1. Fair Labor Standards Act
“… A matter of morality and public welfare.”
1938 – A new law
2004 – The last time it was amended
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the federal law of broadest application governing minimum wage, overtime pay, and youth employment. The Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor enforces the FLSA.
Scenarios:
20-hour policy … student employee multiple jobs … volunteering some hours
Staff working extra hours without prior permission … not wanting or expected compensation – speaks to a conflict between wage/hour law and our university culture

2. The Great Depression
FLSA passed in Late 1920’s-1930s was an economic crisis for the US. Legislation sparked by President Roosevelt included the New Deal and the National Industrial Recovery Act. As an early step of the NRA, President Roosevelt promulgated a President’s Reemployment Agreement, to “raise wages, create employment, and thus restore business.” Employers agreed to a workweek between hours, wage of $12-$15 a week and not to employ anyone under the age of 16. Employers who signed were given a badge of honor to display, a blue eagle over the motto “We Do Are Part.” Patriotic Americans were expected to only buy from “blue eagle” businesses.
The NRA was a major depression fighting weapon until the US Supreme Court invalidated it in May The Court concluded the agreement included provisions that were “too restrictive trade practices and unfair labor provisions.” Over the next several years several cases went before the Supreme Court addressing key legislation enacted with the help/support of President Roosevelt. The Supreme Court however, sided against what the President was trying to accomplish.

3. “No business which depends for existence on paying less
than living wages to its
workers has any right to
continue in this country.”
-President Franklin D. Roosevelt

4. fair day's pay for a fair day's work."
“…All our able-bodied working men and women deserve a
fair day's pay for a fair day's work."
"A self-supporting and self-respecting
democracy can plead no justification
for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling
worker's wages or stretching workers' hours."

5. The New Deal The National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA)
The Blue Eagle “Badge of Honor”
Industry Codes … The Cotton Textile Code
President Roosevelt] said this code made him ‘happier than any other one thing...since I have come to Washington, for the code abolished child labor in the textile industry.’ He added: ‘After years of fruitless effort and discussion, this ancient atrocity went out in a day.’”
The Cotton Textile Code was the first of these and one of the most important. It provided for a 40-hour workweek, set a minimum weekly wage of $13 in the North and $12 in the South, and abolished child labor.

6. The Crushing Blow – “Black Monday”
Schechter Corp. v. United States A case about chickens wrecked all progress
A crushing blow. On "Black Monday," May 27, 1935, the Supreme Court disarmed the NRA as the major depression-fighting weapon of the New Deal. The 1935 case of Schechter Corp. v. United States tested the constitutionality of the NRA by questioning a code to improve the sordid conditions under which chickens were slaughtered and sold to retail kosher butchers.8 All nine justices agreed that the act was an unconstitutional delegation of government power to private interests. Even the liberal Benjamin Cardozo thought it was "delegation running riot." Though the "sick chicken" decision seems an absurd case upon which to decide the fate of so sweeping a policy, it invalidated not only the restrictive trade practices set by the NRA-authorized codes, but the codes' progressive labor provisions as well.9
As if to head off further attempts at labor reform, the Supreme Court, in a series of decisions, invalidated both State and Federal labor laws. Most notorious was the 1936 case of Joseph Tipaldo.10The manager of a Brooklyn, N.Y., laundry, Tipaldo had been paying nine laundry women only $10 a week, in violation of the New York State minimum wage law. When forced to pay his workers $14.88, Tipaldo coerced them to kick back the difference. When Tipaldo was jailed on charges of violating the State law, forgery, and conspiracy, his lawyers sought a writ of habeas corpus on grounds the New York law was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 majority voided the law as a violation of liberty of contract.11
The Tipaldo decision was among the most unpopular ever rendered by the Supreme Court. Even bitter foes of President Roosevelt and the New Deal criticized the Court. Ex-President Herbert Hoover said the Court had gone to extremes. Conservative Republican Congressman Hamilton Fish called it a "new Dred Scott decision" condemning 3 million women and children to economic slavery.12

