Floors & Ceilings

After ten laborious days and nights, conferees of the House and Senate brought out at last week's end a compromise on the Wages-&-Hours Bill to put a floor under Labor's pay, a ceiling over its working week.

The Senate had planned to set up an independent Fair Labor Standards Board. with quasi-judicial powers (like NLRB's) to halt the transit in interstate commerce of goods produced under conditions not conforming to the act. The House planned to empower the Labor Department to go into the States and see to it that goods for interstate commerce were legally produced. The House won, and the compromise bill's administrative provisions strongly reminded businessmen of NRA's myriad code authorities. Chief provisions of the bill:

Basic Figures. The arithmetical formula of the bill covering minimum wages per hour and maximum hours per week:

Wages Hours

1st year 25-c- 44

2nd year 30-c- 42

3rd year 30-c- 40

After the 7th year 40-c- 40

Actually, the floor and the ceiling would not move toward each other with this progressive precision. From the outset they would be subject to change.

Flexibility. When, 120 days after enactment, the bill should become effective, the Wage-Hour Administrator, a $10,000 official in the Department of Labor, would begin to examine wages & hours in all industries in interstate commerce to see where and when minimum wages should be flexed up and minimum hours down, toward the 40-40 ratio. He would appoint up to 750 boards, representing Industry. Labor and the Consuming Public, to make these studies and give him recommendations. If the Administrator should not like the findings of any board, he could veto them, create another board. To collect pay awarded by the boards, employes could sue their employers in the Federal Courts. Liability: double the wages due, plus legal costs. Penalties upon employers who break the law:

A fine up to $10,000 for the first offense.

Six months in jail, or the fine, or both, for a second offense.

Differentials. Geography alone would not be admitted as a ruling factor, thus blurring the issue over a ''differential'' for the South which caused so much hot debate. Factors to be considered by the boards would be local economic conditions, comparative transport costs, size of units in the industry.

Exemptions. Exceptions would be made for: 1) industries which have signed collective bargaining contracts guaranteeing certain wages for work not in excess of 1,000 hours over a period of 26 consecutive weeks, or guaranteeing an annual wage, where reasonable work weeks might be arranged within a yearly limit of 2,000 work hours; 2) seasonal industries whose employes might work up to 56 hr. per week: 3) agricultural workers and handlers of perishable foods.

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