SEC. 5. Any investigation, inquiry, or hearing which the commission is authorized to hold or undertake may be held or taken by or before any commissioner or the secretary, and the decision, determination, or order of a commissioner or the secretary, when approved and confirmed by the commission and ordered filed in its office, shall be deemed to be the decision, determination, or order of the commission. Each commissioner and the secretary shall, for the purposes of this chapter, have power to administer oaths, certify to official acts, take affidavits and depositions, issue subpœnas, compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of books, accounts, papers, records, and documents before the commission or before any wage board created pursuant to this chapter.

SEC. 6. The commission shall adopt reasonable rules regulating and providing for the method of making investigations; the conduct of hearings, investigations, and inquiries; the organization and procedure of wage boards created pursuant to this chapter; and otherwise for carrying into effect the provisions of this chapter.

SEC. 7. The commission or a commissioner or secretary or a wage board in making an investigation or inquiry or conducting a hearing shall not be bound by common law or statutory rules of evidence or by technical or formal rules of procedure.

SEC. 8. A subpoena shall be signed and issued by a commissioner or by the secretary of the commission and may be served by any person of full age in the same manner as a subpoena issued out of a court of record. If a person fails, without reasonable cause, to attend in obedience to a subpoena, or to be sworn or examined or answer a question or produce a book or paper, or to subscribe and swear to his deposition after it has been correctly reduced in writing, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

SEC. 9. If a person in attendance before the commission or a commissioner or the secretary, or before any wage board, refuses, without reasonable cause, to be examined, or to answer a legal and pertinent question or to produce a book or paper, when ordered so to do by the commission or a commissioner or the secretary, the commission may apply to a justice of the supreme court upon proof by affidavit of the facts for an order returnable in not less than two nor more than five days directing such person to show cause before the justice who made the order, or any other justice of the supreme court, why he should not be committed to jail. Upon the return of such order the justice shall examine under oath such person and give him an opportunity to be heard; and if the justice determines that he has refused without reasonable cause or legal excuse to be examined or to answer a legal and pertinent question, or to produce a book or paper which he was ordered to bring, he may forthwith, by warrant, commit the offender to jail, there to remain until he submits to do the act which he was so required to do or is discharged according to law.

SEC. 10. Each witness who appears in obedience to a subpoena before the commission or a commissioner or the secretary, or before a wage board or person employed by the commission to obtain the required information, shall receive for his attendance the fees and mileage provided for witnesses in civil cases in the supreme court, which shall be audited and paid from the State treasury in the same manner as other expenses of the commission. A witness subpoenaed at the instance of a party other than the commission, a commissioner, the secretary, or wage board or person acting under the authority of the commission, shall be entitled to fees or compensation from the State treasury, if the commission certify that his testimony was material to the matter investigated, but not otherwise.

SEC. 11. The commission may cause depositions of witnesses residing within or without the State to be taken in the manner prescribed by law for like depositions in civil actions in the supreme court.

SEC. 12. Upon request of the commission, the commissioner of labor shall cause the bureau of statistics and information or other bureaus of the department of labor to gather such statistics and information as the commission may require.

SEC. 13. Every employer of women and minors shall keep a register of the names and addresses of and the wages paid to all women and minors employed by him, the occupation of each and the number of hours that they are employed by the day or by the week, and their actual working hours for such periods, and every such employer shall on request, permit the commission or any of its members or its secretary or agents to inspect such register. Every such employer shall also furnish in writing to the commission any information concerning the foregoing matters that the commission may require.

SEC. 14. The terms "living wage" or "living wages" shall mean wages sufficient to supply the necessary cost of living and to maintain the worker in health, and where the words "minimum wage or "minimum wages" are used in this act they shall be deemed to have the same meaning as "living wage" or "living wages.

SEC. 15. The commission shall have power to investigate wages and working conditions in any occupation in the State in order to determine whether living wages are

paid to women and minors employed therein. Such investigation shall also be made at the request of not less than one hundred persons engaged in any occupation in which any women or minors are employed. The names of the persons making such request shall not be made public.

