Appellant
Francis M. Wilson, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri
Appellees
Alexander New and Henry C. Ferris, as Receivers of the Missouri, Oklahoma, & Gulf Railway Company
Appellant's Claim
The act of 3 September 1916 entitled "An Act to establish an eight-hour day for employees of carriers engaged in interstate and foreign commerce, and forother purposes" is constitutional and is aimed at establishing an eight-hourstandard for work and wages and establishing a minimum wage.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant
John William Davis, U.S. Solicitor General; Frank Hagerman; E. Marvin Underwood; Thomas W. Gregory, U.S. Attorney General
Chief Lawyers for Appellees
Walker D. Hines, John G. Johnson, Arthur Miller
Justices for the Court
Louis D. Brandeis, John Hessin Clarke, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph McKenna,Edward Douglass White (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
William Rufus Day, James Clark McReynolds, Mahlon Pitney, Willis Van Devanter
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
19 March 1917
Decision
Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Western Districtof Missouri to review a decree which enjoined the enforcement of a statute fixing an eight-hour workday for, and temporally regulating the ages of, railway employees engaged in the operation of trains upon interstate railway carriers. Reversed and remanded, with directions to dismiss the bill.
Significance
Established the power of Congress to fix a maximum work day and to fix a minimum wage within the public sector of work.
Before March of 1916, two systems controlled wages of railroad employees. Onewas an eight-hour standard of work and wages with additional pay for overtime, governing about 15 percent of the railroads. The other was a stated mileage task of 100 miles to be performed during ten hours, with extra pay for anyexcess, in force on about 85 percent of the roads. In March, however, the organizations representing the employees of the railroads made a formal demand on railroad employers that, except for passenger trains, the 100-mile task befixed for eight hours. They also made various demands on salary and wage adjustments. The employers refused the demands, and the employees, through theirorganizations, by concert of action, took the steps to call a general strikeof all railroad employees throughout the country.
President Woodrow Wilson invited a conference between the parties. He proposed arbitration. The employers agreed, but the employees rejected it. The president then suggested the eight-hour standard of work and wages. The employersrejected it, but the employees accepted it. With no agreement in sight, the employees called a general strike. The president, trying to avert a commercialdisaster and grave personal suffering if the strike was not prevented, askedCongress to fix, by law, the eight-hour standard of work and wages, and to create an official body for observing the operation of the legislation. Congress responded by enacting the statute, the validity of which is considered here.
The effect of the Act of 3 and 5 September 1916 is not only to establish a permanent eight-hour standard for work and wages as between the carriers and employees affected, but also to fix a scale of minimum wages for the eight-hourday and proportionally for overtime, to be in force only during the limitedperiod defined by the act.
The Court ruled that in an emergency arising from a nationwide dispute over wages between railroad companies and their train employees, in which a generalstrike with dire consequences overhangs the country, Congress had power to prescribe a standard of minimum wages, not confiscatory in its effects but obligatory on both parties, in order to avert calamity and offer opportunity toboth parties to substitute a standard on their own. The business of common carriers by rail was one aspect of public business, and this public interest gives right of regulation to the full extent necessary to secure and protect it. Although emergency may not create power, it may afford reason for exertinga power already enjoyed.
The Court ruled that, viewed as an act fixing wages, the statute merely illustrated the character of regulation essential, and hence permissible, for theprotection of the public right. The act did not invade the private rights ofcarriers, since all their business and property must be redeemed subject to the regulatory power to insure fit relief by appropriate means.
The Court also said that the act did not invade private rights of employees,since their rights to demand wages according to their desire and to leave employment if the demand is reused, were not such as they might be if the employment were in private business, but are necessarily subject to limitation by Congress, the employment accepted being in a business charged with a public interest which Congress may regulate under the commerce power.
The Eight-Hour Workday
With the growth of industrialization in the United States in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, workers began to demand shorter work hours to reduce incidence of injury from performing repetitive tasks. Advocates of shorter hoursalso argued that shorter hours coupled with higher wages would increase consumption and therefore help businesses and the economy expand, and that shorter hours would increase worker productivity. In the 1920s, Henry Ford became one of the first industrialists to adopt the eight-hour workday. In the 1930s,the National Industrial Recovery Act instituted a 40-hour work week, which essentially made the eight-hour workday law until overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1935. However, most businesses had accepted the economic and productivity arguments for the shorter workday by then.
During the second half of the twentieth century, the workday remained aroundeight hours. Consequently, critics of the eight-hour workday point out that since World War II, the eight-hour workday has remained the norm and that evenwith the rise of technology the workday has not decreased for most jobs. Arguments in favor of shorter work days range from ones asserting that shorter work days will bring about a greater quality of life to ones contending that shorter work days will prevent layoffs and unemployment.
Sources
Levitan, Sara A., and Richard S. Belous. Shorter Hours, Shorter Weeks.Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.