7. “A switch in time saved nine.”
A switch in time. Wage-hour legislation was a campaign issue in the 1936 Presidential race. The Democratic platform called for higher labor standards, and, in his campaign, Roosevelt promised to seek some constitutional way of protecting workers. He tried to pave the way for such legislation in his speeches and new conferences in which he spoke of the breakdown of child labor provisions, minimum wages, and maximum hour standards after the demise of the NRA codes.
When Roosevelt won the 1936 election by 523 electoral votes to 8, he interpreted his landslide victory as support for the New Deal and was determined to overcome the obstacle of Supreme Court opposition as soon as possible. In February 1937, he struck back at the "nine old men" of the Bench: He proposed to "pack" the Court by adding up to six extra judges, one for each judge who did not retire at age 70. Roosevelt further voiced his disappointment with the Court at the victory dinner for his second inauguration, saying if the "three-horse team [of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches] pulls as one, the field will be ploughed," but that the field will not be ploughed if one horse lies down in the traces or plunges off in another direction."13
However, Roosevelt's metaphorical maverick fell in step. On "White Monday," March 29, 1937, the Court reversed its course when it decided the case of West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish.14 Elsie Parrish, a former chambermaid at the Cascadian Hotel in Wenatchee, Wash., sued for $ in back wages, charging that the hotel had paid her less than the State minimum wage. In an unexpected turn-around, Justice Owen Roberts voted with the four-man liberal minority to uphold the Washington minimum wage law.
As other close decisions continued to validate social and economic legislation, support for Roosevelt's Court "reorganization" faded. Meanwhile, Justice Roberts felt called upon to deny that he had switched sides to ward off Roosevelt's court-packing plan. He claimed valid legal distinctions between the Tipaldo case and the Parrish case. Nevertheless, many historians subscribe to the contemporary view of Robert's vote, that "a switch in time saved nine."15

8. Major Provisions: Minimum Wage Overtime Pay Youth Employment
Recordkeeping
Employees who are covered by the FLSA are entitled to be paid at least the Federal minimum wage as well as time and one-half their regular rates of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek, unless an exemption applies. There are also youth employment provisions regulating the employment of anyone under the age of 18 in covered work. The FLSA also contains recordkeeping requirements.
This presentation covers the minimum wage and overtime requirements and summarizes the youth employment provisions. More in-depth training on the youth employment laws is also available.
See also: Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq.; FLSA Regulations, 29 CFR Parts 778 (overtime), 570 (youth employment), (recordkeeping).

9. Coverage More than 130 million workers in more than
7 million workplaces are protected or “covered” by the
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which is enforced by the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor
The short answer is – almost every employee working in the United States.
The Wage and Hour Division administers and enforces the FLSA with respect to private employment, State and local government employment, and Federal employees of the Library of Congress, U.S. Postal Service, Postal Rate Commission, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. 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.
Special rules apply to State and local government employment involving fire protection and law enforcement activities, volunteer services, and compensatory time off instead of cash overtime pay.

10. Coverage
Two types of coverage:
Enterprise coverage: If an enterprise is covered, all employees of the enterprise are entitled to FLSA protections
Individual coverage: Even if the enterprise is not covered, individual employees may be covered and entitled to FLSA protections
The FLSA provides for two types of coverage: Enterprise Coverage and Individual Coverage. If an enterprise is covered, all employees of the enterprise are entitled to FLSA protections; however, even if the enterprise is not covered, individual employees may be covered and entitled to FLSA protections.
See also: 29 U.S.C. 203(r) and 203(s); 29 C.F.R. Part 779, Subpart C (enterprise coverage); 29 C.F.R. Part 776, Subpart A (individual coverage); Fact Sheet No. 014: Coverage Under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

11. Coverage: The Bottom Line
Almost every employee in the United States is covered by the FLSA
Examples of employees who may not be covered:
Employees working for small construction companies
Employees working for small independently owned retail or service businesses
Employees working for businesses that are not covered enterprises are not subject to FLSA requirements unless they personally engage in interstate commerce, the production of goods for interstate commerce, or closely related activities.
The bottom line: The coverage of the FLSA is very broad, and almost every employee is covered. If you have a question about whether particular employment is covered, you may want to seek assistance from the Wage & Hour Division.

