Fair Labor Standards Act
The Act[change | change source]
The FLSA introduced a maximum 44-hour workweek (reduced to a 40-hour workweek by 1940). It established a national minimum wage (of 25¢ per hour). It guaranteed "time-and-a-half" for overtime in certain jobs. The FLSA also prohibited most employment of minors in "oppressive child labor". The FLSA created a Wage and Hour Division in the Department of Labor. The statute applies to employees engaged in interstate commerce or employed by a business engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, unless the employer can claim an exemption from these requirements.
The FLSA was originally written in 1932 by Senator Hugo Black. He was later appointed to the Supreme Court in 1937. However, Black's proposal to require employers to adopt a thirty-hour workweek met stiff resistance. In 1938 a revised version of Black's proposal was passed that adopted an eight-hour day and a forty-hour workweek. It allowed workers to earn wages for an extra four hours of overtime as well. According to the act, workers must be paid minimum wage and overtime pay must be one-and-a-half times regular pay. Children under eighteen cannot do certain dangerous jobs. Also children under the age of sixteen cannot work during school hours. There were 700,000 workers affected by the FLSA. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called it the most important piece of New Deal legislation passed since the Social Security Act of 1935.
Related pages[change | change source]
References[change | change source]
- "Wages and Hours", Time magazine. Dec. 13, 1937. Retrieved 7/5/08.
- Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-class History, Volume 1, ed. Eric Arnesen (New York; Oxford: Routledge, 2007), p. 431
- Kathleen Ann Uradnik, Student's Guide to Landmark Congressional Laws on Youth (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), p. 33
- Fair Labor Standards Act - FLSA - 29 U.S. Code Chapter 8 | finduslaw
- Hugo L. Black. Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved on 2013-08-12.