Fair Labor Standards Act
The Fair Labor Standards Act 1938 (abbreviated as FLSA; also referred to as the Wages and Hours Bill) is a federal statute of the United States. The FLSA introduced a maximum 44-hour seven-day workweek, established a national minimum wage, guaranteed 'time-and-a-half' for overtime in certain jobs, and prohibited most employment of minors in "oppressive child labor," a term that is defined in the statute. It applies to employees engaged in interstate commerce or employed by an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, unless the employer can claim an exemption from coverage.
The FLSA was originally drafted in 1932 by senator Hugo Black, who 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 and allowed workers to earn wage 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, and children under the age of sixteen cannot work. There were 700,000 workers affected by the FLSA, and Roosevelt called it the most important piece of New Deal legislation passed since the Social Security Act of 1935
Read more about Fair Labor Standards Act: Amendments, Practical Application, Tip Credits and Tip Pools
Famous quotes containing the words fair, labor, standards and/or act:
“When I was fair and young, and favor graced me,
Of many was I sought, their mistress for to be;
But I did scorn them all, and answered them therefore,
“Go, go, go seek some otherwhere!
Importune me no more!””
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“It is queer to contemplate how many people there are in any community who labor under the hallucination that if one is engaged in any occupation different from their own, that they are just having a good time, with no possible hardships to encounter.”
—Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)
“With his brows knit, his mind made up, his will resolved and resistless, he advances, crashing his way through the host of weak, half-formed, dilettante opinions, honest and dishonest ways of thinking, with their standards raised, sentimentalities and conjectures, and tramples them all into dust. See how he prevails; you don’t even hear the groans of the wounded and dying.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You should try to understand every thing you see and hear; to act and judge for yourselves; to remember you each have a soul of your own to account for; M a mind of your own to improve. When you once get these ideas fixed, and learn to act upon them, no man or set of men, no laws, customs, or combinations of them can seriously oppress you.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)