4 MINIMUM WAGE LEGISLATION IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES
Application of the State Laws

| N AN inquiry conducted by the writer on the spot in the States of
Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi, Queretaro, Vera Cruz, and in the
Federal District in June and July, 1928, accumulated evidence showing
 that the State of San Luis Potosi alone applies the law fully,
and checks up on its observance, both in the city and in the country
districts, by competent inspectors. The State of Queretaro applies
the state-wide minimum but has not yet established the local commissions.
 To date the laws of Nuevo Leon and of Vera Cruz have
not yet been put into effect. The bill for the Federal District has
not yet been passed by the senate. However, a strong feeling prevailed
 in the circles interested in this legislation that once the bill
is accepted by the senate and becomes a law its provisions will be
applied with more force than the provisions of the State laws have
been enforced.
General Conclusions

THE Federal constitution (art. 123, Par. XVIII) states the limits
of legal strikes. A Federal law enacted on December 30, 1925,°
prohibits (art. 6) the replacement of strikers during a legal strike or
an attempt by a minority of the workers to resume work or to go on
working if the majority has lawfully declared a strike. Thus the
Mexican minimum wage law does not tend, as in Australasia, toward
prohibition of strikes, but it does give additional guaranties to
workers.
~The Federal constitution prescribes submission of all disputes to a
board of conciliation and arbitration for settlement. (Art. 123, Pars.
XX, XXI.) Employers who refuse to do so, or to accept the
awards rendered, shall be bound to pay three months’ wages to the
workers in addition to any liability incurred in the dispute, while
the workers may reject the award. Liipulations apparently so lacking
in impartiality toward the different industrial classes can be understood
 only when there is kept in mind the conditions of employment
they were destined to modify. Some examples may be given. A
strike of agricultural workers in Michoacan in N ovember, 1924, was
settled through mediation of the department of industry, commerce,
and labor, and daily wages of 85 centavos for a 16-hour day were
increased to 1 peso for an 8-hour day. In 1924 a minimum wage of
1.50 pesos per day was proclaimed by the municipality of Mexico
City," although in an inquiry by the Department of Industry, Commerce,
 and Labor of Mexico in 1923 (a year before this fixing of the
minimum wage) into the cost of living of 4,100 families in the
Federal District it had concluded that 2.81 pesos per day were needed
for a family of five persons.:?
As an example of rather moderate opposition to minimum wage
laws on behalf of employers, it may be noted that the National Chamber
 of Mining in Chihuahua in 1923 called upon the municipal com-9
 International Labor Office. Geneva Legislative series 1925—Mezxico 2: Act under
article 4 of the constitution respecting Mberty to work, dated Dec. 80, 1925.
1 Bulletin of the Pan American Union, Washiugton, February, 1925, p. 200.
1 Idem, July, 1924, p. 741.
2 Tdem, May 1923 D. 521