In public employment, legislation with respect to both wages and hours has been more general. Statutes requiring contractors to conform to an eight hour day and pay the "prevailing local rates of wages" to labourers and mechanics on public works, exist in a majority of states. The Federal Government has recognized this principle in the Eight Hour Law and the Davis-Bacon Act. The latter was recently amended so as to require the Secretary of Labor to predetermine minimum rates on construction con tracts. The Public Works Administration, an emergency agency, has gone even further by putting a thirty hour week into effect.
Child Labour.—The employment of children below a certain age is forbidden in nearly every state, but the permissible age limit varies from twelve to sixteen. For a while the codes of fair competition which fixed the minimum age at sixteen virtually abolished the employment of children except in street trades, but with their abandonment in 1935 the states were again faced with the problem. The Federal Child Labor Amendment conferring power on Congress to regulate the employment of persons under eighteen has been before state legislatures for many years but ten years after its original submission only twenty-four of the thirty-six states necessary for ratification had signified their approval.
Prison Labour.—The competition of prison-made goods with the products of free labour has been viewed in recent years with increasing disfavour by both organized labour and trade associa tions. Several states have enacted laws forbidding the employ ment of prisoners on goods destined for sale in the open market. The Federal Government lent its encouragement to such efforts in 1929 by the Hawes-Cooper Act. This provided that prison made commodities shipped into another state shall, upon arrival, become subject to local law notwithstanding their interstate character.
Social Insurance.—One of the most striking phenomena of recent American labour history has been the sudden development of social insurance legislation. It was in this particular field that the disparity between the legislation in America and that in other industrial countries, which has already been noted, had been most conspicuous. Stability of employment in America had become undermined with the rapid technological advances in industry in the 1920'S. While new industries absorbed many of the workers displaced, even in prosperous times employment opportunities for industrial workers discharged in middle life were meagre. Yet, up
until 193o only one state had passed an unemployment insurance law and old age pension legislation was in effect in only one quarter of the states. In the next year Congress recognized la bour's increasing interest in unemployment insurance by authoriz ing the appointment of a special Senate committee to study the subject. The report of the majority of this committee, however, was adverse to any Federal intervention in this field, so the advo cates of social insurance again focused their efforts upon the states and succeeded in several instances in having one branch of a state legislature take favourable action.
Two types of statutes have marked the course of unemploy ment insurance legislation in the states. The first type, known as the Wisconsin plan, because it was in this state that it was first adopted, sets up individual unemployment reserve accounts for each employer who is subject to a special payroll tax. After the account reaches a certain level, the employer need pay no further tax until his account is depleted by the payment of benefits to unemployed workers in his plant. The theory behind this act was that stability of employment depends to a large extent on the policy of the employer. Therefore it encouraged the employer by a promise of tax exemption to stabilize conditions in his own enterprise. Several industrial states, including New York, have adopted another type of law called the "pooled fund plan" which subjects all employers to an annual payroll tax and places the receipts in a central fund from which all of the employees within the scope of the Act can draw. By however, no state, except Wisconsin, had actually put either type of law into effect. In that year the Wagner-Lewis bill was introduced in Congress for the purpose of encouraging the states to adopt legislation. This bill imposed a Federal payroll tax upon employers but permitted an offset based upon the amount that such employers were compelled to pay pursuant to any unemployment insurance tax in effect in their respective states. The bill was so framed that it left the states free to decide which type of unemployment insurance they preferred. Although this bill received a favourable report from the Sub-Committee which passed on it, Congress took no action that year.