Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/228

192 192 HARVARD LAW REVIEW to be awarded to unskilled labourers on the basis of "the normal needs of an average employee regarded as a human being living in a civilised community"; and the other, the "secondary wage" — the extra payment to be made for trained skill or other excep- tional qualities necessary for an employee exercising the fimctions required. A curious controversy arose in 191 5 as to the effect of awarding a minimum rate. The act allows the Court ^ to prescribe a mini- mum rate, and does not mention a maximum rate; and one would have thought it sufficiently obvious that there is no breach of an award on the part of a worker if he decline to take employment at the minimum rate prescribed. The contrary view, however, has been hotly urged, and some partisans of the employers, news- papers and others, have gone so far as to call it a "strike" when men refuse to accept work which is offered at the minimum rate. In Webster's Dictionary "strike" is defined as "the act of quitting work; specifically, such an act by a body of workmen done as a means of enforcing compliance with their demands made on their employers." But our act is clear on the subject. According to section 4, "strike" includes the total or partial cessation of work by employees acting in combination as a means of enforcing com- pliance with the demands made by them or other employees on employers. The question first arose in connection with "special cargoes" in the case of the waterside workers (called, I believe in America, "longshoremen"). These men were casual labourers hired by the hour. They turned up at the wharf when a vessel arrived and the foreman made his selection. The minimum rate prescribed was i/9d. per hour. The union had claimed that wheat should be treated as a special cargo so that the wheat carriers should be entitled to a minimum rate of 2/- per hour. The Court had refused this claim, as there seemed to be no sufficient difference between wheat and other commodities for the purpose of a mini- mum rate. But it appeared that certain members of the union had adopted the practice of following the wheat ships from north to south, and having acquired a certain dexterity in the handling of wheat, had succeeded with some employers in enforcing the payment of 2/- per hour. Under the exigencies of the war the » §40.