SEC. 16. If after such investigation the commission has reason to believe that a substantial number of women and minors employed in the occupation investigated receive less than living wages, the commission shall establish a wage board consisting of an equal number of representatives of employers in the occupation in question and of persons to represent such employees in said occupation and of one or more disinterested persons appointed by the commission to represent the public. So far as practicable the selection of members representing employers and employees shall be through election by employers and employees affected, respectively. The commission shall designate the chairman from among the representatives of the public and shall exercise exclusive jurisdiction over all questions arising with reference to the validity of the procedure and of the determination of the board. The members of wage boards shall be compensated at the same rate as jurors in civil cases in the supreme court in the county of New York and shall be allowed the necessary traveling and clerical expenses incurred in the performance of their duties, which shall be paid as are the expenses of the commission.

SEC. 17. Each wage board shall have access to all of the statistics and information gathered by the commission with reference to wages and conditions in any occupation under investigation and any other data pertinent thereto. Each wage board shall, after a careful investigation and after such public hearings as it finds necessary, endeavor to determine the amount of the living wage, whether by time rate or piece rate, suitable for a female employee of ordinary ability in such occupation or any or all of the branches thereof, and also suitable minimum wages for learners and apprentices and for minors below the age of eighteen years. In determining such living wage the board may take into consideration the financial condition of the industry and distribute any advance in wages that may be found necessary, to take effect at specified intervals. If the majority of the members of the wage board agree upon such wage determinations, they shall report such determinations to the commission, together with a statement of the reasons therefor and facts relating thereto.

SEC. 18. If the commission deems proper, it may, after it receives the report of a wage board, recommit the subject or any part thereof to the same or to a new wage board. If the report of a wage board is accepted by the commission, a summary of its findings and determinations shall be published in the bulletin of the commission and in such other manner as the commission may deem advisable. Copies of the full report of the wage board, together with the testimony taken before it, shall be kept on file at the office of the commission and open to public inspection. The commission shall hold a public hearing on the report of the wage board, notice of which shall be published in such newspapers as the board may prescribe, at least once, not less than thirty days prior thereto, and given by mail to all parties in interest who have filed requests therefor with the commission. The commission, upon consideration of the report and findings of the wage board and the testimony taken at the public hearing, shall then determine the amount of the living wage by time rate or piece rate suitable for a female employee of ordinary ability in the occupation investigated, or any or all of the branches thereof, and also suitable minimum wages for learners and apprentices and for minors below the age of eighteen years. The commission shall fix a time when its determination of such living wage shall take effect, which shall be not less than thirty days from the date of entry of such determination. In determining such living wage the commission may take into consideration the financial condition of the industry and distribute any advance in wage that may be found necessary to take effect at specific intervals. A summary of the findings of the commission and its determinations and recommendations shall be published in the bulletin of the commission and in such newspapers as the commission may prescribe and in such other manner as the commission may deem advisable. A summary of such findings, determinations, and recommendations shall be mailed to all persons who have filed requests therefor with the commission. If the wage board fails to submit a report within a reasonable time fixed by the commission, the subject may be referred to a new wage board, or the commission itself, after notice that the board has failed to make any determinations or recommendations, may proceed to hold a public hearing and determine the amount of the living wage in the manner hereinbefore provided.

SEC. 19. In any occupation or branch thereof in which a minimum time rate of wages only has been fixed, the commission may issue to a woman physically defective a special license authorizing her employment for a wage less than the legal minimum

wage: Provided, That the number of such licensees shall not exceed one-tenth of the entire number of women and minor workers in any establishment.

SEC. 20. Whenever a minimum-wage rate has been established in any occupation, the commission may, upon petition of either employers or employees, reconvene the wage board or establish a new wage board and any recommendation made by such board or action thereby shall be dealt with in the same manner as the recommendation or act of a wage board under sections seventeen and eighteen hereof.

SEC. 21. The commission may inquire into wages paid to minors in any occupation in which the majority of employees are minors and may, after giving public hearings, determine the minimum wage suitable for such minors. When the commission has made such a determination it shall proceed in the same manner as if the determination had been recommended to the commission by a wage board.

SEC. 22. The commission shall from time to time make inquiry to determine whether employers in each occupation investigated are obeying its orders and determinations and shall publish in such newspapers as it may designate the names of those employers who fail to comply therewith. The type in which the employers' names shall be printed shall not be smaller than that in which the news matter of the paper is printed. Such publication may also be made in any other manner that the commission may determine to be necessary or proper.

