safeguard the minimum wage rates established therein."
wages so fixed. In the light of the showing made on this record concerning the embroideries industry for which the Administrator concededly fixed valid wage rates, the measures that the Administrator took through provisions dealing with homework in the embroideries industry were relevant to, and in enforcement of, the subsidiary power granted by Congress to prevent evasion of the rates fixed for that industry.
And so I join in the Court's opinion.
With deference, I venture to think that the Court here essays to read into the law what its words, fairly construed, do not import. The Court arrives at that result by forming a judgment as to what Congress probably should have said, and would have said if it had considered the matter, in order to make the statute what the Court deems a more perfect instrument for attaining the general objective which Congress sought to attain, and then makes the necessary additions to the language Congress has used. The principal, if not the only, argument I find in the opinion for reading something into the statute is that otherwise it cannot be most effectively applied to certain industries unless the industries themselves are made over.
Section 8(f) provides that the Administrator's orders issued under the section "shall define the industries . . . to which they are to apply." It is not suggested that the order in question is of this description. That with which the industry committee's investigation dealt was a single industry in which two methods of work were pursued. Obviously it is not a definition of the industry to exclude from it some of those who labor in it.
such orders, to prevent the circumvention or evasion thereof, and to safeguard the minimum wage rates established therein."
The philosophy of the court's opinion can be nothing less than that the Administrator may, if he finds it necessary, rewrite the statute. Suppose he finds that, in a given industry, it is, as he puts it, impossible to enforce the minimum wage provision. May he thereupon issue an order prohibiting the further prosecution of that industry and requiring all those who pursue it to follow some other calling? It may be said that the supposition is, on its face, ridiculous. But is it any more so than what was here accomplished? Forty percent of the workers in an industry, under pain of otherwise losing their occupation, are compelled to give up what they have done time out of mind, and, if they desire to pursue their calling, to do so under completely changed economic conditions, not in their homes, but in factories which, if they are available at all, may be remote from their homes.
The language of section 8(f) has a reasonable and proper office in the context of the Act. The provisions permitted by that section to be inserted in an order are obviously such as are incidental to administration, such as pertain to keeping records or filing reports, not exorbitant or excessive so as to amount to a regulation or suppression of an existing and recognized industry.
In my view, one need not go outside the provisions of the Act to be convinced that Congress never intended to grant the Administrator the power he has assumed. If it be thought, however, that the phraseology of section 8(f) is of doubtful import, the legislative history seems to me to demonstrate that Congress purposely, and not by inadvertence, denied the asserted power to the Administrator.
from consideration the first and third of these objects and the statutory provisions implementing them, since we are concerned only with minimum wages. The Act creates a Wage and Hour Division in the Department of Labor and authorizes the appointment of an administrator to be in charge of it, Section 4. It requires the appointment of industry committees representing those engaged in any industry, Section 5. It requires every employer to pay every employee engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce at the rate of not less than twenty-five cents an hour for the first year, not less than thirty cents an hour during the next six years, and not less than forty cents an hour after the expiration of seven years. The Administrator is given no authority to issue any orders concerning these prescribed rates or their application in industry, with the sole exception about to be mentioned.
Provision is made to raise wages above the prescribed minima during the seven-year period after the effective date of the Act, without curtailing employment or disrupting the economy of an industry. Section 6 refers the reader to section 8, creating machinery to accomplish this. The latter section provides for the convening of industry committees to which the administrator shall refer the question what minimum wage rate shall be set for the industry. The committee is to investigate conditions in the industry, hold hearings, and recommend the highest minimum wage rates which it determines, having regard to economic and competitive conditions, will not substantially curtail employment.
and the Administrator conclude, and so declare, that it is within the purposes of the Act that the wage fixed by the order shall remain in effect after expiration of that period notwithstanding the requirement of section 6 that all wages shall reach the minimum of forty cents an hour at that time.
Now it is only in enforcement of a committee's report that the Administrator has power to issue an order with respect to wages, and it is in this context that section 8(f) permits him to include in his order "such terms and conditions" as he "finds necessary to carry out the purposes" of the order, to prevent circumvention or evasion, and to safeguard the wage rates thereby established.
With respect to the minima fixed by section 6, which apply universally (except where the special procedure authorized by section 8 is invoked), the Administrator has no authority to issue orders such as that issued in this case. He cannot, because he finds it difficult to enforce the Act in an industry, either remake or suppress the industry. The result of the decision is that, in the exceptional case where a special rate of wages is set in advance of the prescribed rate, the Administrator may do what, in the generality of cases, he may not do. This circumstance gave one of the judges below so much trouble that he was willing to hold, in the teeth of section 6, that the Administrator might in all cases make such orders as that here in question. Thus, instead of writing in additional provisions in section 8(f), as does this court, he was prepared to write in a new provision in section 6 to make the Act a complete and logical statute.
"the highest minimum wage rates for the industry which it determines, having due regard to the economic and competitive conditions, will not substantially curtail employment in the industry."
order, to change the industry into one which the committee has never investigated. The Administrator's action is, in effect, a subversion of the committee's report, whereas the Act contemplates a resubmission to the committee in such a case. Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U. S. 126, 312 U. S. 146-149.
