Black Bill

For the past three years the five-day week (40 hours) has been steadily spreading through U. S. Industry as a voluntary reform. The American Federation of Labor agitated the movement in & out of season. The American Legion backed it with a nation-wide radio campaign. Progressive employers publicized their adoption of it (TIME, April 27, 1931; Oct. 24). Both major political parties endorsed it in their campaign platforms. President Hoover put it into practice in the Federal Government as an economy measure. Its whole purpose is to share and spread employment.

Suddenly last week the five-day week movement bounded far out in front of the slow-moving industrial procession when the Senate unexpectedly passed (53-to-30) a bill that would clamp down upon U. S. manufacturers and producers not only the five-day week but also the far more radical six-hour day. As an emergency measure to combat unemployment the proposed law would be effective for only two years. Its author was smart little Hugo Black of Alabama, lawyer, War veteran, economic idealist. Senator Black & friends predicted his bill would supply 6,000,000 men with work, on the theory that the employer who wants to keep his production at current levels must hire 25% more workers to obey the law. President Green of the A. F. of L. jubilated: "It's the first constructive measure yet passed dealing with unemployment. It strikes at the root of the problem -- technological unemployment."

Congress reached for control of the country's working hours under its constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce. The Black Bill provided that no product of "any mine, quarry, mill, cannery, workshop, factory or manufacturing establishment" in which employes worked more than six hours a day or five days a week could move in interstate commerce. Penalty: $200 fine and three months imprisonment. Exempt from the law were newspapers, magazines, farms, railroads, dairies, canneries of perishable foods. Company officers, executives, superintendents and their personal assistants were likewise free to work as they chose.

Nothing in the bill prevented employers from slashing wages to compensate for the new workers which the Senate was trying to force them to hire. The measure's critics loudly pointed out this defect, predicted a dire slump in already deflated wages or else a sharp jump in manufacturing sales prices. For the Black Bill to be completely effective nothing less drastic than a minimum wage provision was required and this the Senate did not yet dare to vote.*

What the Supreme Court would say about stretching the Constitution to give the Government mastery over private industry was a hotly-debated Senate question. Loudly recalled was the fact that in 1918 the Court had voided (5-10-4) a law designed to abolish child labor by prohibiting its products from interstate commerce. Because the Black Bill struck at current working hours by the same oblique method, its critics were confident the Court would reject it as unconstitutional. Its friends argued that the Court's personnel had changed since 1918 and so had the social temper of its decisions.

*Last week the New York Legislature passed a law to penalize manufacturers who pay "an oppressive and unreasonable wage . . . less than sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary to health" to women and children.

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