“The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was created in 1938 to establish a minimum wage and a limit on the number of hours which may be worked in a standard work week. It also provides standards for equal pay, overtime pay, record keeping, and child labor.” This law was created during a time period of great financial and political turmoil.
The FLSA is managed and implemented by the Wage and Hour division of the United States Department of Labor. “The Wage and Hour Division (Wage-Hour) administers and enforces FLSA with respect to private employment, State and local government employment, and Federal employees of the Library of Congress, U.S. Postal Service, and Postal Rate Commission. The FLSA is enforced by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for employees of other Executive Branch agencies, and by the U.S. Congress for covered employees of the Legislative Branch.” “The law generally applies to all employees of specific enterprises having workers engaged in interstate commerce, producing goods for interstate commerce, or handling, selling, or otherwise working on goods or materials that have been moved in or produced for interstate commerce.” However, workers that are not covered by the FLSA may still be subject to its minimum wage, overtime pay, recording, and child labor provisions if they are individually engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for interstate commerce, or in any closely-related process or occupation directly essential to such production.
The first thing that an employer or an employee must do is determine if they are covered under the FLSA. In order to find out if one is covered under the FLSA means determining whether the business is a covered entity. If the business is n...
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...t be at least minimum wage. The employer is required to pay the employee his overtime pay on the regular payday for the pay period in which the wages were received. An agreement made by an employee and employer does not wave overtime pay. It is also against FLSA compliance for an agreement to be made that 8 hours in a 40 hour work week will count as working time.
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"Coverage of Building Maintenance Employees under the Fair Labor Standards Acts of 1938." The Yale Law Journal 55.2 (1946): 421-28. U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.
Pfadenhauer, Diane M. Wage and Hour Law a Guide to the FAir Labor Standards Act and State Wage and Hour Laws. New York: DataMotion, 2013. Print.
"Policies." Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2014.
Susan Kellar contends that she is entitled to overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act for work performed prior to the official start of her work shift. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of her employer, Summit Seating, because it found that Kellar's pre-shift activities were “preliminary,” that any work Kellar performed before her shift was “de minimis,” and that Summit did not know that Kellar was engaging in pre-shift work. While we disagree with the district court's conclusions regarding the “preliminary”
According to the established FLSA, non-exempt employees working on an hourly basis should make a living wage working the forty hour work week. Currently,minimum wage is not equal to the living wage. An action needs to be taken now, before the middle class completely disappears. One percent of the populations owns more of the wealth than the other ninety-nine percent.If the working class is not able to improve its current situation only two social classes will exist. America will be divided by a high well paid class and a low class with a minimum wage
Even the president said, "Something has to be done about the elimination of child labor and long hours and starvation wages" (Roosevelt). People worked to their breaking points and then still not being able to provide for their families. People were paid “starvation wages”, which are wages that are not high enough to pay for necessities (“Merriam-Webster”). Hoovervilles, otherwise known as hobo-camps or squatter-camps, began to arise (“Hoovervilles”). Obviously, extreme poverty and famine were a huge problem. The government got involved. FDR stated, "Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, ...tell you...that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry" (Roosevelt). As a result, the Fair Labor Standards Act went into effect. Moreover, the Fair Labor Standards Act established minimum wage to prevent starvation wages, record keeping to avoid long hours, and regulations on child labor to prevent the labor abuse of children (“Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938”). It also put standards on how much employers had to provide. For example, things such as vacation, sick days, or raises are not required underneath the Fair Labor Standards Act (“Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938”). Through placing regulations on labor practices, the Fair Labor Standards Act helped people begin to have rights in their jobs, therefore making work be little
United States Department of Labor. "U.S. Department of Labor - Wage and Hour Division - U.S. Department of Labor-General Information on the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)." U.S. Department of Labor - Wage and Hour Division -
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is administered by the United States Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division. The Act regulates child labor, wages, and hours, it also requires employers to keep proper records and which to maintain (Bennett Alexander, 2004). The Act, now law requires employers to pay employees at the lower end of the pay scale, a certain amount which maintains a minimum standard of living and out of poverty (Bennett Alexander, 2004). That is the law and theory, in actuality the law has caused poverty in certain areas of the employment theatre, keeping those who are at the low end of the pay scale; below the reach of higher paying jobs.
