Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/231

195 A NEW PROVINCE FOR LAW AND ORDER - 195 the employees asked for an increase in the minimimi rate because of dust and fumes. It was said that dust affected the air passages and produced catarrh, etc.; but there was no evidence to show how far, if at all, the dusty conditions operated to reduce the effective wages. The Court was unable to express the injury in terms of money. Of course, if the subject of defective arrange- ments under which dust is produced come before the Court directly as a grievance for regulation, the Court would have to decide the matter as best it could; but employers must not be allowed to purchase by money a right to injure health. The same principles are applied to cases of excessive strain on employees, as by exces- sive weights or excessive use of certain muscles or injury to clothes: "This Court tends rather to refuse to make differences in minimum rates except for clearly marked distinctions and qualifications, such as craftsmen's skill, or exceptional responsibility, or special physical condi- tion, necessary for the function. . . . Differentiation in minimum rates prescribed must be made on broad lines." ^° On the same grounds the Court expressed disapproval of the system of extra minimima rates for special cargoes handled by waterside workers. When one special cargo was conceded by an- other tribunal there were incessant efforts to make more cargoes special, until at last the complaint was that all cargoes should be special except case goods. No subject has caused more incessant friction. There can be, however, no objection to a man refusing to accept employment for a cargo which injures his health or is beyond his powers, or if he think that he ought to get a payment beyond the minimimi. Beyond the minimum there is an ample area for free bargaining. Regulation of Employers' Methods But although the Court does not prescribe a differential minimum rate on the ground that a job is offensive or distressing, it has sometimes to award directly on the subject when it is made the ground of a substantive dispute. For instance, the waterside workers complained that the weights put upon them to carry or to wheel were too heavy; and the Court prescribed a maximum of " Artificial manures, 9 Com. Arb. 187-89 (1915).