Walling v. Landau

61 F. Supp. 915, 1945 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2091
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedJune 29, 1945
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 61 F. Supp. 915 (Walling v. Landau) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Walling v. Landau, 61 F. Supp. 915, 1945 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2091 (S.D.N.Y. 1945).

Opinion

BRIGHT, District Judge.

Plaintiff asks a preliminary injunction restraining defendants, (1) from employing or suffering any of their employees to work in the embroideries industry in their home without having obtained the special homework certificates in accordance with the wage order; (2) from paying any of such homeworkers less than 400 per hour, and (3) from failing to keep and preserve records of their homeworkers of the wages, hours and other conditions as prescribed by plaintiff’s regulations, Title 29, Chapter V, Code of Federal Regulations Part 516.

The action is brought for the injunctive relief mentioned. The complaint alleges that on August 21, 1943, pursuant to authority conferred by sections 5 and 8 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, Act of June 25, 1938, c. 676, 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U.S. C.A. § 201 et seq., the Administrator issued an order fixing a minimum wage rate of 400 an hour for the embroideries industry, prohibiting the doing of work in such industry in or about a home, except by persons as have obtained special homework certificates issued by the Wage and Hour Divisipn, with certain exceptions not material here. The complaint further alleges that the defendants are engaged in the production, sale and distribution of embroideries, employ about sixty employees, including homeworkers, in the City of New York, in the production of embroideries and in processes or occupations necessary to such production, the goods produced by such employees and homeworkers are produced for and shipped in interstate commerce; that notwithstanding the wage order promulgated, the defendants employ homeworkers without having obtained special homework certificates, and pay certain of them less than 400 an hour. It is further alleged that on October 21, 1938, as amended September 15, 1941, the Administrator promulgated regulations prescribing the records of persons employed, including homeworkers, and of wages and hours and other conditions and practices of employment, to be made and preserved, which regulations the defendants have repeatedly violated and arc violating.

The following facts appear to be undisputed. Plaintiff is the duly appointed Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor, and has authority to issue wage orders fixing minimum wage rates and containing such terms and conditions as he finds necessary to carry out the purpose of such order, to prevent the circumvention or evasion thereof, and to safe-guard minimum wage rates established thereunder, and has also power to prescribe by regulation the records of persons employed, and of the wages, hours and other conditions and practices of employment maintained by the employer. These could not very well be in dispute; it is so provided by section 8(f) of the Act, and is settled by the decision in the case of Gemsco, Inc., v. Walling, 2 Cir., 144 F.2d 608, 155 A.L.R. 761, affirmed 324 U.S. 244, 65 S.Ct. 605.

Defendants are engaged in business in the embroideries industry and embroider materials, which are sold in interstate commerce. They employ homeworkers who are engaged in the embroidery of articles sold in that business, and who are paid on a piecework basis.

Effective September 15, 1941, the Administrator promulgated regulations with reference to the keeping of wage and hour records, which, as applied to homeworkers, required their employer to maintain and preserve pay roll or other records, which should contain, among other things, the name and address of each worker, the date and hour when and amount of work given to each worker, the date and hour when and amount returned, the kind of articles worked on, the piece rates paid an hour worked on each lot and wages paid. In addition to that, a separate handbook shall be kept for each industrial homeworker emnloyed in a home and outside a plant, which handbook must remain in the pos[917]*917session of the homeworker until such time as the Wage and Hour Division may request it. Defendants did not keep such records, or furnish to or keep for such homeworkers such a book.

Effective January 27, 1941, plaintiff issued a wage order, which, in part, fixes a minimum wage rate of not less than 37t/20 an hour to be paid to each employee in the embroideries industry. Effective September 20, 1943, a wage order was made, fixing the minimum wage at 400 an hour, and providing that no work shall be done about a home except by persons as have obtained special homework certificates issued pursuant to applicable regulations of the Wage and Hour Division. It is not disputed that defendants have never complied with the provisions of this order, insofar as homework certificates are concerned. None of their employees have or ever had any.

It further appears without dispute, that upon an inspection commencing June 19, 1941, by an inspector of the Wage and Hour Division, it was found that the defendants kept no record of hours of their homeworkers, nor were homework handbooks issued or kept, and that wages under the minimum were paid to defendants’ employees. Defendants acknowledged these violations, and agreed to pay restitution to 105 .of their employees, in the sum of $2,-621.08, and promised strict future compliance with the Act.

A second inspection of the defendants’ business was commenced on September 30, 1942, by a similar inspector, during which it was found that all of the defendants! employees, ranging from 31 to 75, were homeworkers, that less than minimum wages were being paid, that although defendants had requested 100 handbooks after the first inspection, none had ever been distributed because, as one of the defendants stated, “It was too much trouble”. It was also found that the records kept by defendants did not show the date and hour when the work was given out, or returned, or the hours worked on each lot issued. It was then determined that there was due in back wages $3,239.34 to 277 homeworkers, of which defendants agreed to be responsible for $500 and the corporation to whom they furnished the homework agreed to the balance.

A third inspection of the defendants •workers was commenced on December 27, 1944. An examination of the defendants’ ^records from October 1, 1942 to December 11, 1944, revealed the fact that the records did not show the number of hours worked by any of the defendants’ employees. The inspector was informed by some of the homeworkers interviewed that they received less than the minimum wages, none of them possessed homework books, and none of them had special homework certificates.

A fourth inspection on May 23, 1945, showed that the keeping of records had not changed since the last inspection, and that no records of hours of homeworkers were being kept. A homeworker being interviewed at that time had no homework handbook, and no special homework certificate.

Other inspections made on May 23, 24 and 25, 1945, 'showed that defendants’ homeworkers still had no homework handbooks or special homework certificates.

In fact, there is no claim that defendants either kept or furnished to their homeworkers the handbook, nor did they obtain for any of them special homework certificates.

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Related

Russell v. Tug Alice M. Moran
205 F. Supp. 874 (S.D. New York, 1962)
Walling v. Wolff
63 F. Supp. 605 (E.D. New York, 1945)

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Bluebook (online)
61 F. Supp. 915, 1945 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2091, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/walling-v-landau-nysd-1945.