12. “Work not requested but suffered or permitted is work time…
For example, an employee may voluntarily continue to work at the end of the shift. He may be a pieceworker, he may desire to finish an assigned task or he may wish to correct errors, paste work tickets, prepare time reports or other records. The reason is immaterial. The employer knows or has reason to believe that he is continuing to work and the time is working time.”
Title 29: Labor PART 785—HOURS WORKED
It is the employer’s duty to see that work is not performed if the employer doesn’t want the work performed. The employer cannot sit back and accept the benefits without compensating employees for those benefits. Simply telling employees that it is against the rules to work this time is not good enough. Management has the power to enforce the rule and must make every effort to do so.
This is true for work performed away from the premises or the job site, or even at home. If the employer knows or has reason to believe that the work is being performed, the employer must count the time as hours worked.
For example, if the employer does not stop an employee from working before or after the shift, the employee must be paid for that time.
See also: 29 CFR , Hours Worked Under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

13. §785.13   Duty of Management
“In all such cases it is the duty of the management to exercise its control and see that the work is not performed if it does not want it to be performed. It cannot sit back and accept the benefits without compensating for them. The mere promulgation of a rule against such work is not enough. Management has the power to enforce the rule and must make every effort to do so.”

14. Admin/Faculty (Exempt)
Week 1
45 hours
35 hours
Week 2
Staff
(Non-Exempt)
The primary point with this example: Within a workweek (Saturday to Friday), all work hours above 40 must be paid for at the overtime rate. There are no exceptions to this rule. You can not transfer hours to another workweek or give time off in lieu of paying overtime wages. You must pay the employee overtime wages.
Week 1
45 hours
Week 2
35 hours
Admin/Faculty (Exempt)
The primary point with this example: Hours worked by exempt employees should not be counted or tracked for any purpose associated with compensation or for the purpose of giving time off at an hour-for-hour rate. It is acceptable to give such an employee time off following weeks in which they work excessive hours as an expression of “thanks” or to support work-life balance, though this should not be at an hour-for-hour basis.

15. Private vs. Public Employment Standards
Comp Time
Private vs. Public Employment Standards
Definition: Offering time off at the equivalent of time and one half in lieu of paying overtime wages.
This practice is only available in the public sector; it is not permissible in the private sector.

16. (Non-exempt from FLSA)
Staff
(Non-exempt from FLSA)
Administrative
(Exempt from FLSA)
48%
52%
Consider impacts when requesting change in classification
Risk to the university
Travel / moving expenses
Training at conferences
Take away overtime rights from employee
No risk!
But Less Flexibility!
Travel Budget Impact

17. Summa v. Hofstra University, 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals (2010)
Hofstra University had a common practice of classifying undergraduate and graduate assistants as exempt or otherwise excluded from the provisions of the FLSA.
A graduate student, Laura Summa sued, alleging that this practice resulted in the practice of subminimum wage labor and/or unpaid overtime compensation.
Laura worked as a manager of the football team, typically more than 40 hours a week but was only paid a $750 stipend for the entire semester.
She identified at least seven other students who were likewise denied appropriate compensation.

18. Question Before the Court
Were the plaintiff’s “similarly situated” as required to certify the case as a class action lawsuit?

19. Holding
Yes, the other student’s demonstrated a factual nexus between the named plaintiff and themselves. They did this by submitting affidavit’s to the court identifying their position(s) at the university, approximate hours worked and pay rate.
Case was remanded back to District Court for settlement discussions.
Hofstra agreed to pay nearly a half million dollars to settle the case.

