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fair labor standards act
As GOP Erodes Child Labor Laws, Alabama Roofer Fined Just $117K for Teen's Worksite Death
"It's unconscionable that roofing companies hire 15-year-olds," said one labor expert—but in state after state and even at the federal level, lawmakers are rolling back restrictions on teen workers.
Feb 07, 2024
Workers' rights advocates on Wednesday decried a meager fine for an Alabama contractor that illegally employed a 15-year-old boy who died on the job, a move that came amid a push by Republicans at the federal and state level to roll back child labor protections.
The U.S. Department of Labor fined Pelham, Alabama-based Apex Roofing & Restoration $117,175 in civil penalties for violation of child labor laws resulting in the July 1, 2019 death of a 15-year-old Guatemalan worker during his first day on the job in Cullman, 50 miles north of Birmingham.
The teen—who could not be identified because he was a minor—fell through insulation and plunged 35-50 feet to his death on a concrete floor inside the building on which he was working,
according to a Cullman Tribunereport at the time.
The Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division found that the company's employment of the teen violated a provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act that prohibits workers under the age of 18 from doing dangerous jobs including roofing or construction.
"Apex Roofing risked the life of a child by employing him to work on a roof in violation of federal child labor laws, leaving relatives and friends to grieve an unnecessary and preventable tragedy," Wage and Hour Administrator Jessica Looman said in a statement.
The Labor Department action came shortly after the Alabama Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank, published its annual agenda. The document advocates rolling back limits on 14- and 15-year-olds in the workplace.
An Apex Roofing spokesperson told Common Dreams:
We at Apex Roofing & Restoration are truly heartbroken by the senseless death of a minor at a job site in 2019. The tragic incident occurred when a subcontractor's worker brought his sibling to a worksite without Apex's knowledge or permission.
Apex has a long-standing policy prohibiting any form of child labor. In addition, since that accident, Apex has implemented a number of measures to further strengthen job site security and safety. Our hearts are with this family and any family who suffers a loss.
Common Dreamsreported last year that congressional Democrats implored the Labor Department to act following a Reuters investigation that found dozens of chidren as young as 12 years old—most of them Central American migrants—working in Alabama and Georgia factories supplying the Korean auto giant Hyundai.
Across the country, Republican state lawmakers have been advancing legislation to remove restrictions on child labor, despite several high-profile workplace deaths of minors.
At the federal level, Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) and Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) last year introduced a bill that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work in the logging industry.
Major corporations including McDonald's, Costco, Starbucks, Amazon-owned Whole Foods, and PepsiCo have said they're taking steps to tackle child labor in their supply chains, The New York Timesreported Wednesday.
Whole Foods said in a statement that it has "been actively evolving our focus on the risk of migrant child labor domestically."
According to Labor Department data, the number of minors employed in violation of child labor laws soared by 283% from 2015 to 2022. Over that same period, the number of minors employed in violation of hazardous occupation orders rose 94%.
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California Public School Students Will Learn About Labor Rights Under First-of-Its-Kind Law
"A.B. 800 empowers young people with the information and tools they need to understand their rights as workers," said Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher of the California Labor Federation.
Oct 03, 2023
While Republican-controlled state legislatures have rolled back child labor protections this year, Democratic lawmakers and rights advocates in California on Monday celebrated Gov. Gavin Newsom's signing of a first-of-its-kind law that they say will make young people less vulnerable to workplace abuses by teaching them about labor protections.
Assemblymember Liz Ortega (D-20) told the Contra Costa News that Assembly Bill 800 is aimed at "giving kids the tools to stand up for themselves" as Republican lawmakers attack unions as well as making it easier for companies to employ children as young as 14 to work in industrial facilities.
"I am so proud to announce the passage of this first-of-its-kind law requiring schools to teach our kids about their workplace rights," said Ortega. "We are seeing headlines about children abused at workplaces across the country―wage theft, violations of labor law, and even serious life-changing injuries."
Under A.B. 800, all public high schools in California will hold "Workplace Readiness Week" as part of their curriculum.
Students will gain a "strong understanding of their rights as workers, as well as their explicit rights as employed minors" and learn about their right to join or organize a union in their workplace.
The law intends "to equip pupils with this knowledge to protect them from retaliation and discrimination, to ensure that these young workers receive all wages and benefits to which they are entitled, to empower them to refuse unsafe work when necessary, and to prepare them to assert their labor rights whenever these rights are threatened," according to the bill text.
Newsom announced the bill's signing on Saturday.
The California Labor Federation, which helped develop the legislation, noted that the law was approved shortly after a federal court ordered the owners of 14 Subway franchise stores in the San Francisco Bay Area to pay employees nearly $1 million in back pay and damages.
An investigation found that the owners assigned minors to work hours that are illegal under California law and required children as young as 14 to operate dangerous equipment, as well as illegally keeping tips instead of distributing them among workers and failing to pay employees regularly.
Such reports are "why we worked on A.B. 800," said the federation.
