The Government Can Work You Ten Hours and Pay You for Eight

SEATTLE. — A ruling has been received from the United States circuit court of appeals which, when carried into effect, will mean that no laborer for the government shall receive pay for any work he may perform after the working day of eight hours. The opinion from the court of appeals reverses the decision of District Judge Hanford, made in December, 1902, awarding Chesley C. Moses compensation for work he performed after the eight-hour day on the buildings at Fort Davis, near Nome. The action was a test case, thirty-five similar suits in Seattle and over two hundred in different parts of the country waiting the final decision.

In the spring of 1901 a number of men in various parts of the country, Chesley C. Moses among the rest, were engaged by the government for work at Fort Davis. The contract provided that the pay of each carpenter was to be $5 per day, with transportation furnished from Seattle to Nome, and, in the case of faithful performance of the agreement, from Nome to Seattle also. The contract expressly stated that the workman was to receive $5 per working day, which, it was decreed by an act of congress in 1892, shall consist of eight hours for government laborers, except in the case of extreme emergency.

During a large portion of the time the carpenters were required to work ten hours a day. When they came down to Seattle they chose Moses to institute suit against the government, in the attempt to recover pay for the excess time they worked, and the days they were compelled to wait for the Seattle-bound transport after their work was completed. The others agreed, through their attorney, Herbert K. Snook, with the United States district attorney, to abide by the decision of the Moses case.

In September, 1902, Judge Hanford, sitting in the local federal court, awarded Moses about $400 as the amount of his overtime wages. The district attorney promptly appealed the case, and yesterday the opinion of the United States circuit court of appeals was received from San Francisco. It reversed the decision of Judge Hanford and held that the United States is in no way bound to pay for any time its laborers may work over the regular day of eight hours.

The reasons Judge Morrow gives in his opinion are interesting. He says that although the statute restricts the work of any laborer or mechanic to eight hours per day while in its employ and makes it a misdemeanor for any officer "to permit any laborer or mechanic to work more than eight hours in any calendar day," yet if the workman is thus made to do so there is nothing to authorize paying him for it. The officer may be punished for requiring the extra labor but the laborer may not be compensated.

Hereafter, if any mechanic labors for the government more than eight hours in one day the court of appeals has decreed that there is nothing to insure his payment.

It is possible that the claimants may sue out a writ of certiorari from the supreme court and try the case there. Local lawyers affirm that the 256 claimants in the cases influenced by the present decision are not likely to stop short of the last appeal.