| Show bruckart Bruc Bru kars charts washington D digest g est small telephone companies hit HA by application of labor law again the people are arc mode mide victims of too much government er ern ment mucia act forces small industries into hito spot where they cannot do business or hire labor by WILLIAM BRUCKART service national Nat tonal bleff millington D I 1 0 washington on president Roosevel ts list of must legislation a 0 year or so ago was a bill that when it eventually become became a law was called the fair labor standards act of 1038 11 it was made to apply to nil all business crossing state lines or to products thus manufactured that went into channels of trade outside of the state where they were produced it set certain rates of minimum pay and established a limitation on tile the number of hours houra workers could continue on tho the job everyone refers to it now as the wages and hours law at the time of the appointment of elmer F andrews as wages rind and hours administrator I 1 discussed the potential success or failure that lay ahead for such a law in looking over my ries flies of the time I 1 found that I 1 wrote concerning the law that mr andrews can either make or break it by tho the policies he adopts and the interpretations ho he makes of the laws provisions I 1 said eald also that ho he must use great caro care in the selection of subordinates all of which lends leads into discussion of n situation that has arisen respecting spec ting application of the law to several industries generally too it forces a conclusion that hero here Is lust just another low law under which government Is interfering in the normal living of people As usual tile the people are arc the victims of too much government ern ment while there ore are several lines of industry about which I 1 want to write in this analysis the most flagrant misgovernment and the most damaging result os as far as I 1 can see Is the application of the wages and hours law to tile tho little known but widely used small independent telephone companies I 1 am referring to that type of telephone company which serves the small towns and villages and the farmers who live around those small yet very essential JIM trading centers nearly independent telephone companies Com panics in V U S when I 1 heard that some of the subordinates in mr andrews agency were determined to apply the provisions of the wages and hours law to tile the independent telephone I 1 began to dig around for information about them I 1 am acquainted with those units of service I 1 know what it Is to turn tile the crank on the big box that hangs on the wall wah in order to ring a neighbor on a party line it Is not an unfamiliar fact either to hear of how the switchboard located in homo home in the village closes down at nine at night and no one Is supposed to ring unless it Is a case of sickness or other emergency I 1 was stunned however to real ize that there are nearly such companies in the united states nor was I 1 prepared to understand at once that there are approximately stations or subscribers to those companies if refigure we figure an average family as five we arrive tit fit the conclusion obviously that nearly ODO persons depend upon that type of service the na wages and hours administration does docs not propose to apply the law to all of these it eliminated more than halt half of 0 the total but a bunch of the smart boys under mr andrews havo have decided the law should apply to such companies they decided the law can be applied even though the companies ore are entirely within the confines of a county in most instances because the little switchboards are able to make a connection with long distance companies it may not happen more than five times a month but the little company is doing interstate ter state stale business hence your uncle sam acting through the bureaucrats proposes to tell the local companies they must pay the wages designated by the federal law find and limit the hours ot those who earn their living that way would force companies to increase their rates now I 1 am thoroughly fa familiar millar with the limitation of opportunities ot of employment for women and girls in the small towns I 1 know that the small telephone companies employ them as operators or they employ somebody not physically ablo to do other types of work the pay Is small but it provides a comfortable living in most cases perhaps the pay ought to be higher but it if the pay is lil higher gher the town and country subscribers will have to pay nore more i tap tl reason those companies succeed andrender tind render the valuable service that bitsi jisi rendered is because they hold own wn expenses and provide service at a dollar or around that figure per month one realizes better what that rate means when a comparison is offered of the five or six dollars per month charged in cities the smart boys in the wages and hours administration get way away with their program it would mean that a small exchange would have to increase the pa pay y tor for operators the minimum tor for operators would be 2100 a year Instead lof whatever anto now is paid and it would mean moreover that there would have to bo be three or four operators era tors that Is to say bay no operator could work moro more than 42 hours per weeke n seven hour day of a six day week and what would that mean every ono one of those companies would be forced to collect three or tour four times as aa much per month from the subscribers or close down tho the system then to show how widespread ule the effect off act would be lot let me cite the number of exchanges in a few states iowa illinois alabama arkansas indiana Ind lann maine michigan minnesota missouri and T texas exas it la Is to bo be remembered that these cheso are arc purely local companies whatever number of exchanges are re operated in those states by the bell telephone company are in addition but wo we are not concerned with the bell system that outfit Is big enough to light its own battles cannot see what they are arc doing to the country why these smart boys cannot see sec what they ore are doing tu to the country Is a question which I 1 cannot answer E ither either they are arc utterly dumb or they are promoting the organization work for passage of the wages and hours law the C 1 I 0 certainly has demonstrated it does docs not belong in tho the list of real american organizations but it still has political power the connection with C 1 I 0 agitation might be traced through the fact that the law contains a provision permitting a worker to sue for damages if tho the employer in this case tho the telephone company compels violation of the law by forcing overtime work tho the politic political at phases of the situation are arc quite important because of the vast number of voters directly I 1 do not mean to say that senator herring and representative fl arrington both of iowa have introduced bills to exempt the local c companies om from purely political motives but I 1 suspect that the p political oli pressure will cause many members of the house and the senate to favor passage of those bills i I 1 have mentioned heretofore how often the cd officials of the government those appointed by the president or his subordinates either have ignored political history or they know nothing about political history the case of the independent telephone companies is a splendid illustration lately the little independent steel companies have felt the dead hand of government through h the same law I 1 am not informed as to all details of their case but there were 44 eastern independent steel companies appeared recently before the propaganda spreading temporary national economics committee seeking relief the in independent dependent steel companies are to the great steel manufacturers as the little independent telephone companies are to the bell system the wages and hours law will wreck them they told the national economics committee which has como come to be known as the monopoly investigation forces industry into spot where it cannot do business it if those little fellows have to meet wages and hours set for them by miss perkins ns secretary of labor to whom mr andrews is subordinate the stel steel people say they will go broke or at least they charged they could get no government contracts because of failure to comply with the law since the government is spending billions of dollars to create employment and for general relief relict I 1 can not help wondering why it wants to force one segment of industry into a spot where it can do no business and employ labor the whole thing however gets more cockeyed as time gones on there seems to be no limit to the lengths to which bureaucrats drunk with power will go in abusing the nation who was there that did not express the greatest disgust at the story which came out of now new york city the other day I 1 refer to the problem before the new york state labor board which was called upon to decide whether a professional fess fes ional woman model was fired because she had been active as a union organizer or because her hips were too wide the woman claimed she had been ired because she was trying to organize a union of models her former employers said her hips were too broad to properly wear the clothes they wished to display while the story Is not lacking in humor it must be treated seriously because the width of this girls hips may yet be a question of national importance it is a fact and not a witticism tout the national labor relations board may yet be called upon to measure those hips and determine as judges of fashion whether ae tl t l e can properly display the latest modo mode of spring apparel 0 western newspaper union |
