abuse. Consequently, in 1913, New York granted to the Industrial Commission power of inspection. In three other states labour camps for certain kinds of work have been brought under supervision. A new development in the regulation of deductions from wages for the purpose of furnishing certain benefits is found in the laws of Oregon and Minnesota. The former has legalized deductions for hospital benefits on approval of the Industrial Accident Commission. The Minnesota law requires employers who make deductions for benefit funds to secure a licence for the benefit plan from the State Insurance Commission. Statutes have recently been enacted by half the states, the Philippines and the Federal Government, provid- ing that no contract of insurance or relief-benefit shall constitute a bar to action for damages in case of an employee's injury or death, though sometimes the employer may offset against such claims bene- fits contributed.
Laws dealing with labour as tenant and as competitor belong, also, under individual bargaining. There has been little agricultural labour legislation except a law of Texas passed in 1915, which is the first American law designed to regulate the rents of share tenants by limiting the amount of rent which can be charged the " cropper." Among the laws protecting the labourer as competitor are the Immigration Bill of 1915 and a group of laws relating to convict labour which can be divided into three general classes: (i) pro- hibition of convict work which competes with free labour; (2) pro- hibition of convict labour in certain forms of industry; and (3) distribution of convicts among diversified lines of industry. A few states have adopted different plans.
Legal Aid. Another method of protecting the individual in his bargaining relations is by legal aid and industrial courts. From New York private legal aid societies have spread throughout the larger cities of the United States. Kansas City, Mo., is the only city, however, possessing a free municipal legal aid bureau, established in 1910, while Los Angeles county, Cal., was the first to establish the office of public defender in 1913. Similar offices have been created in six other cities. California has an Act providing for the collection of wages, enforced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Wilful refusal to pay labour, with intent to secure a discount or to defraud, con- stitutes a misdemeanour. Under the N.Y. Commission Law the commission is given power to investigate claims made by employees against employers and to present the cases to the proper authorities for action. The only industrial court in the United States is in Cleveland, O. t established in 1912.
Collective Bargaining. Though the right of workmen to combine was secured in the United States by common consent and favourable construction without legislation earlier than by law in Great Britain, the conspiracy law has remained without be- ing clarified. When the Sherman Anti-Trust Law was enacted in 1890 it was almost immediately held applicable to labour unions, and it was feared that it rendered all strikes, if not all labour organizations, unlawful. The Clayton Act (1914), however, declared that the anti-trust laws should not be construed to forbid the existence of labour organizations or to restrain their members from carrying out the " legitimate objects " thereof. This provision has probably eliminated the danger of the exten- sion of the restraint-of-trade doctrine to a possible outlawing of all labour organizations, though the decision by the Supreme Court in the Duplex case (The Duplex Printing Press Co. of Battle Creek, Mich., v. International Association of Machinists, 41 Sup. Ct., 172) has demonstrated that labour organizations in their actual practices are still within the anti-trust laws.
Most of the cases of which labour complains have been premised not on the anti-trust laws but on the common-law doctrine of conspiracy. While the legality of trade unions has not been ques- tioned, except organizations advocating criminal syndicalism, vari- ous restrictions have been placed on efforts to make them effective. Generalizing from a large number of cases, it can be said that the strike is usually considered illegal when its purpose is primarily to injure the employer or the non-union workman and that, except where compulsory arbitration has been introduced, as in Kansas in 1920, strikes solely and directly involving the rate of pay or hours of labour are in ordinary times everywhere considered legal. But strikes to gain a closed shop, sympathetic strikes, and against non-union material, have been condemned in many jurisdictions.
