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August 5, 1913: The first minimum wage order
to take effect in the United States was issued by the Oregon Industrial Welfare
Commission, requiring that, effective October 4, 1913, "A minimum wage of one
dollar ($1) a day shall be established for girls between the ages of sixteen
(16) and eighteen (18) years…" if they were working in a
"…manufacturing or mercantile establishment, millinery, dressmaking or
hair dressing shop, laundry, hotel or restaurant, telephone or telegraph
establishment or office…" .
(See: pages 29-33, Minimum wage legislation, by Irene Osgood Andrews, assistant secretary, American association for labor legislation. Albany, J. B. Lyon company, printers, 1914.)
September 19, 1918: Congress approved the
District of Columbia minimum-wage
law (40 Stat. 960) guaranteeing a minimum wage to women and children
employed in the District of Columbia.
April 9, 1923: In Adkins v. Children's Hospital, (261
U.S. 525) the Supreme Court ruled that the 1918 District of Columbia
Minimum Wage Act, which established a federal minimum wage for women and
children employed in the District of Columbia, was an unconstitutional
infringement of liberty of contract. The Supreme Court overturned this decision
in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937).
October 24, 1929: The Dow Jones Industrial
Average started dropping precipitously, forcing many investors to sell their
shares - leading to a collapse of stock prices. The resulting financial loss is
considered a major cause of the Great Depression (1929-1939), ruining many
businesses and sending millions into unemployment.
March 3, 1931: President Herbert Hoover
signed the Davis–Bacon Act (PL 71-798) into law. The Act required that
laborers and mechanics working on public works projects be paid not less than
the local prevailing wages, thereby effectively establishing the local
prevailing wage as the minimum wage for those employees. It had been introduced
in the Senate by James J. Davis (R-PA), and in the House of Representatives by
Robert L. Bacon (R-NY).
May 17, 1933: The National Industrial
Recovery Act was introduced in the House by Representative Robert L. Doughton
(D–NC) as H.R. 5755.
(See: page 4062 of the Congressional Record, First Session of the Seventy-Third Congress, Volume 77, Part 4, available at https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/crecb/_crecb/Volume%20077%20(1933))
June 16, 1933: President Franklin Roosevelt
signed the National Industrial Recovery Act (Pub.L. 73–67, 48 Stat. 195).
The law contained provisions relating to minimum wages and maximum hours of labor:
"SEC. 7. (a) Every code of fair competition, agreement, and license approved, prescribed, or issued under this title shall contain the following conditions: (1) That employees shall have the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and shall be free from the interference restraint, or coercion of employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection; (2) that no employee and no one seeking employment shall be required as a condition of employment to join any company union or to refrain from joining, organizing, or assisting a labor organization of his own choosing; and (3) that employers shall comply with the maximum hours of labor, minimum rates of pay, and. other conditions of employment, approved or. prescribed by the President." [NOTE: Underlining added]
"SEC. 7. (b) The President shall, so far as practicable, afford every opportunity to employers and employees in any trade or industry or subdivision thereof with respect to which the conditions referred to in clauses (1) and (2) of subsection (a) prevail, to establish by mutual agreement, the standards as to the maximum hours of labor, minimum rates of pay, and such other conditions of employment as may be necessary in such trade or industry or subdivision thereof to effectuate the policy of this title; and the standards established in such agreements, when approved by the President, shall have the same effect as a code of fair competition, approved by the President under subsection (a) of section 3." [NOTE: Underlining added]
"SEC. 7. (c) Where no such mutual agreement has been approved by the President he may investigate the labor practices, policies, wages, hours of labor, and conditions of employment in such trade or industry or subdivision thereof; and upon the basis of such investigations, and after such hearings as the President finds advisable, he is authorized to prescribe a limited code of fair competition fixing such maximum hours of labor, minimum rates of pay, and other conditions of employment in the trade or industry or subdivision thereof investigated as he finds to be necessary to effectuate the policy of this title, which shall have the same effect as a code of fair competition approved by the President under subsection (a) of section 3. The President may differentiate according to experience and skill of the employees affected and according to the locality of employment; but no attempt shall be made to introduce any classification according to the nature of the work involved which might tend to set a maximum as well as a minimum wage." [NOTE: Underlining added]
"SEC. 206. All contracts let for construction projects and all loans and grants pursuant to this title shall contain such provisions as are necessary to insure …(2) that (except in executive, administrative, and supervisory positions), so far as practicable and feasible, no individual directly employed on any such project shall be permitted to work more than thirty hours in anyone week; (3) that all employees shall be paid just and reasonable wages which shall be compensation sufficient to provide, for the hours of labor as limited, a standard of living in decency and comfort;…. [NOTE: Underlining added]
(See: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/national-industrial-recovery-act.)
August 10, 1933: President Franklin Roosevelt
issued Executive Order 6246, requiring government contractors to comply with
codes of fair competition issued under the National Industrial Recovery Act
(NIRA).