Surely if any such sweeping construction is to be given words having a narrower import, inquiry into the legislative history is of capital importance. That history, instead of being "wholly ambiguous" and furnishing a "dubious basis" for conflicting inferences, seems to me to be letter-clear.
them. [Footnote 2/3] The question of home work was again broached at the hearings at various points. Notwithstanding this, the bill, as reported to the Senate, contained no provision for the prohibition of home work. The measure was debated at length in that body. As it then stood, section 9(6), dealing with administrative orders, which became section 8(f) in the bill as enacted, provided that an order might contain terms and conditions the administrative authority should find necessary to carry out the purposes of the order to prevent circumvention or evasion, or to "safeguard the fair labor standards therein established." It will be seen that this language is not materially different in meaning from that finally embodied in section 8(f). An amendment was proposed from the floor to add the words "including the restriction or prohibition of industrial home work," and was agreed to.
bill a substitute was presented containing a section relating to wage orders, with provisions respecting home work the same as were contained in the Senate bill as passed and in the substitute theretofore offered to the House. The bill thus offered was rejected, and the newly reported House bill was passed. Conferees were appointed amongst whom were the Senator who had first proposed the amendment respecting orders prohibiting home work and two of the Representatives who had presented bills containing similar provisions. The Conference Committee deliberated for a matter of twelve days, and evidently gave the most meticulous care to each section of each of the bills before it. It in effect rewrote the measure. The Conference Report shows that the committee adopted the theory of the House bill fixing definite minimum standard wages to step up periodically in the future and also, as respects industry committees and interim orders based on industry committees' reports, adopted the more flexible system embodied in the Senate bill.
It is clear that, in redrafting section 8(f), which was section 9(6) of the Senate bill, the conferees consciously and deliberately rejected the clause, "including the restriction or prohibition of industrial home work or of such other acts or practices." The Conference Report was accepted, the bill passed both houses, and was signed by the President.
establishment of the employer and in the homes of the workers."
"The Administrator shall have power to make, issue, amend, and rescind such regulations and orders as are necessary or appropriate to carry out any of the provisions of this Act. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, such regulations and orders may . . . make special provision with respect to, including the restriction of, home work subject to this Act to the extent necessary to safeguard the minimum standards provided in this Act or in any regulation or order issued pursuant thereto. . . ."
"I am sure that business would be less jittery about this law if the Administrator had the right to define the application of the law. Without this amendment, he may not do so, and some business has suffered as a result. I believe that he further needs the power to define technical and trade terms used in the act and the power to make special provisions with respect to industrial home work and make special provision for constant wage plans consistent with section 7 relating to hours of work. Home work has long been a blot on the economic picture of this country, and I regret to say that, in some cases, employers have resorted to this means of employment to escape the provisions of this law."
will also give him the right to define terms used in the act and make special provisions with respect to industrial home work."
"As the act is now written, it is extremely doubtful whether the wage and hour standards which it establishes can be enforced as to industrial home workers. Under present practice in industrial home work industries, the Administrator is unable to secure proper records on wages and hours of home workers. Business concerns relying on home work for their labor do not ordinarily deal directly with the home workers, but turn over the goods or articles on which the work is to be done to contractors who employ the home workers. If time permitted, I could give you concrete examples of cruelty in this field. Section 4 of the amendments would give the Administrator the necessary authority to cope with this situation."
In the Annual Report of the Wage and Hour Division for 1940. industrial home work was discussed at page 89, and statements made as to the requirements of recordkeeping in respect of it.
After the Wage and Hour Act had become law, it developed that, if the prescribed minimum hourly wages were enforced in Puerto Rico, certain industries there which consisted almost entirely of home work would be destroyed. It was believed that the only relief which would correct the situation would be to amend the statute to abrogate the fixed minima named in section 6 to provide for an industry committee to fix lower standard wages for industries consisting largely of home workers in the island. Such minima would be recommended by an industry committee and implemented by orders of the Administrator. [Footnote 2/8] The amendment was adopted in 1940.
Far from indicating any thought on the part of Congress or the Division that the Administrator was empowered to ban home work, this legislation, taken in connection with the defeat of H.R. 5435, indicates quite clearly that no one concerned either in the passage or the administration of the law had any notion that the Administrator was authorized to deal with the economic problem involved in home work.
A section of the Wage and Hour Division's report for 1940 contained a discussion of enforcement of the Act with respect to home work, without any suggestion that the Administrator could deal with it by abolishing it (p. 89).
Thus, it appears that the Administrator, having failed to obtain explicit authority from Congress, began contemplating the effort to persuade the courts that he had implied authority in the premises.
"The problem of industrial homework has been one of the most important administrative questions since the inception of the Fair Labor Standards Act. For the guidance of the Administrator, the data were presented for the jewelry and knitted outerwear industries, showing conditions of industrial homework, the average earnings of homeworkers, the difficulties of enforcement of minimum wage provisions for homeworkers, and the methods of evasion of minimum wage regulations by workers and employers. "
Though there was no declaration of a purpose to enter the sort of order now in question, it was, in fact entered August 21, 1943.
"Enforcement measures established to protect the standards of the Act for factory employees have not been effective in controlling hours and wages of homeworkers. This failure prompted regulation of industrial homework under wage orders in industries in which homework is prevalent. These regulations are designed to protect factory employees against unfair wage competition."
"Industrial home work in these industries is restricted to persons who are unable to adjust to factory work because of age or physical or mental disability or who are home-bound because of an invalid in the home and who have been engaged in the particular industry prior to a specified date. This latter requirement may be waived in unusual hardship cases. These restrictions were adopted after searching examination of the subject which included the opinions and convictions of representatives of management and labor. A total of 4,451 applications for industrial homework certificates have been received, and 3,701 certificates have been granted."
But, by that time, this case had been taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals to test the validity of the order here under review.
H.R.Report No. 1452, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 6-7.
Testimony at Joint Hearings, pp. 184, 190, 196, 197.
82 Cong.Rec. 1511-1516, 1572-1577, 1580, 1585.
First Annual Report, 1939, p. 160.
See Annual Report, Wage and Hour Division, 1940, p. 113; Hearings Senate Committee on Appropriations, Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, 1941, p. 3; S.R. 1754, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., p. 5 ff; H.R. No. 2186, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., p. 15.

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