Court Opinion

ID: 9865854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 22:21:19.53927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:57:30.732142
License: Public Domain

Judge Thomas
dissents.
I am unable to agree with the majority of the Court regarding the constitutionality of the statute in question, and will briefly state why.
Though I do not believe it to be an eternally settled proposition that the Legislature may expend or authorize the expenditure of public moneys for the benefit of a special class of persons, I do take issue with the majority on the question of whether or not the law involved constitutes a valid delegation of legislative authority to-a particular private group within a class. With all due-respect to labor unions, it seems to me that the law in question goes entirely too far in requiring public authorities to accept the terms of employment fixed by these organizations without having the right to determine their reasonableness.
My construction of the law is somewhat different from that of my colleagues. Nothing in the statute gives the public authority any right or power or discretion to pass upon the reasonableness of a prevailing wage in any particular locality. It is true the public authority may determine whether or not a sufficient number of employees are affected by collective agreements between labor organizations and employers, but that only permits a finding as to whether or not a prevailing wage exists and does not permit a discretionary determination that such wage is fair to either party to a labor contract under the particular circumstances involved.
The majority are of the opinion that the statute sets up a reasonable standard. I am unable to find such in the statute, unless we may say that any wage rate established by a labor union, regardless of the methods used by it to enforce the payment of such wage, is ipso facto reasonable. It is to be noted that the public authority must establish the same rate which prevails under labor union contracts. It may not take into consideration wages paid under non-union contracts. It *544may not take into consideration the fact that the wage rate was promoted by a powerful union or a weak one, or that the contracts between the labor organizations and the employers were negotiated in Daviess County or New York or Chicago. It seems to me these are matters which should be considered by the public authority if it is to exercise a discretion properly delegated to it by the Legislature. Fact finding by public agencies, public bodies, or administrative agencies is perfectly proper if they are given the right to determine pertinent facts which have a bearing upon the details of the law to be invoked, but under the statute involved, the only fact to be found by the public authority is the existence of labor union contracts covering a sufficient number of employees to indicate they are the prevailing union rates.
It is conceivable that a powerful union in a particular locality may by organized strikes and even organized violence have established an unusually high wage rate for a particular industry, in the particular community. The public authority cannot go behind the contract establishing these rates, nor may it decide that the prevailing rates paid under non-union contracts establish an adequate minimum compensation for laborers in the vicinity.
In my opinion the principle announced in the case of Wagner v. City of Milwaukee, 177 Wis. 410, 188 N. W. 487 is sound. In the briefs filed for appellants, and on behalf of the American Federation of Labor and other organizations interested in upholding the constitutionality of this act, no case to the contrary has been cited nor has an attempt been made to distinguish this case. The facts are substantially identical with those involved here except that the prevailing wage provision appeared in an ordinance rather than a statute. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin had this to say, 177 Wis. 410, 188 N. W. at page 489:
“Upon the second of these questions we see no escape from the conclusion that by the terms of the ordinance in question and the resolution passed in accordance therewith there is manifest a declaration by the common council that in fixing a minimum wage scale it will and does adopt and establish as such scale and *545prevailing wage, the rate paid to the members of any regular and recognized organization of the skilled laborers for each particular class of labor. The only exception recognized as to such being the standard is in the case where to any particular class of labor the city itself is then paying a higher scale of wages.
“This in effect declares that some body or organization outside of, and independent from, the common council, and other than a state or local administrative body, shall exercise the judgment required to fix and determine a prevailing wage scale. It amounts to nothing less than a surrender by the members of the common council of the exercise of their independent, individual judgments in the determination of a matter of legislative concern and an agreement that, if they act upon the subject at all, the determination of such outside body rather than their own shall control. There is no discretion left with the common council as to the scale; if it fixes any, it must fix that scale determined by the unions. The action and judgment of determining the wage scale is that of the. unions, not that of the common council. ■ The power to exercise such legislative function is exclusively in the common council, and their duty and obligation as representatives of the people to so exercise it is coextensive with the power itself. * * *
“If one common council can lawfully bind itself and its successors to accept the judgment and discretion of an outside body in one particular instance representing organized labor, another common council may claim an equal right to bind itself and its successors to accept a scale for a maximum wage to be fixed by some other outside body which may be qs much interested in keeping the returns to labor down as labor organizations are to keep them up. If the power to do the former is recognized as legal and constitutional, the right to do the latter cannot be denied. The language, the reason, and the logic of repeated former rulings of this court, and of other courts plainly declare that any attempted vesting of the determination of such a legislative question in an outside body is an abdication, and not an exercise, of the legislative discretion that exclusively belongs to the common council itself.”
The case of Carter v. Carter Coal Company, 298 U. S. 238, 56 S. Ct. 855, 80 L. Ed. 1160, involved the *546“Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935” which authorized a certain percentage of coal producers and .miners to fix minimum wages for particular districts. The Court stated, 298 U. S. at page 311, 56 S. Ct. at page 873, 80 L. Ed. 1160: “The power conferred upon the majority is, in effect, the power to regulate the affairs of an unwilling minority. This is legislative delegation in its most obnoxious form; for it is not even delegation to an official or an official body, presumptively disinterested, but to private persons whose interests may be and often are adverse to the interests of others in the same business.”
In the concurring . opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, it is stated, 298 U. S. at page 318, 56 S. Ct. at page 876, 80 L. Ed. 1160: “The government invokes the analogy of legislation which becomes effective on the happening of a specified event, and says that in this case the event is the agreement of a certain proportion of producers and employees, whereupon the other producers and employees become subject to legal obfigations accotdingly. I think that the argument is unsound and is pressed to the point where the principle would be entirely destroyed. It would remove all restrictions upon the delegation of legislative power, as the making of laws could thus be referred to any designated officials or private persons whose orders or agreements would be treated as ‘events,’ with the result that they would be invested with the force of law having penal sanctions.”
I believe the general principles stated and followed in the above two' cases have been recognized as sound in practically all jurisdictions, including our own. See Lowery v. City of Lexington, 116 Ky. 157, 75 S. W. 202, and recent note in 3 A. L. R. 2d 169.
There are other considerations which I believe fortify my position that this statute improperly delegates legislative power to private organizations. Obviously it has the effect of amending the provisions of KRS 162.070, which provides that contracts for the erection of school buildings shall be awarded by boards of education to the lowest and best responsible bidder. Now the contract may only be let to such bidder if he will pay the wage scale fixed by bargaining agreements be*547tween labor unions and employers. This has a vicious tendency not only to require the expenditure of more of the taxpayer’s money but to eliminate the non-union contractor. In addition, it is class legislation which, by fixing the prevailing wage at the labor union rate, will tend to force all working people into labor unions because they cannot enter into an agreement with a contractor on public works for a lesser wage which would enable them to compete with the members of the labor union.
If the Federal Congress and the state legislatures wish to pass laws within constitutional limits favorable to labor unions, that is a matter of legislative policy which courts should enforce. The responsibility then rests on the legislative body and its elected representatives. To shift the determination of the public interest to private organizations themselves is for the legislative body to abdicate its power and avoid its responsibility.
I wish to make it clear that I see no constitutional objection to the Legislature fixing or delegating to a public body the determination of what prevailing wages shall be paid on public works. The vice I find in the present statute is that it delegates such determination to private industry. For this reason I must respectfully dissent.