THE MINIMUM-WAGE CONTROVERSY

IN 1938, after a hard battle with the U.S. Supreme Court, Franklin Roosevelt finally got a constitutionally acceptable federal minimum wage law enacted. The Fair Labor Standards Act set 25-c- an hour as the national minimum wage, with an automatic increase to 40-c- in 1945; it also provided for time-and-a-half for overtime in a work-week gradually scaled down from 44 to 40 hours. The law covered only workers in major industries engaged in interstate commerce -- it was mainly aimed at the plight of poorly paid textile workers in the South, did nothing for housemaids or migrant farm workers. Congress raised the minimum to 75-c- in 1949, to $1 in 1955. This week Congress will try to resolve the wide differences between John Kennedy's bill, passed last week by the Senate, and a less generous House bill passed in June.

The Senate Bill adds some 4,050,000 workers to the 24 million already covered in a U.S. labor force of 73 million. To newly covered workers, the bill provides a sliding scale rising from $1 an hour in 1961, without overtime, to $1.25 an hour in 1964, with time-and-a-half after 40 hours. For workers already under the minimum-wage tent, the bill lifts the national minimum to $1.15 in 1961, and another 5-c- an hour in 1962 and 1963. Among the newcomers: workers in retail or service businesses with annual gross revenue of more than $1,000,000; employees of gas stations grossing $250,000 a year or more; transit workers, certain laundry workers and switchboard operators. Most controversial point in the bill: a clause extending wage floors in certain cases where employees only "affect" (rather than "engage in") interstate commerce. Senate conservatives say this is unconstitutional, would open the door to federal intervention in intrastate commerce.

The House Bill pretty much resembles what President Eisenhower has indicated he would accept. The bill extends coverage to 1,400,000 workers, principally employees of retail chains with five or more stores in at least two states. For the store clerks, the House bill provides a flat $1-an-hour minimum, with no overtime provisions. For workers already covered, the minimum would rise to $1.15 an hour on Jan. 1.

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