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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 18. Pre-War Labor Market Controls and Their Consequences for the Negro - 1. The Wages and Hours Law and the Dilemma of the Marginal Worker
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CHAPTER I 8
PRE-WAR LABOR MARKET CONTROLS AND THEIR
CONSEQUENCES FOR THE NEGRO
I. The Wages and Hours Law and the Dilemma
OF THE Marginal Worker
During the ’thirties the danger of being a marginal worker became
increased by social legislation intended to improve conditions on the labor
market. The dilemma, as viewed from the Negro angle, is this: on the one
hand, Negroes constitute a disproportionately large number of the workers
in the nation who work under imperfect safety rules, in unclean and un-
healthy shops, for long hours, and for sweatshop wages; on the other hand,
it has largely been the availability of such jobs which has given Negroes
any employment at all. As exploitative working conditions are gradually
being abolished, this, of course, must benefit Negro workers most, as they
have been exploited most—^but only if they are allowed to keep their
employment. But it has mainly been their willingness to accept low labor
standards which has been their protection. When government steps in to
regulate labor conditions and to enforce minimum standards, it takes away
nearly all that is left of the old labor monopoly in the ‘‘Negro jobs.”
As low wages and sub-standard labor conditions are most prevalent in
the South, this danger is mainly restricted to Negro labor in that region.
When the jobs are made better, the employer becomes less eager to hire
Negroes, and white workers become more eager to take the jobs from the
Negroes. There is, in addition, the possibility that the policy of setting
minimum standards might cause some jobs to disappear altogether or to
become greatly decreased. What has earlier hindered mechanization has
often been cheap labor. If labor gets more expensive, it is more likely to
be economized and substituted for by machines. Also inefficient industries,
which have hitherto existed solely by exploitation of labor, may be put out
of business when the government sets minimum standards. These effects
will not show up all at once/
The most important of these laws is the Fair Labor Standards Act of
* The fact that these effects do not show up all at once is one of the reasons why it is
impossible to give statistical evidence of the effects of social legislation upon marginal labor.
397
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