42 MINIMUM WAGE LEGISLATION IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES

There is no opposition on the part of employers in Seattle to the minimum wage
law. This changed attitude, it seems to me, is due to the fact, as I stated
above, that the fixed wage is really the marginal wage, and often below
it. % * *
The laundry workers are almost a hundred per cent organized. They are
organized in a type of industrial unionism which places the strength of the men's
organizations behind the women’s demands.
When I was on the minimum wage commission the laundry workers were
among the poorest paid. Now they are among the best,
The women who can clean by the day get 45 cents -and 50 cents an hour, car
fare and lunch at noon, * * *
Since I served on the board—I was on the first one—employers have changed
their attitude in this State. Then, they were looking for cheap labor, which
was inefficient labor. Now, the employers use, for the most part, a higher type
of labor, pay them more while their returns, I suspect, are really higher. This
does not apply to the 10-cent stores or mail-order houses.
A test case was in process in California in 1924 and a brief was
prepared by the National Consumers’ League, but the complaint was
withdrawn by the plaintiff before the decision of the court.®
In Colorado there has been no effort to enforce the legislation.’
In Utah the law is practically inoperative because the rate of $1.25
per day, fixed in 1918, has been exceeded by wage developments in
that time. Carolyn I. Smith, secretary of the industrial commission.
in her %etter of March 15, 1928, writes: .
The minimum wage allowed women workers under our law ig so ridiculously
low that, especially in the larger cities and towns, it is almost without effect.
Almost any woman of any experience can demand in excess of $1.25 per day
at almost any sort of employment, and for this reason the average wage is much
more than that provided by law.
We have but very few complaints, and these are usually from the more thinly
populated districts where the cost of living is low and the wages correspondingly
 so.
North Dakota continues to enforce its minimum-wage orders.
Miss Alice Angus, secretary of the workmen’s compensation bureau.
writes in a letter dated March 28, 1928:
The fourth biennial report contains the minimum wage rulings as they were
adopted in 1922, and they are in full force and effect without change at this
time. We do not have difficulty in enforcing the minimum wage rulings in the
State, as most employers seem to be in favor of them and comply as a matter
of course. We do meet with a great deal of opposition, however, in our attempted
 enforcement of the eight-hour law for women. At the present time the
question of the constitutionality of the law is up on appeal before the North
Dakota Supreme Court, and we are awaiting their decision.
In Minnesota, as explained above, application of the law is restricted
 to minors. Miss Louise E. Schutz, superintendent of the
Industrial Commission of Minnesota, writes on March 15. 1928:
The Industrial Commission is enforcing the minimum wage law in the case
of minors in Minnesota—i. e., males under 21, females under 18. An attempt
was made at the last meeting of the legislature in 1927 to have the law amended,
which amendment defined a minor for the purposes of the minimum wage 1aWw
as a person under the age of 21, thereby bringing women under the age of 21
as well as men under the protection of the law. This amendment was defeated.
We are constantly securing wage adjustments in Minnesota. Our record for
the calendar year 1927 totals $2,695.77. We are able to secure more adjust
ments for males than females naturally, due to the fact that a larger number
of males are protected under the law.
i i ——
8 Totter from Mrs. Florence Kelley, general secretary of the National Consumers’
League, dated Mar. 26, 1928,
» Totter from J. G. Johnson, of the University of Colorado, received in March, 1028.