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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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who said, “Whatever you intended, you didn't write it into the law. There's no earthly way by which this law can be interpreted in that way.”

Of course, one of the things that always bothered me about it was that the decision to make it applicable was taken at a time when there was a strike on somewhere. I don't remember where, but it was in steel. Of course, that steel strike went all the time. There was a strike in one place one month, some place else the next. There was a period of confusion when the strikes were very largely organizing strikes, as we've learned to call them now. However, each strike rested on its own reasons and had its own demands and grievances. They were sometimes complicated and confused.

However, this period of disorder and strikes in the steel industry was underway. My feeling, as against my reason, was against ruling that the Walsh-Healey Act applied to the steel industry, to any plant in the steel industry, or that the conditions should be written into the bid, because the wages were already at a very high level. However, I was out-talked. The union was anxious for us to fix a minimum wage at the level that they had established with the few companies with which they had negotiated a contract. Those wages were not paid in all





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