The wage theft website indicates that wage theft is not stereotypical, and the issue is not primarily in specific work fields. No worker can particularly avoid wage theft, whether good wages or great benefits. Wage theft is more likely to occur in non-union workplaces. Industries including agriculture, janitorial services, retail, and restaurant work are among many of the most reported cases involving wage theft. Wage theft includes but is not limited to: not paying for all hours worked or not paying overtime, not paying minimum wage or not paying at all. Incidents classified as wage theft most often violate the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which provides a federal minimum wage but allows states to set their own minimum wage increased from the federal, and requires employers to pay...
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 fundamentally changed the cash welfare system in the United States. It cancelled Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) plan, replacing it with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). It abolished the entitlement status of welfare, provided states with strong incentives to impose time limits, and tied funding levels to the states’ success in moving welfare recipients into work. It is well known that caseloads plummeted during the 1990s and that employment rates of single mothers--the primary recipients of welfare in the United States—rose almost as fast (Shipler).
The ability for the federal government to regulate businesses’ activity is given in the Constitution. Article 1, Section 8 is known as the commerce clause; it states, “Congress shall have the Power…to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes” (Reed, 173). Through the commerce clause, the government is able to regulate business activity by the use of administrative agencies, which is defined as “a governmental regulatory body that controls and supervises a particular activity or area of public interest and administers and enforces a particular body of law related to that activity or interest” (Administrative Agency, 1). There are two types of regulatory authority that agencies may possess; quasi-legislative and/or quasi-judicial. Quasi-legislative means that agencies can make rules and regulations that have the same impact as a law created by federal legislation. Quasi-judicial authority gives agencies the power to make rulings, just like in federal courts.
The Fair Labor Standards Act The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was passed by Congress on June 25th, 1938. The main objective of the act was to eliminate “labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standards of living necessary for health, efficiency and well-being of workers,”[1] who engaged directly or indirectly in interstate commerce, including those involved in production of goods bound for such commerce. A major provision of the act established a maximum work week and minimum wage. Initially, the minimum wage was $0.25 per hour, along with a maximum workweek of 44 hours for the first year, 42 for the second year and 40 thereafter. Minimum wages of $0.25 per hour were established for the first year, $0.30 for the second year, and $0.40 over a period of the next six years.
Transition: Last year the federal minimum wage celebrated its 75th birthday last week as part of the federal 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. The Act banned child labor, set a 44 hour maximum workweek, and guaranteed a minimum wage of 25 cents an hour. (Hitzik) Since then Congress has raised the rate 23 times. (USDOL)
...e limited to working 48 hours a week. There were laws passed to maximum the amount of hours women and children were able to work per day they were called Factory Act of 1844 and Factory Act of 1847. The Act of 1844 stated that women could work a maximum of twelve hours a day. The Factory Act of 1847 stated that women and children could work a maximum of ten hours a day. Three years later they reduced the amount of hours that women could work because twelve hours a day were too many. The Factory Act of 1850 upped the amount of hours women and children could work. They could work upto ten and a half hours, but they are not allowed to work before 6am or after 6pm. The Factory Act of 1850 was an act that stated that no one is allowed to work for more then 56 ½ hours per week. The Factory Acts was the first step to help improve working conditions and hours tremendously.
(8) U.S. Dept. of Labor, Family and Medical Leave Act – Wage and Hour Division (WHD) (http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/), 2013, Website
According to Principles of Macroeconomics by Gregory Mankiw, “The U.S. Congress first instituted a minimum wage with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938” (Mankiw 4-119). Minimum wage is used to set a limit of pay employers must pay their employees. Through the years the minimum wage has raised as productivity has raised. The minimum wage has constantly fluctuated and changed multiple times.
The law would set standards for the minimum wage, work week, and health regulations in all aspect of labor. However, the law only came to be through a conjoined effort from unions such as the American Federation of Labor. Prior to the law passing, the United States government had been actively ruling in favor of limiting the rights of laborers. In the 1905 case of Lochner v. New York, the supreme court ruled that laws limiting the work week of laborers to 60 hours a week was unconstitutional violating the nation's economic liberty. Rulings like that of Lochner v. New York made the idea of the Fair Labor Standards Act seem nearly impossible to pass. It took the Great Depression of the 1930s to really bolster the American federation of Labor efforts to pass regulations on employer power. With an increase in demand for jobs and the populace working for long hours with little pay, The American federation Labor had gained a substantial backing that the government was in no shape to ignore. The signing of the Fair Labor Standards Act was not universally supported, with many critics drawing the common opposition that the law was a step towards communism, such as the National Association of Manufacturers stating the law “constitutes a step in the direction of
"Myths And Facts About The Employment Non-Discrimination Act." Media Matters for America. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014.