Fair Labor Standards Act

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (abbreviated as FLSA; also referred to as the Wages and Hours Bill"Wages and Hours" , Time magazine. Dec. 13, 1937. Retrieved 7/5/08.) is a federal statute of the United States. 

 The Act 

The FLSA introduced a maximum 44-hour workweek (reduced to a 40-hour workweek by 1940).Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-class History, Volume 1, ed. Eric Arnesen (New York; Oxford: Routledge, 2007), p. 431 It established a national minimum wage (of 25¢ per hour).Kathleen Ann Uradnik, Student's Guide to Landmark Congressional Laws on Youth (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), p. 33 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.Hugo L. Black . Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved on 2013-08-12.  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 

 Equal Pay Act of 1963
 United States Department of Labor
 United States Women's Bureau

 References 

 Other websites 

 Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938: Maximum Struggle for a Minimum Wage 
 The Fair Labor Standards Act Of 1938, As Amended

Category:United States federal legislation
Category:20th century in law
Category:1938 in the United States