20. Waiting Time Counted as hours worked when
Employee is unable to use the time effectively for his or her own purposes
Time is controlled by the employer
Engaged to wait or waiting to be engaged
(Fire fighter playing checkers; receptionist reading a book; referee waiting on the storm)
Whether time an employee spends waiting is counted as hours worked and is therefore paid depends upon the particular circumstances. The facts may show that the employee was engaged to wait (which is work time) or the facts may show that the employee was waiting to be engaged (which is not work time).
For example, a firefighter who plays checkers while waiting for an alarm is working during these periods of inactivity. The firefighter has been “engaged to wait.” The time would be worktime even if the employee is allowed to leave the premises or the job site during periods of inactivity.
On the other hand, periods during which the employee is completely relieved from duty and that are long enough for the employee to use the time effectively for his/her own purposes are not hours worked. This would be true if the employee has been told in advance that he/she may leave the job and will not have to begin working again until a definitely specified time.
See also: 29 CFR and Hours Worked; Fact Sheet No. 022 Hours Worked Under the FLSA.
Not counted as hours worked when
Employee is completely relieved from duty; and
Time is long enough to enable the employee to use it effectively for his or her own purposes

21. On-Call Time On-call time is hours worked when
Employee has to stay on the employer’s premises
Employee has to stay so close to the employer’s premises that the employee cannot use that time effectively for his or her own purposes
On-call time is not hours worked when
Employee is required to carry a pager
Employee is required to leave word at home or with the employer where he or she can be reached
Employers frequently make arrangements with employees to be on-call. If the employee is required to remain on-call on the employer's premises or so close that the employee cannot use the time effectively for his/her own purposes, the employee is working while on-call. In that case, the time the employee is on-call is counted as hours of work that must be paid.

22. Meal and Rest Periods
Meal periods are not hours worked when the employee is relieved of duties for the purpose of eating a meal
Bona fide meal periods are not worktime and need not be counted as compensable hours worked. Ordinarily 30 minutes or more is long enough for a bona fide meal period.
Meal periods of less than 30 minutes during which an employee is relieved for purposes of eating a meal may be bona fide--and thus not hours worked--when certain special conditions are present. Such special conditions include only sporadic and minimal work-related interruptions to the meal period, sufficient time for employees to eat a regular meal at a time of day or shift when meals are normally consumed, an agreement between the employees and employer that a meal period of less than 30 minutes is sufficient to eat a regular meal, and applicable state or local laws do not require lunch periods in excess of the shortened meal period.
The employee is not considered to be relieved if the employee is required to perform any duties, whether active or inactive, while eating. For example, an office employee who is required to eat at the desk in order to answer the telephone is working while eating.
It is not necessary that an employee be permitted to leave the premises if the employee is otherwise relieved from duties during the meal period.
Coffee breaks or time for snacks are typically periods of short duration (5 to 20 minutes) and must be counted as compensable hours worked. They are common in industry and promote the efficiency of the employee.
See also: 29 CFR and 29 CFR Hours Worked.
Rest periods of short duration (normally 5 to 20 minutes)
are counted as hours worked
and must be paid

23. Training Time Voluntary Job-related Training
Four web-based prerequisite classes (10 hours each) are required
Prerequisite classes are taken at home in prep for a voluntary job-related training
Training is offered during normal work hours and is compensated
Seats are limited; first-come first-served
Training directly related to employee’s job
Special Situations
All four of the criteria must be met. The most common questions about counting this time involve voluntary attendance and whether or not a meeting or training is job related.
Attendance is clearly not voluntary if it is required by the employer. It is also not voluntary if the employee is led to believe that the present working conditions or continuance of employment would be adversely affected by nonattendance.
The training is directly related to the employee's job if it is designed to make the employee handle his/her current job more effectively as distinguished from training the employee for another job, or for a new or additional skill. For example, time spent by a computer programmer in a course on programming that is given by the employer is hours worked. However, if the programmer takes a course in accounting, it may not be directly related to the programmer’s current job, and thus, the time the programmer spends voluntarily in taking the accounting course, outside of regular working hours, may not be counted as working time.
If employees on their own initiative attend an independent school, college, or independent trade school after hours, the time is not hours worked for their employer even if the courses are related to their jobs.
See also: 29 CFR , and Hours Worked.