"Too often, young workers face wage theft, unsafe conditions, sexual harassment, or other abuses at work," Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, chief officer of the California Labor Federation, told the Contra Costa News. "By requiring that high school students be taught their rights as employees, A.B. 800 empowers young people with the information and tools they need to understand their rights as workers and protects them against workplace abuses."
Republicans in a number of states and in Congress have claimed to want to prioritize "workforce development"—making education about workplace rights "a commonsense no-brainer," according to the operator of the Daily Union Election account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
In 2021, 109 workers aged 19 or younger died from work-related injuries in the United States, and more than 33,000 teenagers were hospitalized for serious injuries sustained at work.
In July, a 16-year-old boy from Guatemala named Duvan Pérez died from injuries he got while cleaning equipment at a poultry plant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, employers are barred from hiring anyone under the age of 18 to work in slaughtering, meat processing, or packing facilities, with limited exceptions. The law bans workers from operating or cleaning meat processing equipment.
Minors are disproportionately employed in sectors that account for nearly half of all wage theft claims, which totaled more than $338 million in stolen wages in 2021, and in industries where sexual harassment, discrimination, and abuse from clientele or management is reported at high rates.
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85 Years Later, Make the Minimum Wage Truly Equitable
Raising the minimum wage is vital to safeguard workers who have historically been marginalized and left behind.
Sep 01, 2023
The minimum wage is a New Deal era policy established initially through the Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA, of 1938. The original bill set a wage floor, instituted a 44-hour work week, and protected children from prematurely entering the workforce. Since its inception, the FLSA has been amended multiple times, with added exemptions and expansions specifying which groups of workers are covered under different aspects of the law. The latest proposed changes in Congress—the Raise the Wage Act of 2023—would increase the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour.
In light of this new legislation, we take a look back at the 85-year history of the minimum wage, how it differs in states and localities, and how minimum wage laws continue to have implications for racial, gender, and economic justice today.
History of the Federal Minimum Wage and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
The concept behind the FLSA began in the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression, a time when about 25% of workers were unemployed, people lost their life savings due to bank failures, and many struggled to secure housing and food. In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt responded with the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and establishing the National Recovery Administration (NRA). Through these policies, the Roosevelt administration sought to revive the economy and help the nation recover by instituting industrywide “fair competition” codes intended to set wages and prices, create jobs, and permit collective bargaining. From the NRA, over two million businesses sought to earn pro-worker “Blue Eagle” branding by signing agreements for policies such as a weekly $12–$15 minimum wage, a commitment not to hire workers younger than 16 years old, and a work week no longer than 40 hours.
However, the Supreme Court invalidated the NIRA by ruling that the executive branch did not have the power to institute the codes. The court’s opposition warranted another vehicle for worker protections; therefore, the Roosevelt administration sought to craft legislation that would protect workers, garner enough support to pass Congress, and explicitly align with the Constitution to avoid legal challenges.
Efforts to pass this legislation increased as public outcry over the Supreme Court decision grew. When Roosevelt was campaigning for reelection in Massachusetts, a young girl working at a factory attempted to hand him a note, but a policeman blocked her. Roosevelt instructed his aid to get the note which pleaded for help stating, “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.” Responding to the girl’s plea, Roosevelt was resolute to create a minimum wage law.
“Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day… tell you… that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.”
The process for the final bill was extensive—beginning with Roosevelt’s efforts to secure workers’ rights advocate Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor, who shared his goals for labor standards. Perkins became the first woman to hold a cabinet position and proposed a law to establish a minimum wage, set a cap on hours worked per week, and set restrictions on child labor. One of the bills became the FLSA and after three sessions of Congress, the legislation finally passed. Roosevelt signed the FLSA into law on June 25, 1938, and it became effective on October 24, 1938.
Supporters and opponents of the minimum wage
Supporters of the bill emphasized the necessity to create better conditions for the one-third of Americans who were financially struggling, noting the law would improve labor standards for the labor force. Proponents said the bill would end “unnecessarily long hours which wear out part of the working population while they keep the rest from having work to do.” They noted that a minimum wage would support the entire wage infrastructure by creating a floor that workers could leverage to achieve higher wages through collective bargaining.
Some labor organizers of the time worried that employers would not pay above the minimum wage set by the law, so they advocated for the bill to only cover low-paid workers that were not part of unions. Consequently, the initial bill excluded work protected by collective bargaining. By the 1950s, unions began to support and advocate for expanding the minimum wage to also cover union workers.
Opponents of the bill insisted that higher wages would cause labor cuts, but the administration fought back harder. In a fireside chat discussing the bill, President Roosevelt said, “Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day… tell you… that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.” Incorrect statements from businesses opposing the minimum wage continue to the present day with assertions that minimum wage increases would cause businesses to close or reduce jobs. Studies demonstrate how these predictions did not come true.
How the Minimum Wage Has Changed Over Time
The Fair Labor Standards Act has been amended several times since the original 1938 bill. The most recent change became effective July 24, 2009, increasing the federal minimum wage to $7.25. Despite numerous efforts, there have been no federal minimum wage increases since then.
