History

• President Roosevelt signed the FLSA into law on June 25, 1938 after a hard-fought battle. Several attempts to pass labor reform had been defeated by both Congress and the Supreme Court whose decisions in several cases at the time seemed decidedly anti-labor. In 1936, the Supreme Court heard the case of John Tipaldo, a New York laundry manager who violated the New York state minimum wage law. The Court decided the law was unconstitutional and voided it. Roosevelt was forced to rewrite the original bill, weakening some of the worker protections in it. Finally, after 72 proposed amendments from Congress, the bill was passed and signed into law by the President.
  
  

Minimum Wage

• In January 2009, the federal minimum wage increased to $7.25 an hour. Originally, Roosevelt’s bill proposed a minimum wage of 40 cents an hour. Resistance from the south resulted in the bill establishing the minimum wage at 25 cents an hour for the first year.
  
  

Overtime

• Overtime is defined by the FLSA as any work done in excess of 40 hours in a single work week. The rate of overtime pay is calculated as one and one half times the normal rate. This was part of the original FLSA provisions guaranteeing a national standard.
  
  

Record-keeping

• Standards of record-keeping were also set by the FLSA. Employers are required to maintain records of the employee’s personal information, pay rate and hours worked. Employers are also required to track total daily and weekly earnings, overtime earnings for the week, any deductions from or additions to the worker’s wages and the total wages paid during that pay period. Employers must also keep record of the pay period covered by the payment and the date of the payment.
  
  

Child Labor

• The FLSA set different standards for youth workers in agricultural and non-agricultural jobs. Minors between the ages of 14 and 15 may work in non-agricultural jobs, up to three hours a day and 18 hours a week when school is in session. When school is not in session, they may work up to eight hours a day or 40 hours a week. For agricultural work, minors of any age may be employed at any time on a farm owned by their parents. Child labor laws do not apply to minors working as actors or performers for television, theatrical, radio or motion picture productions or those employed in newspaper delivery.