10
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, October 11, 1967
Library trouble traced to Congress
Kansan News Analysis
It's Friday afternoon. You're trying to get an early start on a term paper. You've tracked down the books you need, but they can't be checked out—it's after 5. Books can't be checked out after 5 on Friday. You're mad, but as the librarian tells you, it's not his fault. He's just following orders from the library director. He probably doesn't even know that what happens in Washington, D.C., can affect the library as much as what happens in Topeka, Kan., or at KU.
Congress expanded the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in Sept., 1966, to include student employees as well as hospital and nursing home workers. Even certain elementary and secondary employees were covered in the amendment. The act, while not currently being enforced, is having far-reaching effects on these state facilities, including the library at KU.
Sets minimum wage
The law says a student employee
Political aide to speak here
Eugen V. Rostow, undersecretary of state for political affairs, will be among KU visitors participating in an Oct. 17 Regional Foreign Policy Conference.
An invitational affair, the conference is being sponsored by KU and the State Department.
and the State Department.
Other speakers include Walter Stoessel Jr., deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs; John Emmerson, State Department senior fellow at Stanford University; John Horner, country director for Cyprus, State Department Bureau of North Eastern and South Asian Affairs; and Reuben Sternfeld, special assistant to the U.S. coordinator, Alliance for Progress.
must earn at least $1 an hour and receive overtime payment for all time worked in excess of 44 hours a week. The law says he must get a raise to $1.15 an hour Feb. 1, 1968, and three additional raises until he is making $1.60 an hour Feb. 1, 1971, and earning overtime payment for all time worked in excess of 40 hours a week.
Until the nation's high court decides on the constitutionality of the law, the states are sheltered from obeying it.
Kansas is one of 27 states appealing the act to the U.S. Supreme Court. The states argued that the law would work hardships on the states because many jobs that were being done would not get done because of lack of funds. They also said the act infringed on state's rights.
Sheltered from law
A condition of the restraining order against the Secretary of Labor which postpones enforcement of the act was that the states and institutions involved must keep records of time worked and wages paid. If the court upholds the act, which it probably will, the states will be faced with an obligation of paying back wages and overtime wages accrued from Feb. 1, 1967 (the date the act took effect), to the date of the court decision.
A small group of Congressmen that doesn't like the idea of Congress telling the states how much they can pay employees, thus indirectly telling the states how much they can tax their residents, are pushing for yet another amendment to the act that would exempt colleges and universities from the act.
These Congressmen are receiving the support of the 'Association of Universities and Land Grant Colleges, of which Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe is president-elect.
The cost of maintaining current level of services at KU in line
with the requirements of the act for fiscal year 1968 was estimated last February to be $50,000. However, no allowance was made for this in the KU budget because the amendment was adopted after the state's institutions of higher learning already had submitted their budget requests.
S.U.A. Carnival
The state will face the liability of paying time-and-a-half for overtime work since overtime payment is currently not made. Therefore, KU and other state institutions are requiring that overtime work be limited and only be allowed when approved in advance. Again the result is that fewer hours are being worked and an act of Congress is felt by KU students.
Fear causes raise
OCTOBER 14 7 P.M.
The student in the library receives $1 an hour. And although the injunction was issued, he will receive a wage increase to $1.15 an hour Feb. 1, 1968, the day the act called for wages to be increased to that level. State and university officials admit fear that the act would be held constitutional resulted in the scheduled wage increases.
Concern over the act's implications in Kansas sent Robert E. Hoffman, an assistant attorney general assigned to the Kansas Department of Administration, and Keith Nitcher, KU controller, to a conference at the University of Michigan to learn what the
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and universities in the state have raised hourly wages for students during the past several years, but he said, "I don't think anyone would try to make you believe that hourly wage rates on any of the campuses are adequate."
The point is not that the act would work hardships on the states or that Congress is overstepping its boundaries. Once again, the federal government has taken action because the states were unwilling to insure adequate minimum wages for state employes.
law would mean to colleges and universities.
Hoffman "pessimistic"
Hoffman "pessimistic" Hoffman returned saying that he was "pessimistic" about the court's ruling for the states.
Max Bickford, executive officer of the Board of Regents, said the "general feeling is that the law will be upheld." He added that the state "faces a terrific problem if the act is declared constitutional. Probably many jobs that have been done wouldn't get done or at least would be delayed," he predicted. He noted that colleges
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