§ 52. Specific provision against the economic insecurity of workingmen in the United States.-Legislative agents and those best informed on the subject of compensating the workingmen injured in the due course of their employment agree that the most just and efficient remedy is that known as industrial insurance along the lines of the German plan, or a workman's compensation act along the lines of the British act. Perhaps the most concrete illustration of the adaptation of the German plan of industrial insurance to the compensation of injured workmen now in operation in the United States is the Ohio workman's compensation act. The following statistical data is taken from the report of the experts for the Ohio commission which was prepared by Emile E. Watson, investigator in chief.35 The facts and the Ohio law are fairly typical of the conditions and the proposed remedies in respect to industrial insurance as they exist today in the United States. They are of the highest scientific importance. The results are briefly summarized in the following paragraphs:36 1. (a) Under the old system the Ohio workman who was killed while at his employment got an average settlement of $958×36÷100, or $344.88. (b) Under the new workmen's compensation plan he will receive an average settlement of $2,444. 2. (a) Under the former system the widow and the children of the injured are obliged to pay 24 per cent of this $344.88 to lawyers and to the courts. (b) Under the workmen's compensation plan they will receive all the $2,444, not having to pay a penny for attorney or court costs. 3. (a) Under the old system only 36 per cent of 35 Report of the Employers' Liability Commission of Ohio, Pt. I, p. XXXV. those workingmen who were killed while at their work received anything at all, leaving 64 per cent absolutely without compensation. (b) Under the workmen's compensation plan every workingman killed, not by his own wilful carelessness, or in other words, by suicide, will receive full compensation, meaning that from 80 to 95 per cent are to receive compensation. 4. (a) Under the old system, of this 36 per cent who actually received anything at all 60 per cent got somewhere between $50 and $500, and 12 per cent of those injured got more than 50 per cent of the total amount that was paid out for injuries. (b) Under the new system not only will the 80 to 95 per cent receive on an average of $2,444 each, but the difference in wages; for instance, where the workman receives a wage of $2 a day and is killed, his widow and children will receive a compensation of $2,444, whereas the widow and children of the workman who receives $3 a day will get $3,400. 5. (a) Under the old system, where the workman was killed the widow and children of the 36 per cent who got anything at all had to wait from one to five years before they got it, in which period the widow buried her husband, the wages of the husband stopped coming in on Saturday night, and the mother was forced from her home to the washtub, or the scrub rag, and part of the children were taken from school to live a life of slavery and drudgery; they were forced to live in hovels because rent was cheap there, and in this way tuberculosis and other diseases were contracted. (b) Under the workmen's compensation plan there is no delay whatever-the $2,444 (the average compensation received) being paid at once. As a rule this amount is not to be paid in a lump sum, but in the same manner as the husband received his regular weekly wage. In this way the widow will not be forced to lower the standard of living for herself and her children, and she will be shielded from the washtub and the scrub rag and be enabled to keep her children in school until she has educated them. 6. (a) The old system results in 56 per cent of the widows and 18 per cent of the children of the injured workman going to work in order to earn a livelihood, because of the great mass who receive nothing and because of the court delay and costs involved to those who actually do receive something. (b) The workmen's compensation plan will result in not more than 10 per cent of the mothers and 4 per cent of the children going to work as a result of the death of the breadwinner, because there will be from 80 to 95 per cent who will receive compensation of a uniform nature—an average compensation of $2,444-without any costs and without any delay in securing the same. Every employer covered by the act, who fails to come under this workmen's compensation plan is denied the protection of the fellow-servant, contributory negligence, and assumed risk doctrines. The employé who is working under an employer who has come under the compensation plan is required to accept terms of settlement as prescribed by the compensation plan. The State is made custodian of a fund which is created for the purpose of taking care of all claims which arise under the workmen's compensation plan. The employer contributes ninety and the employé ten per cent. of this fund. § 53. Argument for joint contribution by employer and employé.-The argument for making both employer and employé a party to this fund is that both parties may stand in vital relation to it, every employer will take it as his business to force the careless employer to most carefully protect his men because to the extent that accidents are increased or diminished his premium is increased or diminished; likewise the employé, being a party to this fund, makes it his business to whip his fellow-workingmen into exercising care, because to the degree that the workingman is careless his premium is increased. Broadly speaking, the end sought to be attained by all constitutions, statutes and court decisions is the correction of economic inequalities which arise during the process of the evolution of organized society.37 37 That these new remedies do no violence to existing constitutions is well shown by Mr. Justice Marshall in his concurring opinion in the case of Borgnis v. Falk Co., 147 Wisconsin 327, 133 N. W. 224-5, which sustained the constitutionality of the Wisconsin act. He says: "So, in short, I think the law in question is a reasonably appropriate means to effect a constitutional purpose; that the Constitution needs no bending whatever in order to sustain it in its essential features, and none would be proper if the contrary were the case. "The foregoing I can but regard out of harmony with this, in its letter: 'Changed social, economic and governmental conditions and ideals of the time, as well as the problems the changes have produced, must largely enter into the consideration and become influential factors in the settlement of problems of construction and interpretation' so far as it is pregnant with the thought that the fundamental law is judicially changeable. The words 'problems' of 'construction' and 'interpretation' I think were unfortunately used, if the thought was merely of problems of whether new enactments to cope with new conditions are within or without the legitimate field of legislative activity, having regard to appropriateness of means to effect a constitutional end. The latter might be, as I have suggested, at one time and not a half century theretofore, because changed conditions may render an end legitimate, within the unchangeable scope of the fundamental law, which earlier was not, or the selected means to effect that end might be reasonably appropriate at one time, though not so a century, more or less, theretofore. * * * "True, the old remedies for losses mentioned have been inefficient and wasteful. They are, economically speaking, unscientific and have always been. It is more apparent now than formerly by reason of greater and more numerous modern activities and methods, that is all. In truth, the infirmity from an economic standpoint, and from the standpoint of man's duty to his fellowmen, has always existed, though the quantum of regrettable results and useless waste has 6-BOYD W C greatly increased by the multiplication of human activities and physical instrumentalities. "So it will be seen, I think, that while particular means may be reasonably appropriate to a legitimate purpose under some conditions characterizing a particular period, and not have been at a prior time, no change in the Constitution is involved in remedying the misfit. The end being proper the legitimacy of means may be dependable upon conditions, the question turning more on matter of fact than anything else. The change of mere means does not require a fundamental change, so long as legitimacy of end and reasonable appropriateness of means shall be kept efficiently in view." |