On FLSA’s 75th Anniversary, Time to Renew Commitment to Nation’s Minimum Wage, Overtime and Child Labor Protections
WASHINGTON – On the 75th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) issued the following statement urging Congress to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and stop Republican attacks on the law’s basic wage protections.
“Seventy-five years later, the Fair Labor Standards Act remains the nation’s bedrock laws that ensures workers are paid fairly for the work they perform. It established the minimum wage, made the 40-hour work week possible and provided that children aren’t exploited in the workplace. These protections helped pave the way for our nation’s economic expansion and the creation of the middle class. Attempts by Washington Republicans to take away these rights are dangerous and, if successful, will only take our country back to the 19th century and further erode the middle class.
“Instead of rolling back the minimum wage and the 40-hour work week, we should renew our commitment to the law’s fundamental rights. Our economic problems aren’t because workers are paid too much. Rather, they are a symptom of working families feeling the squeeze of stagnant pay. With the value of the minimum wage less than it was in 1956, Congress should raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. We should also ensure that all workers are lawfully paid for the work they perform, clamp down on wage theft and close loopholes that seek to simply pay workers less. This is just commonsense.”
Rep. Miller is the author of The Fair Minimum Wage Act (H.R. 1010) that will increase the minimum wage in three steps, from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour. The rate will then be indexed to inflation each year thereafter. In addition, the legislation will increase the required cash wage for tipped workers in annual 85 cent increases, from today’s $2.13 per hour until the tip credit reaches 70 percent of the regular minimum wage.
Most recently, House Republicans pushed through a bill in the House of Representatives that would put workers’ overtime pay at risk. The bill, H.R. 1406, would allow employers to replace workers’ overtime time-and-a-half pay with nonguaranteed time off in the future. Any unused comp time would be repaid to the worker at the end of the year without interest, amounting to an interest-free loan from workers to their boss.
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