LABOR LEGISLATION. The term "Labor Legislation" is now used to cover a broad field of lawmaking for the benefit of wage earners in particular and of society in general. It includes the factory acts of earlier days, but is much broader in its scope.
History.— In the United States labor legis lation has passed through several stages of transformation. In the early period of our nation the propertyless man was viewed with suspicion and contempt, and coercive laws were passed for the capture and virtual enslavement of the "shiftless." Men who worked for wages received scant consideration in law. In the 20's and 30's of the 19th century prop ertyless men were clothed with full rights of citizenship. Legislation for their benefit soon began, taking the form of abolition of im prisonment for debt, of indenture and finally of slavery, and providing wage and homestead ex emptions, and free schools. Following the Civil War labor and capital entered the stage of definite class consciousness and the contest between them became sharp and bitter. From the legislatures labor secured favorable laws; from the courts capital secured favorable de cisons which declared such laws unconsitu tional because taking property without due proc ess of law and violating freedom of contract. The limit in this stage was reached in 1885 when the court (In re Jacobs) voided a law of New York designed to end sweating, because the act would force the laborer "from his home and its hallowed associations and beneficent in fluences, to ply his trade elsewhere." The next stage, that of the public welfare, received definite recognition in 1898 when the Supreme Court held (Holden v. Hardy) that a law which on its face was class legislation or deprived of property without due process of law was yet a valid exercise of the police power because it was for the good of society at large that the freedom of both employer and em ployee be restricted.
The last stage is still in the process of de veloping out of the preceding. It avoids
"class legislation" by making a "reasonable classification" of persons and industries. Equality before the law is maintained by treat ing alike all within any given class. If an em ployer thinks that his bargaining power has been unduly curtailed and that of the employee un duly enlarged, it is his privilege to change classes and secure the larger privileges. For the employee to do the same is not yet equally easy, Neither is he quite on an equality in dis posing of his property, which is his labor. When a man engages to sell a farm and de livers titles to the same he may be held to strict accountability for the performance of the contract and required to pay damage for failure to do so. But here every item of property is transferable from himself. When a man en gages to sell his labor he is selling something now recognized as property, but it is not a commodity ; it cannot be separated from himself and is closely identified with his liberty. To compel the performance of a labor contract would mean slavery. On the other hand, the propertyless man is at a decided disadvantage in bargaining for the delivery of his labor. He is free to engage for 12 hours a day or refuse the job. The employer is free to take him for 10 hours a day or wait for another man. But the employer can much better afford to wait for another man than the employee can afford to go without his dinner. Their equality in bargaining is not real. Society now says that the nominal freedom of both should be re stricted to the end that the laborer may be more secure in the possession of his property right to work and the social welfare be enlarged. This is the basic principle of present day labor legis lation under the police power.
State and Federal Laws.—Labor legisla tion in the United States is covered largely by the States though there is a considerable body of national laws affecting labor. The right of Congress in such matters is based on its power of control over interstate commerce.