The FSLA or Fair Labor Standards Act was established in 1938 by Congress to protect workers from exploitation and ensure the opportunity for people to earn a “living wage”.
The Principals set forth in the act apply to non-exempt employees. Non-exempt simply means employees that are paid an hourly wage. As the name suggests, there are certain types of employees that are exempt from the rules set forth by the FSLA, which we will discuss further later on.
The FSLA established a national minimum wage for hourly workers to help American employees earn fair pay in exchange for fair work, which meant that employers could no longer take advantage of people by paying low wages to workers. Before the minimum wage was set, many people were exploited and …show more content…
Any employee that works more than 8 hours in a work day, or 40 hours in a week, must be paid time and a half for hours worked beyond that. That is, they must be paid one and a half times their hourly wage. Workers must be paid double time for hours worked beyond 12 hours a day, and for the first 8 hours of a shift that begins on the seventh consecutive day of their work week.
The FSLA covers non-exempt workers, such as general laborers, salespersons, cashiers and other hourly employees. It does not cover employees classified as exempt. These would be “white collar”, or professional employees. Those who hold titles such as executive, administrative or academic personnel including teachers, outside sales employees or commissioned workers and those in certain computer-related occupations.
In essence, the act states that anyone in charge of making business decisions or charged with the supervision of two or more employees, who also earns a salary, would be exempt from the FSLA provided they are paid a salary equal to or in excess of double the national minimum