(See: http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/eo/eo0007.pdf. See also https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-6246-code-compliance-and-government-purchases)
May 27, 1935: In Schechter Corp. v. United States, (295
U.S. 495), the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the National Recovery Act
was unconstitutional.
June 14, 1935: The Walsh-Healey Public
Contracts Act was introduced in the Senate by David Walsh (D-MA), and in the
House of Representative by Arthur Healey (D-MA).
August 12, 1935: The Walsh-Healey Public
Contracts Act was passed by the Senate without a roll call.
(See: pages 12883-12896, Congressional Record, 74th Congress, 1st Session, Volume 79, Part 12 (August 12, 1935).
June 1, 1936: In Morehead v. New York ex rel.
Tipaldo, (298 U.S. 587), the U.S. Supreme Court declared that a law
enacted by the State of New York providing a minimum wage for women and
children was unconstitutional.
Concerned by the opposition to the way that the
National Recovery Act was functioning might cause it to fail, Secretary of
Labor Frances Perkins later wrote that "During this period of doubt over NRA's
future, I began to explore means to save what I thought was basic and important
- the limitation of hours of labor and the establishment of a floor under
wages. I persuaded the solicitor of the Department of Labor to draw up two
bills. One, a public contacts bill, employed the conception Felix Frankfurter
had given us in 1932 that the Federal Government had power under the
Constitution to determine the labor considerations under which goods purchased
by the Government should be manufactured. The other, assuming the
constitutionality of federal legislation, called for general wage and hour
stnadards and embodied the idea that the Black thirty-hour bill of 1932 and
1933 had lacked."
(See: page 237, The Roosevelt I knew, by Frances Perkins ; introduction by Adam Cohen. New York : Penguin Books, 2011.
June 30, 1936: The Walsh-Healey Public
Contracts Act (41 USC §§6501-6511) was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt.
It established minimum wage, maximum hours, and safety and health standards for
work on contracts in excess of $15,000 for the manufacturing or furnishing of
materials, supplies, articles, or equipment to the U.S. government or the
District of Columbia.
"This Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act was an important forerunner of the Fair Labor Standards Act, since it established the forty-hour for contractors manufacturing supplies for the government, directed the Secretary of Labor to determine rates for the manufacture of such commodities, forbade the employment of children in the performance of government contracts, and established an administrative procedure in the Department of Labor for detecting violations and enforcing the labor provisions in the contract."
(See: page 242, The Roosevelt I knew, by Frances Perkins ; introduction by Adam Cohen. New York : Penguin Books, 2011.
March 29, 1937: In West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish
(1937), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of minimum
wage legislation enacted by the State of Washington. In this decision, the
Supreme Court overturned their 1923 ruling in Adkins v. Children's Hospital,
(261 U.S. 525).
In his decision, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes Sr. wrote that "The exploitation of a class of workers who are in an unequal position with respect to bargaining power and are thus relatively defenceless against the denial of a living wage is not only detrimental to their health and well being but casts a direct burden for their support upon the community. What these workers lose in wages the taxpayers are called upon to pay. The bare cost of living must be met" and that "The community is not bound to provide what is in effect a subsidy for unconscionable employers."
May 24, 1937: The Fair Labor Standards Act of
1937 was introduced in Congress as S. 2475 in the Senate, and H.R. 7200 in the
House of Representatives.
(See: "May 24, 1937 to June 28, 1938: Introduction and Approval of The Fair Labor Standards Act" at http://vlibrary.info/FLSA/FLSA_IP.html)
June 25, 1938: The Fair Labor Standards Act
of 1938 was passed by Congress and signed by President Franklin Roosevelt.
October 24, 1938: The Fair Labor Standards
Act went into effect.
February 3, 1941: In United States v.
Darby, 312 U.S. 100 (1941), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Fair Labor
Standards Act was "within the authority of Congress within the commerce power
and consistent with the Fifth and Tenth Amendments."
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RESOURCES Congressional Record (Bound), 1873 to 2016, U.S. Government Publishing Office. On GovInfo.gov at
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/crecb
FDR Presidential Library & Museum, at
https://www.fdrlibrary.org/home
Milestone Documents, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA),
at https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/list
Minimum wage
legislation, by Irene Osgood Andrews, assistant secretary, American association
for labor legislation. Albany, J. B. Lyon company, printers, 1914.
"Regulation of Wages and Hours Prior to 1938" by
Frank T. de Vyver. Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 6, No. 3, The Wage and
Hour Law (Summer, 1939), pp. 323-332 (10 pages). Published By: Duke University
School of Law
The Roosevelt I knew, by Frances Perkins. New
York, Penguin Books, 2011.
"Winning the Eight-Hour Day,1909-1919" by Robert Whaples.
The Journal of Economic History Vol. 50, No. 2 (Jun., 1990), pp.
393-406. Cambridge University Press.