California is the only state which has a settled law that all strikes are legal. The only method of preventing them is the injunction. In some cases " conspiracy to quit work has been enjoined, and in others the union officers have been prohibited from advising or ordering the workmen to strike, or from paying strike benefits. A famous injunction of this type was secured by the Federal Govern- ment during the bituminous-coal mine dispute of 1919. Though formerly the boycott was condemned as unlawful, an effort is being made to distinguish between the primary boycott and secondary boycott, which is the boycott of a third party. At present there is great lack of uniformity among the laws. The two famous boycott cases are the Danbury Hatters' case (Loewe v. Lawlor, 35 Sup. Ct.,
170, 1915), which was in the courts from 1903 to 1917, and the Duplex case (1921) already mentioned, in both of which the secondary boy- cott was declared illegal. Picketing laws, also, vary widely. Cali- fornia, which recognizes both the strike and boycott as legal, will not permit picketing. It has been condemned by the courts of six states and is held a misdemeanour in three others. Nine states hold that " peaceful " picketing is lawful. A further cause of illegality was laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of Hitchman Coal & Coke Co. v. Mitchell (1917), in which it was contended that where an employer has required all his employees to sign a contract that they will not join any labour union it is illegal to make any effort to organize them. In the Clayton Act (1914), which many believed would remove the restrictions which hamper trade unions, the most tangible gain is in the provision for jury trial in contempt cases where the offence charged is also indictable as a crime. This Act further provides that injunctions issued by the Federal courts shall not prohibit the quitting of work, the refusal to patronize, peaceful picketing or peaceful persuasion. Nor are these acts to be con- sidered "violations of any law of the United States," whether they are done " singly or in concert." Yet those in charge of the legisla- tion pointed out that it did not modify the law of conspiracy with regard to the substantive rights of employers and employees. When workmen combine to injure an employer or non-unionists, their illegal purpose colours all their conduct. Furthermore, it does not affect the cases in the state courts, which far outnumber those in the Federal courts.
Laws restricting employers' rights are few in number. Most of the states have laws prohibiting blacklisting, but they have been dead letters. Other statutes have been declared unconstitutional which attempted to prohibit employers from coercing workmen into surrendering their rights to belong to labour unions (Adair v. United States, 28 Sup. Ct., 277, 1908, and Coppagev. Kansas, 35 Sup. Ct., 240, 1915). The Supreme Court furthermore has held that, while it is illegal to induce a workman to join a union where he has signed an agreement not to belong (the Hitchman coal case), it is not coer- cion for the employer to threaten to discharge a workman unless he will renounce his union membership, as in the Coppage case.
While there have been many damage suits in connexion with labour disputes and many judgments against unions or their mem- bers, only two recent cases are important: the Danbury Hatters' case (see above) and the Arkansas coal-miners' case (Dowd v. United Mine Workers, 235 Fed., I, 1916; Coronado Coal v. United Mine Workers, Circuit Court of Ap'peals, 1919). Both of these cases involved suits for triple damages under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and in both the cause of action antedated the passage of the Clayton Act. The decisions in these cases have established the principle that labour unions and their individual members are responsible without limit for the unlawful actions of the union officers and agents which they have in any manner authorized or sanctioned. Such antecedent authorization or subsequent approval of unlawful acts does not require to be expressed, but may be inferred from all the facts in the situation.
Minimum Wage. The first minimum-wage law for women and children was passed by Massachusetts in 1912. By 1920, 13 _ states and Porto Rico had followed this example, and Congress had legislated for the District of Columbia. Constitutional amendments specifically allowing minimum-wage legislation were passed by California in 1914 for women and children, and by Ohio in 1912 for all classes of workers. In general the laws are very much restricted in scope and are regarded as a remedy for exceptional conditions, providing only a bare subsistence wage for those considered the most helpless class of sweated workers women and children.
Since the purpose of minimum-wage legislation is to raise excessive- ly low wages, the question of the standards of wage awards is the im- portant issue. Nearly all the American laws define in general terms the principle to be followed in fixing wages, which is usually that of a living wage. For women the standard_ commonly used is the cost of living of the entirely self-supporting woman. Early orders were in the neighbourhood of $8 and $9 a week. In response to war-time increases, new rates were introduced which varied from $11.10 in the state of Oregon to $15.50 in the printing and engraving industry in Washington, D.C. Wisconsin set up the general rate of 22 cents an hour for experienced adults, increased to 25 cents in 1921; and Minnesota 23 cents an hour, limited to 54 hours weekly.
In connexion with fixing the minimum standard, the question of the " financial condition of the business " has arisen with regard to the continued existence of an industry, and exceptions have been made in some states for certain industries which could not stand the rate. California has best met the problem of adjusting piece rates by providing that piece rates must yield the minimum wage to two- thirds of the female employees. The employment of slow or infirm workers at lower rates is generally permitted by special licence. Practically all minimum-wage laws permit the fixing of rates for sub-standard workers. As a guide for adjusting these special rates, most Amercian statutes contain only a provision that rates for chil-