24. Training Time Question: Voluntary Job-related Training
Four web-based prerequisite classes (10 hours each) are required
Prerequisite classes are taken at home in prep for a voluntary job-related training
Training is offered during normal work hours and is compensated
Seats are limited; first-come first-served
Question:
Is the Company legally obliged to compensate employees for the time they spend outside of normal working hours at their own home completing the required prerequisite classes prior to taking the voluntary Tellabs training class?
Based on the information you provided, the prerequisite classes appear to meet the foregoing criteria (a), (b), and (d). Criterion (c), however, is not met because the prerequisite classes are directly related to the technicians’ jobs. Section provides that “training is directly related to the employee’s job if it is designed to make the employee handle his job more effectively as distinguished from training him for another job, or to a new or additional skill.” The training classes and the prerequisite classes offer instruction to enable the technicians to perform their present jobs better by giving them greater abilities to use a network system they are presently using. By making the technicians better able to perform their jobs, the training and the prerequisite classes are directly related to the technicians’ jobs.
Training directly related to employee’s job
Special Situations
All four of the criteria must be met. The most common questions about counting this time involve voluntary attendance and whether or not a meeting or training is job related.
Attendance is clearly not voluntary if it is required by the employer. It is also not voluntary if the employee is led to believe that the present working conditions or continuance of employment would be adversely affected by nonattendance.
The training is directly related to the employee's job if it is designed to make the employee handle his/her current job more effectively as distinguished from training the employee for another job, or for a new or additional skill. For example, time spent by a computer programmer in a course on programming that is given by the employer is hours worked. However, if the programmer takes a course in accounting, it may not be directly related to the programmer’s current job, and thus, the time the programmer spends voluntarily in taking the accounting course, outside of regular working hours, may not be counted as working time.
If employees on their own initiative attend an independent school, college, or independent trade school after hours, the time is not hours worked for their employer even if the courses are related to their jobs.
See also: 29 CFR , and Hours Worked.

25. Training Time … Compensable Test
§785.27   General.
Attendance at lectures, meetings, training programs and similar activities need not be counted as working time if the following four criteria are met:
Attendance is outside of the employee's regular working hours;
Attendance is in fact voluntary;
The course, lecture, or meeting is not directly related to the employee's job; and
The employee does not perform any productive work during such attendance.
Special Situation
Example: Courses offered by bona fide institutions of learning involving voluntary attendance   ? 
Training directly related to employee’s job
Special Situations
All four of the criteria must be met. The most common questions about counting this time involve voluntary attendance and whether or not a meeting or training is job related.
Attendance is clearly not voluntary if it is required by the employer. It is also not voluntary if the employee is led to believe that the present working conditions or continuance of employment would be adversely affected by nonattendance.
The training is directly related to the employee's job if it is designed to make the employee handle his/her current job more effectively as distinguished from training the employee for another job, or for a new or additional skill. For example, time spent by a computer programmer in a course on programming that is given by the employer is hours worked. However, if the programmer takes a course in accounting, it may not be directly related to the programmer’s current job, and thus, the time the programmer spends voluntarily in taking the accounting course, outside of regular working hours, may not be counted as working time.
If employees on their own initiative attend an independent school, college, or independent trade school after hours, the time is not hours worked for their employer even if the courses are related to their jobs.
See also: 29 CFR , and Hours Worked.

