Fair Labor Standards Act enacted

Today in Southern Labor History, on October 24th, 1938, we remember the anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Today in 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the FLSA into law. The Act established a 25 cent an hour minimum wage, overtime pay, a 40-hour workweek, and banned "oppressive child labor." The FLSA is remembered as a key piece of Roosevelt's New Deal, and when enacted, it raised wages for over 700,000 workers.

While the law achieved strides for workers' rights in the US, it also made some racist exclusions. The FLSA initially excluded farm workers, domestic workers, and tipped workers – all industries with a majority of Black and Brown workers.

When Congress enacted the FLSA, they didn't exclude these workers by accident. Exploited domestic and agricultural workers were the cornerstone of the South's rural economy.

Leveling wage disparities between white and Black workers with a minimum wage would upend the South's exploitative economic model.

Georgia's then-Democratic Representative Edward Cox argued that the FLSA would allow for the "elimination and disappearance of racial and social distinctions, and… throw into question the determination of the standards and customs which shall determine the relationship of our various groups of people in the South."

The racist legacy of the FLSA is still with us today in the abysmally low wages rampant across the US and persistent wage gaps between white workers and Black and Brown workers.

Laws like the FLSA demonstrate that we must constantly push forward in our worker and community organizing to fight against racist and regressive laws, and build a working model centered on respect and dignity for every worker.