Thirty Hour Work Week Bill, 1934

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.