The chief defects in the system as shown by experience are : (1) The tendency for wage variations to take place too long after the conditions requiring change have arisen. This is a fault in machinery easily remedied, and not serious except in time of rapid fluctuations in prices.
(2) Too little use of scientific investigation in comparison with "hearsay evidence" when rates are being set. This has been the cause of a large part of the mistakes made.
During the severe industrial depression of 1921 while European exchange rates were out of joint and wages remained relatively higher than prices, considerable opposition towards the Trade Boards system was evinced, and a Government investigation in stituted. No important changes were made in the Act, however, though certain mistakes in wage rate fixing were voluntarily cor rected as a result of experience.
Since other economic conditions have somewhat settled down, therefore, the system seems to work smoothly and without undue adverse criticism, even though in some few instances boards have as is measured by the level of the rates they fixed, gone slightly beyond what is considered the strict scope of minimum wage fixing and touched the fringe of wage regulation. (D. M. SE.) United States.—In the United States the closest equivalent of the Trade Board is the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor, established under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The division administers the blanket minimum wage and maximum hours provisions of the act, applying to industries in interstate commerce, and those not exempted in the act. The minimum wage rates specified in the act are in gen eral, a minimum wage rate of 25 cents an hour during the first year after the act was passed, for the next six years a minimum wage rate of 3o cents an hour, and, beginning in 1945, a minimum wage rate of 4o cents an hour. The maximum hours provisions of the act specify 44 hours per week during the first year, 42 hours a week during the second year, and beginning in 1940 a 4o hour week thereafter.
In addition to the uniform minimum wage standards prescribed in the act, there is also the provision for the establishment of separate standards for each industry by means of wage orders issued by the Administrator. These wage orders follow the recom mendation of an industry committee appointed by the Administra tor, representing equally the public, labour, and the employer. The industry committee holds hearings open to all interested parties, usually lasting about 4o days, and on the basis of the hearings and research, submits a report to the Administrator recommending a minimum wage in general or in classifications. The Administrator reviews the report, holds further hearings on the prospective wage order, and then issues a wage order stipulat ing date of its effect, usually allowing sufficient time for the indus try to adjust itself to the new wage scales. By the middle of 1939 eight industry committees had been appointed, and most of them had submitted minimum wage recommendations to the Adminis trator. In one industry, the hosiery industry, a wage order had been issued, classifying the industry into two major branches with a separate minimum for each branch. No wage recommended by
an industry committee nor issued as a wage order by the Adminis trator may exceed 4o cents an hour.
One of the effects contemplated by the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 is the passage of State acts to supplement the Federal act to cover those industries not included under the jurisdiction of the latter. By 1940 no such State act had been passed, although several had been introduced in various State legislatures of that year.
The enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 depends upon the voluntary acceptance of the minimum wage stipulations, either of the general provisions or of those recommended by various industry committees; civil or criminal proceedings against violators instituted by the Administrator ; or suits against employers brought by individual employees or groups of employees. The child labour provisions of the act are enforced through the Children's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor. The national system is pos sible owing to the new meaning of "interstate commerce." In Massachusetts the board of conciliation and arbitration of the department of labour and industries devotes part of its time to the subject of minimum wages and while doing so is known as the minimum wage commission. The board is made up of three members, one of whom must be a representative of labour and one of employers of labour. If after an investigation the commission is of the opinion that in the occupation in question the wages paid to a substantial number of female employees are inadequate to supply the necessary cost of living and to maintain the worker in health, it shall establish a wage board consisting of an equal number of representatives of employers in the occupation in question, and of persons to represent the female employees in that occupation, and of one or more dis interested persons appointed by it to represent the public ; but the representatives of the public shall not exceed one half of the number of representatives of either of the other parties.
When a majority of the members of a wage board shall agree upon minimum wage determination, they shall report such determination to the commission, which may publish it as its recommendation and may also publish the names of employers whom it finds to be follow ing or refusing to follow such recommendations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-"Federal Wages and Hours Laws of 1938," Monthly Labor Review (July 1938) ; "Digest of State and Federal Labor Legis lation," Bulletin No. 15, Division of Labor Standards, Bureau of Labor Statistics (1937) ; "Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938," Public.
No. 718, 75th Congress, Chapter 676, 3rd Session ; "State Minimum Wage Laws and Orders," Bulletin 167, Women's Bureau, U.S. Depart ment of Labor (1939) ; P. H. Douglas and J. Hackman, "Fair Labor Standards Act," in Political Science Quarterly (Dec. 1938), the article is continued as Part II in the March 1939 issue of the same publication ; E. F. Andrews and L. Stark, "Fair Labor Standard Bearer," in Nation's Business (Nov. 1938). (S. PE.)