Table 1 highlights federal minimum wage increases over time in nominal dollars compared with what that wage would be in inflation-adjusted 2023 dollars. Congress raised the minimum wage fairly consistently for decades, but that began to change in the 1980s, with increases becoming fewer and farther between.
Without any mechanisms in place to automatically adjust it for rising prices, the real value of the federal minimum wage has gradually declined, reaching a 66-year low in 2023, where it is now worth 42% less than its highest point in 1968. Moreover, the federal minimum wage is worth 30% less today than when it was last raised 14 years ago. This significant loss in purchasing power means that the federal minimum wage today is nowhere close to a living wage.
Exemptions
The FLSA provided several exemptions for specific categories of workers, including executives, administrators, professionals, and certain outside sales employees. However, another major group of workers exempted under the FLSA was agricultural, domestic, and other service-sector employees.
The implications of these exemptions were significant for workers earning low wages, particularly those in marginalized communities. Excluded workers were left vulnerable to exploitation and unable to access basic labor rights under the law, such as a fair minimum wage and overtime pay. The exemptions deepened economic disparities and perpetuated a two-tiered system where some workers were entitled to protections and benefits, while others were left unprotected, exacerbating a cycle of poverty and wage inequality. It was not until later amendments to the FLSA and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that many of these exclusions were addressed. However, many of these workers—including in the agricultural sector—continue to face exploitative working conditions, long hours, and meager pay.
Racial Impact of the Minimum Wage
When the FLSA was first introduced, many of the industries that were exempted from a minimum wage were also industries that Black workers were heavily represented in. Some have argued that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had excluded industries that were predominately held by Black workers to gain favor from Southern lawmakers. These exemptions kept Black workers vulnerable to wage theft, excessively long hours without overtime, and an overall lack of workplace protections.
As amendments were made to the FLSA over the subsequent decades, more of the labor force was covered. The 1966 amendments expanded coverage and introduced a $1 wage floor to several new sectors, including agriculture, schools, nursing homes, and restaurants—sectors where Black workers were disproportionately employed. As a result, the expansion of the minimum wage had an especially positive impact on Black workers, nearly double that of white workers.
However, the 1966 amendments also allowed employers to credit a portion of employees tips toward workers’ minimum wages, permitting employers to reduce wage obligations to tipped staff. That means that tipped workers, predominately working in restaurants and other service sectors, saw both an expansion of coverage and a reduction of payfrom employers simultaneously. Sadly, many of these workers were also women and workers of color.
Without eliminating the lower subminimum wage for tipped workers, workers of color will struggle to sustain economic security.
Additionally, the failure to adjust the minimum wage adequately to keep pace with inflation and economic growth has undermined its effectiveness in addressing racial income inequality. Today, Black workers are paid 10%-15% less than white workers with the same characteristics. Similarly, maintaining a lower minimum wage for tipped workers continues to preserve racial inequities. Without eliminating the lower subminimum wage for tipped workers, workers of color will struggle to sustain economic security.
State Minimum Wage Levels
States have the authority to set minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage to account for higher regional wage levels or costs of living. This has led to significant variation in minimum wages across the country, as shown in EPI’s interactive minimum wage tracker.
Thirty states and Washington, D.C. currently set their minimum wages higher than the federal level. And this year alone, 27 states and 42 cities and counties will increase their minimum wages. Across the nation, 19 states and DC have minimum wages that increase with inflation, meaning that their minimums will likely increase each year. This year’s increases ranged from $0.23 to $1.50 an hour.
Meanwhile, 20 other states set their minimums at or below the federal level. Employers in states with lower minimums than the federal level can only pay their workers less if they are not covered by the FLSA. To be subject to the FLSA, companies must gross at least $500,000 in annual sales and engage in interstate commerce. Of these 20 states, seven states have either no minimum-wage law or a minimum wage below the federal minimum wage. Six of these states are in the South (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee). Accounting for only 12% of U.S. states, these six Southern states represent 23% of the Black workforce.
New Legislation in Congress Would Raise the Minimum Wage to $17 an Hour
The most recent proposal to increase the federal minimum wage is the Raise the Wage Act of 2023, which would gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour by 2028. Additionally, the bill seeks to progressively raise and eventually eliminate subminimum wages for tipped workers, workers with disabilities, and youth workers, thereby ensuring that all employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act receive equal wages. EPI’s analysis of the Raise the Wage Act of 2023 estimates over 27.8 million workers would be impacted, with the average affected worker who works year-round receiving an extra $3,100 per year.
Raising the minimum wage is vital to safeguard workers who have historically been marginalized and left behind. For Black workers specifically, a higher minimum wage would be a critical step in raising living standards and promoting economic justice. For generations, Black workers have been disproportionately represented in low-wage jobs, making them particularly vulnerable to economic hardships. A higher federal minimum wage would provide much-needed relief to many Black workers, with nearly 30% of Black workers benefiting if the federal minimum wage is raised to $17 by 2028. In short, the Raise the Wage Act of 2023 would provide a long overdue boost in wages and administer a stronger, more equitable wage floor for states to follow.
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