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THE RO LE OF WOMEN'S LEGISLATION IN MEETING BAS IC PROBLEMS OF WORKING CONDITIONS 
by 
Elizabeth S. Map;ee National Consumers League 
Address, Tuesday Afternoon, February 17, to the Women's Bureau Conference 1948, 
''THE .AMERICAN WOMAN, Her Changing Role as Worker, Homemaker, Citizen," February 17, 18, 19, Washington, D. C. 
Since we are keying the discussions of this conference t o the progress which women have made in the last century, it may be appropriate to take a backward look for a moment to the time when we had no labor laws for women. 
In Massachusetts a little over a century ago, the Lowell Female Labor Reform 
Association, composed of workers in textile mills, presented petitions to the 
legislature urging the passage of a law "providing 10 hours shall constitute a 
day's work." The petitions dee lared that they were confined "from thirteen to 
fourteen hours per day in unhea lthy apa:rtmen ts " and were thereby "hastening 
through pain, disease, and privation, down to a premature grave." The story 
of what happened to those petitions is reminiscent of the experience which 
many of us have had in working with legislatures: a special legislative com­
mittee was appointed to consider the petitions. 
This was the first governmental investigation of labor conditions in the United States. After hearing testimony from manufacturers to the effect that the average daily hours in the mills were actually from 12 to -13 hours in April, and hours in December and January, the committee unanimously
11 1/2 recommended that legislation was not necessary at that time; that the. health of the ·operatives was not being impaired by work in the mills; that the State could not reduce hours and compete with other St ates; and that legislation as to hours was bound to affect wagees, Better conditions should come, the com­mittee said, "by improvements in the arts and sciences, and in a higher appre­ciation of man's destiny. in a less love for· money, and. a more ardent love for social happiness and intellectual superiority." The members further agreed, "the remedy is not with us." , 
As an indication of the militancy of the ·members of the Lowell Female Labor Reform. Association, it is encouraging to note that through their activity the chairman of this special committee of the legislature was defeated for re­election. A long struggle ensued, with more legislative committees and more campaigns, until finally, in 1874, a law was passed limiting the hours for women in manufacturing in Massa.chusetts to 10 a day and 60 per week. This was the first effective law passed in the United States limiting the hours of women's employment. 
Shortening; the. hours of work was one of the basic aims of the young and struggling labor movement dur ing this period~ Efforts to secure legislation for women paralleled the efforts of labor groups to secure shorter hours for men. The legislative battle was an arduous one. Although certain forward looking employers voluntarily established . shorte.r hours, and some were willing to speak out for them, the organized employer groups used the weight of their influence in State legislative halls in opposing everv advance. It was a tough job to get the 10-hour day accepted, and an another tough job to bring it 

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down to 9 hours and then to 8. Legislatures had to be convinced over the 
opposition of employers' organizations, and court battles had to be fought. As the total hours were brought down, the coverage was gradually extended to more occupations. the first laws having dealt exclusively with ·women in fac­tories. It was not. until 1915 that the Supreme Court decision upholding_ the California 8-hour law 1] established the principle that if the State could 
control the hours of girls who worked in millinery establishments , the State 
could control the hours of chambermaids in hotels. 
With this brief find sketchy review of the history of labor legislation for women as a background, I want to move on to _discuss three things: 
1. 
The status of the major typos of such legislation today; 

2. 
The factors which have affected the trends in this field in the last decade' and 


3 . Our responsibility for the pr omot ion of standards which will advance women's economic stat us. 
As we look at our situation today viewed from the standpoint of one hundred years ago, great . progress has been made in reducing the work day and week, in achieving what Florence Kelley used to call "leisure by statute," but it is not good enough. Only 24 States and the District of Columbia have either an 8-hour day or a 44-48 hour week, or both. The 9-hour day with a 50 or 54-hour week is the limit in 10 States; and the 10-hour day with a E,4 to 
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60-hour week in 7 States~ One State allows a 10 1/2hour day Eind one sets a weekly limit only. In five States--Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, and West 
Virginia--there are no limits either daily or weekly . In other words, in half of the States the 8-hour day has .no legal basis. 
Closely related to the weekly and dailyhours is the day of re st. Again about half of the States provide one day's rest in seven, and half are without · it. .There is probably no more important standard for the protection of health, both of me.n and women, than this.. · 
In the field of minimum wage, there are 26 States with minimum-wage laws in effect; 22 States without. (Four of. the State laws have been extended, in the last decade, to cover men.) The Federal Fair LaborStandards Act affects those women who are engaged in interstate commerce or. in.manufacturing gqods which move in interstate. commerce. I shall have more to say about that im,­portant law later. 
The statutes affecting working conditions for women, such as lunch periods, seating, protection from dangerous materials, are very . "spotty." Over 20 States, for instance, have no requirement of a meal period. · 
In all these laws many women are left out of coverage. Hospitals, and other inst_itutions have resisted regulation successfully in many States. Women in industrialized agriculture are practically without any regulation In the occupations close to agriculture, such as canneries, fruit and vegetable 
_1/ Miller·v. Wilson, 236 U.S. 373; 35 Sup. Ct~ 342 (i915), 