26. Travel Time Ordinary home to work travel is not work time
Travel between job sites during the normal work day is work time
Special rules apply to travel away from the employee’s home community
Ordinary home to work travel is travel from the employee’s home before the regular workday and return travel to the employee’s home at the end of the workday. This travel is normally not counted as hours worked.
Travel between job sites during the day is work time. If the employee is required to report to a meeting place to receive instructions, perform other work there, or to pick up equipment or tools, the travel from the designated meeting place to the work place is part of the day's work, and must be counted as hours worked. The same is true at the end of the day. If the employee is required to return to the employer’s office or job site, the travel time back to the office is counted as hours worked. For example, if an employee normally finishes his work at 5 p.m. and is sent to another job which he finishes at 8 p.m. and is required to return to his employer's premises arriving at 9 p.m., all of the time is working time. However, if the employee goes home instead of returning to his employer's premises, the travel after 8 p.m. is home-to-work travel and is not hours worked.
Special rules apply when employees travel away from their home community. Travel for a special one day assignment in another city is not ordinary home-to-work travel. Because it is performed for the employer’s benefit and at the employer’s request, it is like travel that is all in the day's work. The normal home-to-work travel time may still be deducted.
When an employee travels away from home and stays overnight, the travel time is worktime when it cuts across the employee's workday. The employee is simply substituting travel for other duties. The time is not only hours worked on regular working days during normal working hours but also during the corresponding hours on nonworking days. For example, if an employee regularly works from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Monday through Friday the travel time during these hours is worktime on Saturday and Sunday as well as on the other days. Regular meal period time is not counted. As an enforcement policy the Wage and Hour Division will not consider as worktime that time spent in travel away from home outside of regular working hours as a passenger on an airplane, train, boat, bus, or automobile.
See also: 29 CFR , 29 CFR , 29 CFR Hours Worked.

27. From a DOL Field Operation’s Handbook
Travel Time Continued
Scenario…
From a DOL Field Operation’s Handbook
“The time spent by homeworkers in traveling to and from the employer’s premises … to obtain work-related materials or equipment … is primarily for the employer’s benefit and must be included in the total hours worked …. Where such trips are combined with personal errands (e.g., grocery shopping or visits with friends), the time spent in such personal pursuits is excluded from the total travel time for the trip in calculating hours worked.”  
What is considered compensable work time and what is eligible for mileage reimbursement gets a bit tricky in this case since the employee lives close to IF and would travel that way anyway. In addition, she may split her time at the store between buying work supplies and personal supplies. In this case you’ll have to use discretion in determining what is compensable and what isn’t. We should work together in defining it. Here’s a statement from a Field Operations Handbook I found on the Department of Labor’s website that may be helpful. It addresses “homeworkers” specifically, but the underlying principle applies in this situation.

28. Overtime Payments
“Generally, overtime is not permitted at the university. However, if overtime is warranted, it must be approved by the appropriate supervisor before it occurs.” The concept makes sense, but its application is wrought with problems.

29. “The employee is “exempt” because they are salaried.” True/False
"All Our Managers Are Exempt - They're Salaried"
Some employers make the mistake of assuming that simply because an employee is paid a salary, or is called "salaried" or "exempt", or has a high-ranking job title, the employee will be considered exempt from overtime pay. Few things could be further from the truth. Many non-exempt employees are paid a salary, such as receptionists, secretaries, file clerks, and technicians. In a similar vein, giving an employee a high-sounding job title such as "director of production" or "sales manager" will make no difference, if the employee's job duties do not satisfy the criteria found in the DOL's "duties" test for an exemption category. In short, the DOL looks right past what a person is paid or called, instead focusing on the nature of the job and how the employee does the job.

30. Minimum Wage: Basics
Covered, non-exempt employees must be paid no less than the federal minimum wage for all hours worked
The minimum wage is $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009
Cash or equivalent – free and clear
The basic rules on minimum wage are simple: covered, non-exempt employees must be paid not less than the minimum wage for all hours worked.

31. Hot Issues Before the Courts
Misclassification/Overtime Claims
JP Morgan Chase settled a class action suit for $42 million.
JP Morgan Chase settled an overtime class action suit for $9 million.
Dick’s Sporting Good settled a class action suit for $15.5 million

32. Continued… Are Interns employees?
DOL suggests using a 6 part test to determine whether an intern should be treated as an employee:
The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
The internship benefit is for the benefit of the intern;
The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
The employer derives no immediate advantage for the activities of the intern, and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spend in the internship.
The more an internship is structured around a classroom experience or academic experience as opposed to the employer’s actual operations, the more likely the internship will be viewed as an extension of the individual’s education experience, rather than employment.

