RELIEF: Mutiny on the Bounty

When Congress set up WPA four years ago, friends of union labor saw to it that union hourly wage scales, as prevailing in different sections of the U. S., were provided for skilled workmen. Thus, if union carpenters were getting $1.75 an hour in private employment, carpenters working for WPA got $1.75. Result: to earn the maximum monthly wage of $92.89 allotted to them, they need work only 53 hours a month. The unions' interest in thus preventing Unemployment from breaking the market for their labor was only natural. But WPA's prevailing-wage...