Fair Labor Standards Act: The Rights of Workers and Duties of Employers
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) into law in June 1938. This federal law affects American businesses and workers, providing for a minimum wage, limiting the hours and jobs for which children can work, and requiring employers to keep records of employees’ hours.
The Fair Labor Standards Act set a floor for wages employers must pay to their employees, the minimum wage, and additional payment for overtime. Under the FLSA, employees cannot be tricked into agreeing to less pay, and if they are tricked, the law favors them.
The FLSA also prohibits employers from scheduling children to work during school hours or placing child workers in dangerous conditions. For most jobs, the FLSA specifies when and how long juveniles, younger than sixteen years old, are allowed to work and disallows youths younger than eighteen years old to perform tasks deemed too dangerous.
The FLSA states that employers should maintain accurate and up-to-date records on employees. Although there is no uniform format, employers must include in these records the employee’s legal name, permanent street address and zip code, birthdate if the employee is younger than nineteen years old, gender, job description, and job responsibility. The records must also include when the employee’s workweek starts, the daily and weekly total hours worked each week, the method by which his or her wages are earned, the hourly wage rate, the daily or weekly total of both regular and overtime earnings, changes to the employee’s wages, the total amount of payment earned each payday, the day and time when payment is earned, and identify payday.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is intended to protect workers. The Act is complex. Both workers and employers often have questions about this law. If you are a worker and believe that your rights under the FLSA were violated or you were paid incorrectly or if you own or have a business concerned about the FLSA’s requirement, contact Attorney Perry A. Craft. He will answer your questions, help, and fight for you.
