Assignment:
Fair Labor Standards Act
A note was passed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 from a young girl: I wish you could do something to help us girls. We have been working in a sewing factory 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. Roosevelt reportedly remarked that something needed to be done about child labor. The Depression and its tragic suffering, even of those working hard, shattered many Americans' faith in the free market and led to government intervention including, in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which is directed toward these major objectives:
1. The establishment of a minimum wage that provides at least the foundation for a modest standard of living for employees.
2. A flexible ceiling on hours worked weekly, the purpose of which is to increase the number of employed Americans.
3. Child labor protection.
4. Equal pay for equal work regardless of gender. [For the U.S. Department of Labor home page, see www.dol.gov]
Student Interns In a tough job market, unpaid internships become more attractive to job seekers and employers alike. To address potentially abusive situations in which employers seek "free labor," the U.S. Department of Labor in 2010 issued a test for unpaid internships to determine whether the interns are employees with wage rights or trainees who are receiving an educational opportunity for their sole benefit and are thus excluded from FLSA protection. Generally, the more an internship focuses on an academic or classroom experience rather than the host's operations, the more likely it need not be a paid position. If interns, on the other hand, are assisting with the employer's daily operations such as clerical work, then they have a right to minimum wage and overtime. [For the six criteria of the U.S. Department of Labor's test for unpaid internships, see www.dol.gov/whd/regs/ compliance whdfs71.pdf]