Screen Guilds Magazine (June 1936)

Another Blow To Organized Labor O RGANIZED labor has received its fourth body blow from the hands of the United States Supreme Court in a little over a year. Starting with the Schecter decision in May, 1934 outlawing the NRA, the Court declared un¬ constitutional the railroad retirement act granting pensions to railway workers and the Guffey coal bill which regulated wages and hours for bituminous coal miners. Now, by a five to four ruling, the Supreme Court has killed the New York state minimum wage law for women and children. The majority decision, which was based in part upon the position taken in the celebrated District of Columbia case in 1923, definitely places property (contractural) rights above human rights. It held that the New York law would deprive persons of their liberty without due process of law and was discriminatory in that it would place women at a disadvantage in competing with men to earn a living. In other words, the Court felt that women should have the liberty to work for starvation wages, that it is illegal to deny them the right to sell their services for sweatshop pay, and that if they were denied this freedom, men would get their jobs by working for less than the female minimum wage. This is curious reasoning in 1936. It betrays a brand of economic philosophy naively divorced from the cold realities of modern industrial life. It does not recognize the simple fact—known to everyone else—that chiseling employers engaged in a war of cut-throat competition slash wages to the point where the very safety, health, and morals of their employees are damaged, to say nothing of destroying their purchasing power which makes the economic machine run. It does not recognize the fact that a chisler sets the prevailing wage for all of his competitors, thereby compelling fair-minded employers to cut wages against their will. Five of the nine Supreme Court justices are blind to these ugly truths. They believe that the wages of labor and the prices of commodities are the same thing. The people of the United States do not believe that, but five gentlemen of the Supreme Court have decreed it so. The liberals on the bench, Justices Stone, Brandeis, and Cardoza, joined by the middle-of-the-roader, Chief Justice Hughes, do not believe that the price of labor is in the same category as the price of a commercial commodity. They believe that a laborer is a human being and that as such he is entitled to higher protection than goods in the market. In his brilliant dissenting opinion, the Chief Justice wrote: "I can find nothing in the Federal Constitution which denies to the State the power to protect women from being exploited by over¬ reaching employers through the refusal of a fair wage as defined in the New York statute and ascertained in a reasonable manner by competent authority/' T HE issue is simple. The difference of opinion concerns not the principle involved, but its application. The Court has frequently conceded that the State through its police power may legislate on many matters of social control, inspection of meats and compulsory workmen's compensation, for- example. This is because the Court feels that these laws are concerned with the individual's health, safety, and welfare and that, therefore, legisla¬ tion of this kind appropriately comes under the State's constitutional police power to protect the public health,, morals, and welfare. However, in the New York case, the Court put the emphasis on the property rights involved in the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the Federal Constitution, and not on the public well being inherent in the individual's welfare. Minimum wage legislation, it is held, becomes an illegitimate exercise of the police power because it does not affect public health, safety, morals, and welfare. Now the serious question arises whether judicial opinion will ever shift the emphasis from the concept of property rights to that of human welfare. If not, the only way labor legislation can be secured is through a constitutional amendment expressly giving Congress the power to legislate on matters of hours, wages, and working conditions. In view of what is happening to the proposed child labor amendment, this possibility cannot be regarded with much optimism until public opinion is awakened. In his analysis of the Court's decision, President Roosevelt pointed out that the Court is creating a "no man's land" where neither state nor Federal (Continued on Page 25) • 2 The SCREEN GUILDS’ Magazine Volume 3 June, 1936 Number U Contents Page Another Blow to Organized Labor.. 2 Thank You, Mr. Hearst .. 3 German Film Trade Under National Socialism By Ivor Montagu ... 4 Motion Picture Industry in Soviet Russia By V. I. Verlinsky ..... 6 The Interchange of Talent—By M. E. Balcon. 7 Is a Screen Test Necessary?—By Jesse Lasky_ 8 "The Cavalcade of the Show World". 9 "Forgotten Men" of the Screen By Orie 0. Robertson ..... 10 Actresses Can Look Like People By Ernest Dryden .. 1 1 Best Performance of May... 12 Best Screen Play of May... 12 News of the Screen Actors Guild . 13 Regulations Governing Extras . 14 Los Angeles Releases . 17 Travel . 22 Screen Writers' Assignments . 24 "I'm Not a Lawyer, But. . —By William Bledsoe 26 Staff HONORARY EDITORS Ernest Pascal Robert Montgomery Norman Rivkin...Editor Kenneth Thomson.Managing Editor William Bledsoe, Donald W. Lee.Associate Editors Barbara Pascal .Art Editor Maurice Hanline . Camera Editor MAGAZINE ADVISORY COMMITTEES of The Screen Writers' Guild Robert N. Lee Mary C. McCall, Jr. Arthur Sheekman Wells Root of The Screen Actors' Guild Jean Muir Murray Kinnell Ivan Simpson Seymour L. Simons.Advertising Manager PUBLISHED JOINTLY BY THE SCREEN WRITERS’ GUILD OF THE AUTHORS’ LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND THE SCREEN ACTORS’ GUILD. Copyright, 1936, by the Screen Actors’ Guild and the Screen Writers’ Guild of the Authors’ League of America. Published Monthly at 1655 North Cherokee Avenue, Hollywood, Cali¬ fornia. Entered as third class matter at the Post Office at Los Angeles, California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Sold by subscription only—$2.00 a year in the U. S. A. The Screen Guilds’ Magazine