RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE OF THE US WORKFORCE

“The Lawrence Textile Strike, also known as the Bread and Roses Strike”, prompted the first minimum wage law in the United States in 1912. Various states followed suit over the next two decades, and in 1938, at the height of the Great Depression, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which created a federal minimum wage (FLSA).The basic incentive behind the introduction of the Act was to reduce income inequality.A rise in minimum wage acts as a form of relocation of wealth from higher-income people to lower-income people. In principle, Congress amends the FLSA on a regular basis to raise the federal minimum wage to levels necessary for even the lowest-paying workforces in the economy.It also aims to help low-wage workers benefit from overall economywide advances in living standards. However, this has historically not always been the case. In 1968, The Poor People’s 1 Campaign started because of not raising the minimum wage to sufficient levels . The explicit purpose of the federal minimum wage is to help increase consumer purchasing power which stimulates the economy and to keep America's workforces out of poverty.However,the law failed to include the automatic cost of living adjustments and led to inflation eroding the real value of the minimum wage over time. There is a dire need for legislative action to raise the nation’s wage floor, more so than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic.Unless consumer's purchasing power is increased,it will be difficult to come out of this recession.Further,the minimum wage is a direct concern for poverty levels and gender / racial inequality.This paper aims to analyze previous work on the issue and provide further recommendations for the same.

Saving Employee Engagement: Emergent Strategies in Response to Externally Mandated Change

This study discusses critical strategic factors associated with concerns over implementation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) mandate of December 2016. Emergent Human Resources (HR) strategies developed by human resource managers were investigated, as well as how these managers influenced issues directly linked with employee engagement, communication, employee status, and organizational responses. Interviews were facilitated less than four months prior to the mandate’s implementation. Investigators found the FLSA mandate created concerns for human resource managers based on current organizational practices, compensation, and bonus structures, as well as employee morale challenges. Specific findings included a desire for organizational communication concerning changes due to the mandate, but a universal lack of strategic planning or implementation of a process to preserve employee engagement. Further, HR management concerns regarding employee morale and consequent action were investigated, as a change in status from exempt to non-exempt would be perceived as a demotion by most employees. This research finds that the ability to communicate changes with constituents, help manage implementation for HR employees, care for morale and cultural repercussions, and demonstrate fairness in compensation are critical factors to consider for a large-scale change and implementation in HR policy due to sweeping regulatory changes.

Understanding Internships for Transition-Age Students With Disabilities

Secondary educators implement an array of work-based learning activities that expose transition-age students to the demands of post-secondary employment. One such strategy, internships, provides students with a formal opportunity to acquire transferable employment skills that lead to meaningful post-secondary employment outcomes. Facilitating internships for transition-aged students with disabilities, however, presents challenges for educators because internships often involve complicated and sometimes ambiguous labor laws, regulations, and provisions. This article provides secondary educators with information about how to facilitate unpaid and paid internships for students with disabilities that align with requirements established by the Fair Labor Standards Act. The article provides a case study to illustrate how schools can develop both unpaid and paid internships and concludes with recommendations for best practices.

Changes in the US Gender Gap in Wages in the 1960s

The 1960s witnessed landmark legislation that aimed to increase women's wages, including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and the 1966 amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Although the gender gap in pay changed little at the mean/median during the decade, our distributional analysis shows that women's wages converged sharply on men's below but diverged above the median. However, the bulk of women's relative pay gains are not explained by changes in observed attributes. Our findings suggest an important role for legislation in narrowing the gender gap in the 1960s.

Conclusion

The conclusion discusses the final phase of the national child labor movement, which occurred during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. After the Supreme Court declared the National Recovery Administration (NRA) unconstitutional, reformers secured the federal child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938. However, reformers continued to push for a child labor amendment and once again were defeated by opponents. Ultimately, reformers were disappointed by the federal child labor provisions of the FLSA. These provisions were limited and reflected the legacy of a new imaginary Mason-Dixon Line within capitalist society.

The Homemaker as Worker

Swinth’s essay explores 1970s American feminists’ efforts to revalue household labor as work with economic and social value. It begins by tracing domestic workers’ campaign to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act and secure a minimum wage for household employees. The chapter then turns to liberal and radical feminists’ struggles to recognize housework as labor worthy of wages and fringe-benefits, including most importantly, social security. By altering the valuation of household labor and making social reproduction visible as work, feminists of the era drew on a gender justice framework to put forward successful working alternatives to conventional economics. Swinth bolsters contemporary campaigns to value women’s emotional labor and caregiving by connecting them to the vision pioneered by second wave feminists more than fifty years ago.