OCR Text |
Show -155- ¦ Immediately after ratification of the Concord Compacts by the states, the commissioners began work on another' agreement the subject of which is a maximum five-day week in industry to apply, with some exceptions, to manufactur- ing, mechanical, mercantile, and canning establishments and to mining * quarry- ing, and construction enterprises * On March 23 4 1935 * Governor Lehman signed a bill which established a board to study the value of interstate industrial compacts. The board is to make a "study and analysis of the advantages and disadvantages likely to accrue from participation by the state of New York in interstate compacts or agreements fixing uniform standards for laws affecting the conditions of employment and welfare of workers in the state and the interests of labor and industry general- ly and the advisability of negotiating and adopting such agreements or compacts as a matter of state policy." ' Compacts for Prison Labor In line with the use of compacts for labor is the formation of a compact to meet the problem of the distribution of products manufactured by prisoners. After the National Recovery Administration was established in July* 1933* representatives of prison administrators suggested to the NRA the adoption of a distinct code to govern prison industries. This suggestion was encouraged to the extent that representatives from thirty-two states met in Washington and formulated a code. The NRA rejected it because of the impracticability of en- forcement. This was met by submitting the compact to thirty-eight states, twenty-eight of which approved it. The compact was then ratified and approved by the President under the provisions'of the National Industrial Recovery Act; • Of course, as the codes have been declared unoonstitutional by theSupremo Court, this compact is invalid now. It is, nevertheless, an interesting development; in this field. Had this compact ever come before the courts before the NIRA decision it would perhaps have been held invalid because of the substitution of executive consent for the consent of Congress which is required by the Consti- tution. Regulation of Production and Distribution of Petroleum The "hot oil" decision of January 8, 1935, (Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 3^8) revived the bootleg oil industry. Conferences were called in the oil states for the purpose of studying the application of the compact method of adjudicating the regional problems arising in connection with.the production and distribution of oil. This very manner of meeting these problems had been suggested as early as 1922 by Mr« Justice Brandois in a dissenting opinion in Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553* As an outcome of tliese conferences a compact looking to the solution of these problems was executed in Texas on February 16, I935, by the states of Oklahoma, Texas, California.and New Mexico.. It was ratified thereafter during 1935 by Kansas, Oklahoma, ,111 inois, C.olorada, New Mexico and Texas. |