Francis M. Wilson, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri
Appellees
Alexander New and Henry C. Ferris, as Receivers of the Missouri, Oklahoma, & Gulf Railway Company
Appellant's Claim
The act of 3 September 1916 entitled "An Act to establish an eight-hour day for employees of carriers engaged in interstate and foreign commerce, and forother purposes" is constitutional and is aimed at establishing an eight-hourstandard for work and wages and establishing a minimum wage.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant
John William Davis, U.S. Solicitor General; Frank Hagerman; E. Marvin Underwood; Thomas W. Gregory, U.S. Attorney General
Chief Lawyers for Appellees
Walker D. Hines, John G. Johnson, Arthur Miller
Justices for the Court
Louis D. Brandeis, John Hessin Clarke, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph McKenna,Edward Douglass White (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
William Rufus Day, James Clark McReynolds, Mahlon Pitney, Willis Van Devanter
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
19 March 1917
Decision
Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Western Districtof Missouri to review a decree which enjoined the enforcement of a statute fixing an eight-hour workday for, and temporally regulating the ages of, railway employees engaged in the operation of trains upon interstate railway carriers. Reversed and remanded, with directions to dismiss the bill.
Significance
Established the power of Congress to fix a maximum work day and to fix a minimum wage within the public sector of work.
Before March of 1916, two systems controlled wages of railroad employees. Onewas an eight-hour standard of work and wages with additional pay for overtime, governing about 15 percent of the railroads. The other was a stated mileage task of 100 miles to be performed during ten hours, with extra pay for anyexcess, in force on about 85 percent of the roads. In March, however, the organizations representing the employees of the railroads made a formal demand on railroad employers that, except for passenger trains, the 100-mile task befixed for eight hours. They also made various demands on salary and wage adjustments. The employers refused the demands, and the employees, through theirorganizations, by concert of action, took the steps to call a general strikeof all railroad employees throughout the country.
President Woodrow Wilson invited a conference between the parties. He proposed arbitration. The employers agreed, but the employees rejected it. The president then suggested the eight-hour standard of work and wages. The employersrejected it, but the employees accepted it. With no agreement in sight, the employees called a general strike. The president, trying to avert a commercialdisaster and grave personal suffering if the strike was not prevented, askedCongress to fix, by law, the eight-hour standard of work and wages, and to create an official body for observing the operation of the legislation. Congress responded by enacting the statute, the validity of which is considered here.
The effect of the Act of 3 and 5 September 1916 is not only to establish a permanent eight-hour standard for work and wages as between the carriers and employees affected, but also to fix a scale of minimum wages for the eight-hourday and proportionally for overtime, to be in force only during the limitedperiod defined by the act.
The Court ruled that in an emergency arising from a nationwide dispute over wages between railroad companies and their train employees, in which a generalstrike with dire consequences overhangs the country, Congress had power to prescribe a standard of minimum wages, not confiscatory in its effects but obligatory on both parties, in order to avert calamity and offer opportunity toboth parties to substitute a standard on their own. The business of common carriers by rail was one aspect of public business, and this public interest gives right of regulation to the full extent necessary to secure and protect it. Although emergency may not create power, it may afford reason for exertinga power already enjoyed.
The Court ruled that, viewed as an act fixing wages, the statute merely illustrated the character of regulation essential, and hence permissible, for theprotection of the public right. The act did not invade the private rights ofcarriers, since all their business and property must be redeemed subject to the regulatory power to insure fit relief by appropriate means.
The Court also said that the act did not invade private rights of employees,since their rights to demand wages according to their desire and to leave employment if the demand is reused, were not such as they might be if the employment were in private business, but are necessarily subject to limitation by Congress, the employment accepted being in a business charged with a public interest which Congress may regulate under the commerce power.
The Eight-Hour Workday
With the growth of industrialization in the United States in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, workers began to demand shorter work hours to reduce incidence of injury from performing repetitive tasks. Advocates of shorter hoursalso argued that shorter hours coupled with higher wages would increase consumption and therefore help businesses and the economy expand, and that shorter hours would increase worker productivity. In the 1920s, Henry Ford became one of the first industrialists to adopt the eight-hour workday. In the 1930s,the National Industrial Recovery Act instituted a 40-hour work week, which essentially made the eight-hour workday law until overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1935. However, most businesses had accepted the economic and productivity arguments for the shorter workday by then.
During the second half of the twentieth century, the workday remained aroundeight hours. Consequently, critics of the eight-hour workday point out that since World War II, the eight-hour workday has remained the norm and that evenwith the rise of technology the workday has not decreased for most jobs. Arguments in favor of shorter work days range from ones asserting that shorter work days will bring about a greater quality of life to ones contending that shorter work days will prevent layoffs and unemployment.
Sources
Levitan, Sara A., and Richard S. Belous. Shorter Hours, Shorter Weeks.Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.
Further Readings
- Biskupic, Joan, and Elder Witt, eds. Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court, 3rd ed. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1996.
- Hall, Kermit L., ed. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 636.
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