33. Supplemental Slides

34. The New Deal
1933, under the "New Deal" program, Roosevelt's advisers developed a National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA).
The act suspended antitrust laws so that industries could enforce fair-trade codes resulting in less competition and higher wages. As an early step of the NRA, Roosevelt promulgated a President's Reemployment Agreement "to raise wages, create employment, and thus restore business."
Employers signed more than 2.3 million agreements, covering 16.3 million employees.
Signers agreed to:
35-40 hour workweek
minimum wage of $12 to $15 a week
not to employ youth under 16 years of age (with some exceptions)
Employers who signed the agreement displayed a "badge of honor," a blue eagle over the motto "We do our part." Patriotic Americans were expected to buy only from "Blue Eagle" business concerns.

35. The Case of Joseph Tipaldo 1936
As if to head off further attempts at labor reform, the Supreme Court, in a series of decisions, invalidated both State and Federal labor laws.
The manager of a Brooklyn, N.Y., laundry, Tipaldo had been paying nine laundry women only $10 a week, in violation of the New York State minimum wage law.
When forced to pay his workers $14.88, Tipaldo coerced them to kick back the difference.
When Tipaldo was jailed on charges of violating the State law, forgery, and conspiracy, his lawyers claimed the New York law was unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 majority voided the law as a violation of liberty of contract.
The Tipaldo decision was among the most unpopular ever rendered by the Supreme Court.
Even bitter foes of President Roosevelt and the New Deal criticized the Court.
Ex-President Herbert Hoover said the Court had gone to extremes.
Conservative Republican Congressman Hamilton Fish called it a "new Dred Scott decision" condemning 3 million women and children to economic slavery.

36. A Young Worker’s Plea
While President Franklin Roosevelt was in Bedford, Mass., campaigning for reelection, a young girl tried to pass him an envelope. But a policeman threw her back into the crowd. Roosevelt told an aide, "Get the note from the girl."
Her note read,
I wish you could do something to help us girls....We have been working in a sewing factory,... and up to a few months ago we were getting our minimum pay of $11 a week... Today the 200 of us girls have been cut down to $4 and $5 and $6 a week.
To a reporter's question, the President replied,
"Something has to be done about the elimination of child labor and long hours and starvation wages."

37. The First Attempt
On May 24, 1937, President Roosevelt sent the Black-Connery bill to Congress with a message:
“America should be able to give all our able-bodied working men and women a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling worker's wages or stretching workers' hours… goods produced under conditions that do not meet rudimentary standards of decency should be regarded as contraband and ought not to be allowed to pollute the channels of interstate trade."
Generally, the bill provided:
40-cent-an-hour minimum wage
40-hour maximum workweek
minimum working age of 16 except in certain industries outside of mining and manufacturing
a five-member labor standards board authorized to increase wages and shorten hours after review of certain cases

38. Supporters of the Bill
Stressed the need to fulfill the President's promise to correct conditions under which "one-third of the population" were "ill-nourished, ill-clad, and ill-housed."
Pointed out that the bill would end oppressive child labor and "unnecessarily long hours which wear out part of the working population while they keep the rest from having work to do."
Shortening hours, they argued, would "create new jobs...for millions of our unskilled unemployed," and minimum wages would "underpin the whole wage structure...at a point from which collective bargaining could take over." 22
Advocates of higher labor standards described the conditions of sweated labor. For example:
A survey by the Labor Department's Children's Bureau of a cross section of 449 children in several States showed nearly one-fourth of them working 60 hours or longer a week and only one-third working 40 hours or less a week. The median wage was slightly over $4 a week.