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packing sheds" and. the like,. unlimiyrf overtime is al lowed in many States. Domestic service .is a f i eld. wh i ch is practically without standards. The regu­lation of hours and wages for this group presents vereyspecial difficu_lties, but is certainly no good reason why they should be excluded from the protection Qf Social Securi ty laws. · 
Several factors stand out in the·last decade which have bearing on legislative trends. One is the substantial increase in the organization of women in trade unions. This ~ of course, has meant very rea 1 gains both for the women in the unions and for the unorganized workers whose standards and status are affected by the achievements of the organized. The increased or­ganization, however, has led to a public impression in many qua,rters that there is no need for labor legislation, because the unions can take care of working conditions themselves. That this is a short-sighted and erroneous conclusion is o.bvious when we realize that sever.al million women probably are in trade unions; that many kinds of work in which women are employed are completely unorganized. 
In the second place Federal labor legislation of t he last decade is of great significance. Outstanding among the -enactments .of .t he New Deal period was the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, bringing minimum wage protection to thousands of women fo the first time. But Federal action cannot cover all workers. State laws must be enacted to establish minimum for the large
wages 
body of women employed in .strictly intrastate occupati ons, such as retail and 
· service trades, and to conserve the shorter work dav. · But somehow, the public has gotten the impression that Federal legislation has taken cafe of every­thing! 
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The third factor of importance is World War II. The great expansion of industry and the increased demands for . labor widened occupational opportunities for many women.; it brought out . clearly the need for . equal pay legislation--the 
one type of women.'.s legislation, incidentally, which has made any advance in the States in the last. decade, • Two States had adopted equal pay legislation following World War I, · and seven more have enacted statutes in the last five 
"ye,0.'rs. A Federal bill, as you all know, which wo.uld operate with approximately the same coverage as the Fair Labor Standards Act, is now pending in the Congress• 
.Another effect of the war experience on legislation· grows out of the relaxation of stanp.ards during the war period. Some States handled the adjust­mE:lnt of working hours with more careful and orderly arrangements than others. In .some States "the lid was off. In spite of standards promulgated by all
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agencies of: the Federal government connected with the procurement of war materials long hours and careless standards were allowed to prevail in many areas. This situation has reflected itself in backward steps in two States since the end of the war. In Ohio, the 8-hour day was for all practical pur­poses abolished in all except a few occupations last year. In Pennsylvania, where an 8-:,-hour day and a 44-hour week had been 'in effect., the law was changed in 1947. to a lO•hour day .and a 48-hour week •. 
In early campaigns against sweatshop conditions it was comparatively 
easy to enlist the support pf at least u few of the prosperous and privileged members of society to' help :Jmprove the lot ' of women workers. . It was compara­tive ly .easy to. . arouse the conscience· of •the· publi .. c against the dangers of 
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industrial homework in tenements• to create sympathy for the overworked shop girl who tried to live in a ha ll bedroom on $5 a week, and to evoke pity for the plight of the immigrant mother who worked at night to eke out the family income. As the standards of living of the working population have improved partly as a result ,qf legislative measures, philanthropic and benevolent attitude toward working women has changed. This is all to the good. At the same time there has developed considerable indifference toward the problems which still exist, which are not as dramatic and colorful as those which aroused sympathy some· decades ago. · 
. In 1944, in the midst. of the War, the International Labour Conference he1d its meeting in, 'Philadelphia, at which it adopted a set of pr inciples to guide the nations in ·the postwar period.· In this so-called "Ph'iladelphia Charter" there is this significant statement: "The Conference recognizes the .solemn obligation of the International Labour Organization to further among the nations of the world •••••policies in regard to vmges and earnings, hours, and .other conditions of .work calculated to ensure a just share of the fruits of progress to all.".· What should the fruits of progress include for women 
. workers? A rising standard of living, leisure, ,safety at work, healthful conditions; widening opportunities, security. · Certainly these are goals which challenge all of us. 
One of our responsibilities as a member of the United Nations is to see that the standards and policies adopted by the International Labour Organi­zation become implemented throughout our country. By recent amendment of _the constitution of the I. L. O., the United States will be obligated to work for compliance with I. L. 0. convent ions on the part of the states. The, I.;.,L. O. conventions .include such basic standards as the 8-hour day, minimum wage, protection of youth against hazardous_ occupations. 
I profoundly wish that more national women's organizations would take a position on such a basic measure ns the Fair Labor Standards ·Act, the amendment of which is now under consideration by the Congress. The ph ilosophy of' the whole minimum wage idea is now under bitter attack by certain cirganiiations, which are taking advantage of what they undoubtedly consider the postwar re­actionary. spirit, to get rid of this legislation . 
A large employer recently stated the role which minimum wage should play in this period: 
"If we review what happened in the fifteen years after the ending of the last war, we note that once the pent up war demands had been filled and competition had become more intense, it was common prac­tice to cut wagess in order to procure specific 'orders at narrowing . margins. This was frequently offered to .labor _as an alternative to idleness and finally wound up in a deflationary spiral which brought the average wage in the country to such a low level that the entire economy almost ·became stalled--want and misery were everywhere. No thinking business man would like to risk sucha spiral as a prospect for the 1950 decade. The· surest way to avoid a recurrence of such tragic happenings would be. a revision upward of minimum wage levels ' to bear some reasonable relationship to labor's present day 1iving costs• Unbridled wage cutting is a practice which should be for ever removed from the arena of legitimate competitive activities."2] 
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From a statement filed by J,: Spencer Love, President of the Burlington Mills, in North Carolina the House Committee on Education and Labor. 
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Some of the organizations which worked for State minimum wage laws many years ago are silent now while this major struggle is going on in Congress. 
I wish, also. that more effort would be made by State branches of women's organizations to see to it that legislative standards for women workers are raised in their own States. There are some not1:.ble exceptions but, by and large, there is little activity in State legislation now, e ither to improve existing standards or to defend them when they are under attack. 
I recognize the preoccupation with legislation in the f i e ld of foreign affairs on which women have worked hard and successfully, but in considerir,ll.g our international obligations. let us not forgot our share of responsibility for implementing the programs for domestic standardsinvolved in our own membership in the United Nations. 
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