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Show POSTMASTER PAIS WO WIS MONTH Tho law of the state of Utah fixing minimum wages for the payment of experienced women employes must bo observed by third-class postmasters, postmast-ers, aa wel! as by store proprietors, according to the opinion handed to H. T. Haines, secretary of the state bureau bu-reau of Immigration, labor and statistics, statis-tics, by A. R, Barnes, attorney general. gen-eral. The case which brought forth the ukase from the head of the legal department de-partment of the state arose early in the spring, when Deputy A.'L. Toone brought suit at Pleasant' Qrove, in which he alleged that his investigations investiga-tions had produced proof that the postmaster at that place had been paying an experienced woman employe em-ploye less than the legal rate of $1.26 a day. In fact, tho deputy commissioner commis-sioner alleged that he found that tho woman was being paid but $15 month-ly, month-ly, of which amount the govomment was paying $10, and the postmaster was putting up the additional 85 Owed Back Pay. Tho state labor department In March asked that tho unpaid amount of $58 back salary bo paid the em- ploye. Whereupon the postmaster Is said to have secured an opinion from the solicitor of the postoffice department depart-ment holding that the woman, being a federal employe, was exempt from state labor regulations. Tho position taken at that time by Commissioner Haines and Deputy Toone was that tho government never intended that all of one person's time be taken for an annual consideration of $120. The opinion of the attorney general is as follows: "I havo been asked whether or not section 1, chapter G3 of the Utah laws of 1913, the minimum wage law, is applicable in a case where a third-class third-class postmaster employs an experienced experi-enced adult female to assist him In the postoffice. It appears that the postmaster has been employing a young woman in his office for eight hours, six days a week and one and one-half hours Sundays, and has been paying her but $15 a month for her services. The postmaster refuses to pay the minimum mini-mum fixed by the law for the reason, as he claims, that tho lady is a government gov-ernment clerk of he postoffice department. de-partment. "In my opinion the position taken by the postmaster is not tenable. Tho woman employed by him Is in no sense of the word a government clerk. She is employed by him and not by the postoffice department. "The yearly allowance made by the postoffice department to him for clerical cler-ical assistance may be expended by him in any manner which he may see fit to adopt. He is in no better position posi-tion than any other employer of female fe-male labor, and the law should be applied in his case." Fortified with this opinion of the attorney at-torney general Deputy Toone went to Pleasant Grove and swore out a new complaint before Mons Monson, justice jus-tice of tho peace. oo |