39. Opposed to the Bill
Claimed the Black-Connery bill was "a bad bill badly drawn" which would lead the country to a "tyrannical industrial dictatorship."
The most bitter controversy raged over labor standards in the South:
"There are in the State of Georgia," one Indiana Congressman declaimed, "canning factories working ... women 10 hours a day for $4.50 a week. Can the canning factories of Indiana and Connecticut … continue to exist and meet such competitive labor costs?”
Southern Congressmen, in turn, challenged the Northern "monopolists" who hypocritically "loll on their tongues" words like "slave labor" and "sweat-shops" and support bills which sentence Southern industry to death.
Some Southern employers told the Department of Labor that they could not live with a 25-cent-an-hour minimum wage. They would have to fire all their people, they said.

40. Battle with Congress First Session: Special Session:
Despite the changes, there was little enthusiasm for the bill, and when it reached the Rules Committee, Southern Democrats and Republicans teamed up to block consideration. Congress adjourned without taking action.
Special Session:
If the first session of the 75th Congress had not been productive in producing a labor standards bill, the special session called on October 12, 1937 by President Roosevelt was even less effective
The Nation was entering a recession, with the stock market failing and unemployment rising—a major challenge to an administration which had won its spurs by promising better times.
These factors undoubtedly played a role—along with the divisions within organized labor—in the failure of the labor standards bill in the first session, and they continued to spell defeat in the special session— which gave the President none of the objectives he had set for it.

41. Congress—The Final Round
On April 30, 1938, for the sixth time since taking office, President Roosevelt communicated with Congress over wages and hours through a letter to Mrs. Norton.
He said he had no right as President to criticize the rules but suggested as an ex-legislator and as a friend that
"the whole membership of the legislative body should be given full and
free opportunity to discuss [exceptional measures] which are of undoubted
national importance because they relate to major policies of Government
and affect the lives of millions of people."
He avoided judgment of the bill but noted that the Rules Committee, by a narrow vote, had prevented 435 members from "discussing, amending, recommitting, defeating or passing some kind of a bill."
He concluded:
"I still hope that the House as a whole can vote on a wage and hour bill.
...I hope that the democratic processes of legislation will continue."

42. Final Victory
When the third session of the 75th Congress met in January 1938, it was widely agreed that prospects for a wage-hour bill were much improved
House debate on the bill lasted 2 days (May 24 to 25).
After disposing of 50 amendments, the House passed the bill by a 314–97 majority
After 9 days of effort, the conference committee reported out a compromise between the House and Senate bills.
Standards were initially set at 25 cents an hour, 44 hours a week and minimum working age of 16 with a number of exceptions
but the 40-cents minimum would go into effect in every industry by the end of 7 years, unless it could be demonstrated that it would result in unemployment.
On June 25, 1938, the President signed the Fair Labor Standards Act to become effective on October 24, 1938

43. … a matter of both morality and public welfare
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44. the Due Process Clause of the 5th Amendment
Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923)
Minimum Wage v.
the Due Process Clause of the 5th Amendment
“… The clause gives citizens equal rights ‘to obtain from each other the best terms they can as the result of private bargaining.’"
“The minimum wage was an arbitrary interference with the liberty to contract … [and] it imposed uniform minimum wages on women regardless of individual needs or occupations….”
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45. Exemptions
Executive, administrative, and professional employees, outside sales employees, and employees in certain computer-related occupations
Employees of certain seasonal amusement or recreational establishments
Farm workers employed by anyone who used no more than 500 man- days of farm labor in any calendar quarter of the preceding year
Casual babysitters and persons employed as companions to the elderly or infirm
Other…

46. It was this union-endorsed bill that gave Americans the weekend.
President Roosevelt signed this bill into law, amidst great pressure to save the nation from the Great Depression
He succeeded by establishing basic workers’ rights and setting the groundwork for a middle class that thrived after World War Two
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes:
minimum wage
overtime pay
recordkeeping
child labor standards affecting full-time and part-time workers in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments
time and a half.
It was this union-endorsed bill that gave Americans the weekend.