A BILL To prevent the shipment in interstate commerce of certain
articles and commodities, in connection with which persons are employed
more than five days per week or six hours per day, and prescribing
certain conditions with respect to purchases and loans by the United
States, and codes, agreements, and licenses under the National
Industrial Recovery Act.
Whereas interstate commerce among the people of the various States has
been and is now burdened, hampered, and clogged by a patent and
continued idleness of workers as well as the mechanical appliances and
implements of production; and
Whereas this continued idleness of men and machines has necessarily
resulted in imposing the burden of feeding and supporting more than
eighteen million people upon that part of our people who do work and
produce, which condition is unjust to those who work and those who
cannot obtain work; and
Whereas interstate commerce and trade can best be revived, and the
comfort and happiness of the people can best be produced by an economic
readjustment that supplies people jobs with wages, rather than charity
without jobs; and
Whereas under our economic system production is stifled when purchasers
with ability to buy are lacking, and is stimulated to action by
purchasers with money; and
Whereas our private productive system is dependent for its own customers
chiefly upon its own employees, who cannot buy the output of the system
unless producers give them jobs at wages adequate to exchange for the
products; and Whereas private business has not been able, and is not now
able, to give jobs to those who need them, on past or existing hours of
labor; and
Whereas business chaos, bankruptcies, insolvencies, misery, destitution,
and want have resulted, and the American people have been deprived of
the incalculable advantages and benefits of the abundance of goods,
commodities, and services idle machines and idle people could have
produced if put to work: Now, therefore, in order to provide a fairer
and more nearly balanced income; to put idle machines and people to
work; to increase the purchasing power of the people and thereby
stimulate production to capacity; to revive languishing commerce and
trade; and to promote the happiness and comfort of the people.
/Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled,/ That no article or commodity
shall be shipped, transported, or delivered in interstate or foreign
commerce, which was produced or manufactured in any mine, quarry, mill,
cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment situated in
the United States, in which any person, except officers, executives, and
superintendents, and their personal and immediate clerical assistants,
was employed more than five days in any week or more than six hours in
any day: Provided, That upon the submission of satisfactory proof of the
existence of special conditions in any industry included herein, making
it necessary for certain persons to be employed more than five days in
any week or more than six hours in any day, the Secretary of Labor, or
his duly selected representatives, may issue exemption permits with
respect to such persons, relieving the employer from the provisions of
this Act with reference to such persons.
SEC. 2. (a) No article or commodity shall be purchased by the United
States, or any department or organization thereof, from any business
enterprise operating contrary to any provision of this Act, or if such
article or commodity was produced or manufactured in any mine, quarry,
mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment
situated in the United States, in which any person, except officers,
executives, and superintendents, and their personal and immediate
clerical assistants, was employed, after the date this Act takes effect,
more than five days in any week or more than six hours in any day.
(b) Each contract made with a contractor for any public work shall
contain a provision that the contractor will buy no article or commodity
to use on or in any public work from any business enterprise violating
any of the terms or provisions of this Act, and will buy no article or
commodity which was produced in any mine, quarry, mill, cannery,
workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment situated in the United
States, in which any person, except officers, executives, and
superintendents, and their personal and immediate clerical assistants,
was employed more than five days in any week or more than six hours in
any day.
SEC. 3. (a) No governmental agency shall make or renew any loan to any
employer of labor in any mine, quarry, mill, cannery, workshop, factory,
or manufacturing establishment situated in the United States, in which
any person, except officers, executives, and superintendents and their
personal and immediate clerical assistants, was employed more than five
days in any week or more than six hours in any day.
(b) On and after the effective date of this Act, any such employer of
labor who applies for a loan from any such governmental agency shall
agree at the time of making application for such loan that so long as he
is indebted to the United States he will not permit any person, except
officers, executives, and superintendents and their personal and
immediate clerical assistants, to work more than five days in any week
or more than six hours in any day. In the event that there is a
violation by any such employer of his agreement, the full amount of the
unpaid principal of the loan made to such employer shall be immediately
payable.
SEC. 4. (a) On and after the date this Act takes effect, every code of
fair competition, agreement, and license approved, prescribed, or issued
under title I of the National Industrial Recovery Act shall contain a
condition that the employers covered by such code, agreement, or license
shall not employ any person, except officers, executives, and
superintendents and their personal and immediate clerical assistants,
more than five days in any week or more than six hours in any day.
(b) Every such code, agreement, and license heretofore approved,
prescribed, or issued under title I of such Act shall be deemed to be
amended so as to include a provision corresponding to that prescribed in
subsection (a) of this section.
SEC. 5. On and after the date this Act takes effect, it shall be
unlawful for any employer subject to any of the provisions of this Act
to reduce, directly or indirectly, the daily, weekly, or monthly wage
rate in effect on such date (or, in the case of an applicant for a loan
from a governmental agency, on the date his application is submitted)
with respect to any of his employees until a reasonable opportunity has
been afforded to his employees, through representatives of their own
choosing by a majority vote, to meet with the employer or his
representatives and to discuss and consider fully all questions which
may arise in connection with the reduction of such wage rate.
SEC. 6. Any person who violates any of the provisions of this Act, or
who fails [to] comply with any of its requirements, shall upon
conviction thereof, be fined not
[more] than $200, or be imprisoned for not more than three months, or both.
SEC. 7. (a) This Act shall become effective thirty days after the date
of its enactment, and it shall not apply to commodities or articles
produced or manufactured prior to its effective date.
(b) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to apply to agricultural or
farm products processed for first sale by the original producer.
(c) This Act shall remain in force for two years after the date it
becomes effective.
SEC. 8. If any provision, clause, or paragraph of this Act, or the
application thereof to any person or circumstances, is held invalid, the
remainder of the Act, and the application of such provision, clause, or
paragraph to other persons or circumstances, shall not be affected thereby.