SEC. 23. Any newspaper neglecting to publish the findings, orders, determinations, recommendations or notices of the commission at its regular rates for the space taken shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars for each offense.

SEC. 24. No member of the commission and no newspaper publisher, proprietor, editor, or employee thereof, and no other person shall be liable to an action for damages for publishing the name of any employer in accordance with the provisions of this act, unless such publication contains some willful misrepresentation.

SEC. 25. Any employer who discharges or in any other manner discriminates against any employee because such employee has testified or is about to testify, or has served or is about to serve upon a wage board, or is or has been active in the formation thereof, or has given or is about to give information concerning the conditions of such employee's employment, or because the employer believes that the employee may testify or may serve upon a wage board, or may give information concerning the conditions of the employee's employment in any investigation or proceeding relative to the enforcement of this act, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than two hundred dollars and not more than one thousand dollars for each offense.

SEC. 26. This act shall take effect October first, nineteen hundred and fifteen

A SELECT LIST OF REFERENCES TO BOOKS AND PERIODICALS (IN

ENGLISH) ON THE MINIMUM WAGE.

BIBLIOGRAPHIES.

New York (City) Public library. The minimum wage, a preliminary list of selected references. 1913. 9 p.

Pearson, P. M., ed. Intercollegiate debates. N. Y., Hinds, c1913. v. 3 (Contains debate between Oklahoma University and Missouri University, and a debate at Ottawa University, with list of references, p. 81-184)

Reeder, C. W. Bibliography on the minimum wage. (In Ohio Industrial commission. Dept. of investigation and statistics. Report No. 1, 1914, p. 23–33) Williamson, C. C. A list of selected references on the minimum wage. Reprint of Appendix IV to 3d report of the New York State factory investigating commission. Albany, 1914, p. 387-413.

PERIODICAL REFERENCES.

Abbott, Edith. Women's wages in Chicago; some notes on available data. (Journal of political economy. v. 21; p. 143-158, Feb. 1913)

Bosworth, L. M. The living wage of women workers; a study of incomes and expend

itures of 450 women workers in the city of Boston. Philadelphia, 1911. 90 p. (Suppl. to the Annals of the American academy of political and social science. May, 1911)

Brown, H. La Rue. Massachusetts and the minimum wage. (Annals of the American academy of political and social science, v. 48: 13-21. July, 1913)

The case for the minimum wage. Articles by Florence Kelley [and others] (Survey, v. 33: 487-515, Feb. 6, 1915)

Country labour and the minimum wage. (Economist, v. 76: 1283–84, May 24, 1913) Dilke, C. W. Sweating and minimum wage. (International, v. 1: 5-12, Dec. 1907) Evans, E. G. A case for minimum wage boards. (1) Experience vs. prophecy; (2) The system on trial. (Survey, v. 31: 440-441; 497-498, Jan. 10 and 24, 1914)

The social aspects of the public regulation of wages [Together with] Discussion. (American economic review. v. 5, no. 1, Suppl. Mar., 1915. p. 270-299) Gough, G. W. The wages boards of Victoria. (Economic jɔurnal, v. 15: 361-373, Sept. 1905)

Hammond, M. B. Wages boards in Australia. (Quarterly journal of economics, v. 29: 98-148; 326-361, Nov. 1914 and Feb. 1915)

Judicial interpretation of the minimum wage in Australia. (American economic review, v. 3: 259-286, June, 1913)

The minimum wage in Great Britain and Australia. (Annals of the American academy of political and social science, v. 48: 22-36, July, 1913)

Holcombe, A. N. British minimum wages act of 1909. (Quarterly journal of economics, v. 24: 574-77, May, 1910)

The legal minimum wage in the U.S. (American economic review, v. 2: 21–37, March, 1912)

Kelley, Florence. Minimum wage boards. (American journal of sociology, v. 17: 303-314, Nov. 1911)

Minimum wage laws. (Journal of political economy, v. 20: 999–1010, Dec. 1912) 82843°-Bul. 167-15- -21

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