The History of the Fair Labor Standards Act

The History of the Fair Labor Standards Act

Abstract

After the great depression, unions were legalized in order to be the voice for the workers for whom they represented to their employers. Once this legalization became evident through federal statute, set the stage for what was to become the Fair Labor Standards Act. Having just survived a depression, the United States was hoping to avoid any future economic downturns, the government would accomplish this with paying higher wages that the employer could afford and employees could provide for their families.

The History of the Fair Labor Standards Act

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 FLSA began on a Saturday, June 25, 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 121 bills, one of them being the landmark law in the Nation's social and economic development - the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 ( Grossman, 1978). This law did not come easy, wage-hour and child-labor laws had made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1918 in Hammer v. Dagenhart in which the Court by one vote held unconstitutional a Federal child-labor law. Similarly in Adkins v. Children's Hospital in 1923, the Court voided the District of Columbia law that set minimum wages for women, during the 1930's the Court's action on other social legislation was even more devastating (Grossman, 1978). Then came the New Deal Promise in 1933, President Roosevelt's idea of suspending antitrust laws so that industries could enforce fair-traded codes resulting in less competition and higher wages; It was known as the National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA) ( Grossman, 1978). The President set out "to raise wages, create employment, and thus restore business," the Nation's employers signed more than 2.3 million agreements covering 16.3 million employees (Grossman, 1978). On "White Monday," March 29, 1937, the High Court reversed its course when it decided the case of West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish, the plaintiff was suing for back wages, in a turnaround, Justice Owen Roberts voted with the four-man liberal minority to uphold the Washington minimum wage law; the FLSA had been vindicated. Justice Roberts vote and "big switch" was an important event in American legal history, social history in America also changed for the legal attitude toward labor standards (Grossman, 1978). The FLSA achieved its aim through a single mandatory device: forced overtime pay, it forces employers to pay employees when working longer than 40 hours. Rather than balancing the interests of employers and employees, the obligations and burdens imposed by the Act are completely one-sided; they favor employees alone (Wilson, 2005).

Moving forward, the FLSA was amended by the Portal-to-Portal Act on May 14, 1947, this legislation was significant because it resolved some issues as what constitutes compensable hours worked